The Concept of Nature: The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November 1919Whitehead, Alfred North
Philosophy
The Concept of Nature: The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November 1919
Whitehead, Alfred North
Knowledge, Theory of; Nature; Science -- Philosophy
discriminated by sight is not dependent on the peculiar character of the
other entity as reported by the alternative sense. For example, the
space-relations of the thing seen would have necessitated an entity as a
relatum in the place of the thing touched even although certain elements
of its character had not been disclosed by touch. Thus apart from the
touch an entity with a certain specific relation to the thing seen would
have been disclosed by sense-awareness but not otherwise discriminated
in respect to its individual character. An entity merely known as
spatially related to some discerned entity is what we mean by the bare
idea of 'place.' The concept of place marks the disclosure in
sense-awareness of entities in nature known merely by their spatial
relations to discerned entities. It is the disclosure of the discernible
by means of its relations to the discerned.
This disclosure of an entity as a relatum without further specific
discrimination of quality is the basis of our concept of significance.
In the above example the thing seen was significant, in that it
disclosed its spatial relations to other entities not necessarily
otherwise entering into consciousness. Thus significance is relatedness,
but it is relatedness with the emphasis on one end only of the relation.
For the sake of simplicity I have confined the argument to spatial
relations; but the same considerations apply to temporal relations. The
concept of 'period of time' marks the disclosure in sense-awareness of
entities in nature known merely by their temporal relations to
discerned entities. Still further, this separation of the ideas of space
and time has merely been adopted for the sake of gaining simplicity of
exposition by conformity to current language. What we discern is the
specific character of a place through a period of time. This is what I
mean by an 'event.' We discern some specific character of an event. But
in discerning an event we are also aware of its significance as a
relatum in the structure of events. This structure of events is the
complex of events as related by the two relations of extension and
cogredience. The most simple expression of the properties of this
structure are to be found in our spatial and temporal relations. A
discerned event is known as related in this structure to other events
whose specific characters are otherwise not disclosed in that immediate
awareness except so far as that they are relata within the structure.
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