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
The ensuing lecture is concerned with the theory of objects. Objects are
elements in nature which do not pass. The awareness of an object as some
factor not sharing in the passage of nature is what I call
'recognition.' It is impossible to recognise an event, because an event
is essentially distinct from every other event. Recognition is an
awareness of sameness. But to call recognition an awareness of sameness
implies an intellectual act of comparison accompanied with judgment. I
use recognition for the non-intellectual relation of sense-awareness
which connects the mind with a factor of nature without passage. On the
intellectual side of the mind's experience there are comparisons of
things recognised and consequent judgments of sameness or diversity.
Probably 'sense-recognition' would be a better term for what I mean by
'recognition.' I have chosen the simpler term because I think that I
shall be able to avoid the use of 'recognition' in any other meaning
than that of 'sense-recognition.' I am quite willing to believe that
recognition, in my sense of the term, is merely an ideal limit, and that
there is in fact no recognition without intellectual accompaniments of
comparison and judgment. But recognition is that relation of the mind to
nature which provides the material for the intellectual activity.
An object is an ingredient in the character of some event. In fact the
character of an event is nothing but the objects which are ingredient in
it and the ways in which those objects make their ingression into the
event. Thus the theory of objects is the theory of the comparison of
events. Events are only comparable because they body forth permanences.
We are comparing objects in events whenever we can say, 'There it is
again.' Objects are the elements in nature which can 'be again.'
Sometimes permanences can be proved to exist which evade recognition in
the sense in which I am using that term. The permanences which evade
recognition appear to us as abstract properties either of events or of
objects. All the same they are there for recognition although
undiscriminated in our sense-awareness. The demarcation of events, the
splitting of nature up into parts is effected by the objects which we
recognise as their ingredients. The discrimination of nature is the
recognition of objects amid passing events. It is a compound of the
awareness of the passage of nature, of the consequent partition of
nature, and of the definition of certain parts of nature by the modes of
the ingression of objects into them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account