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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2022
In a recent issue of Philosophy of Science Merrit H. Moore contends that it is not only possible but methodologically desirable to separate design in nature from purpose. The main part of his argument is devoted to a support of the proposition that “design” is objective, by which he means that design in the physical world is independent of mind. That which gives interest to Mr. Moore's argument is essentially the Kantian doctrine that the forms of the understanding, and consequently of knowledge, are furnished by the mind and are, in a sense, imposed upon sense-experience thereby making them rational. In contrast to the Kantian view stands the Humean doctrine that knowledge is analyzable into and limited by sense-impressions.
1 See his article “A Metaphysics of Design without Purpose.” Philosophy of Science, Jan. 1936.
2 The Concept of Nature, The Principles of Natural Knowledge, and The Principle of Relativity. Hereafter these works shall be referred to as Concept, Enquiry, and Relativity, respectively.
3 Eddington, A. S.: The Nature of the Physical World, pp. 239, 264, 278. Einstein, A. And Others: “The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity,” in The Principle of Relativity, pp. 111f.
4 Concept, p. 4.
5 Science and the Modern World, p. 154.
6 Process and Reality, p. 165.
7 Process and Reality, p. 135.
8 Concept, pp. 105ff.
9 Concept, p. 105.
10 “Design without Purpose,” from Philosophy of Science, Jan., 1936, p. 4.
11 Relativity, p. 8.
12 Whitehead held that “ ‘significance’ is an essential element in concrete experience.” (Enquiry, p. 11). By this he meant that alternative space-time systems are signified by any given system because of their organic, constituent relationship to each other. He writes “ ‘significance’ is the relatedness of things,” etc. (p. 12).
13 Science and the Modern World, p. 151.
14 In Whitehead's system it would be inconsistent to conceive of eternal objects as either spatial or temporal in character. Events are both spatial and temporal, and are that from which alternative space-time systems are abstracted. But since each spatio-temporal situation passes with the passage of its associated events (i.e. since there is no absolute space but rather each space passes never to recur) it would be logically impossible to attribute either spatial or temporal characters to eternal objects. Every eternal object has the capacity of “happening again.” Since no moment and no space can happen again, these objects are free from such characters.
15 The Concept of Nature, p. 177.
16 The Concept of Nature, p. 106. See also Broad, C. D.: “Scientific Thought,” pp. 96ff.
17 See Concept, pp. 109, 110, 188; The Principle of Relativity, p. 25.
18 If an event is cogredient with a set of events then that event is said to be at rest absolutely with respect to the duration limiting its temporal extension. This means literally that the space of that duration (concrete slab of nature) is timeless, i.e. that space does not pass, but lasts through that duration. The moments, of course, pass away even as they do in the Newtonian system. Through this interpretation of rest and cogredience Whitehead is able to establish an objective basis for the separation of space from time, which, in the general relation of extension found among events, are together and interdependent as expressed by the term “space-time.” Having once established a timeless space (of which there are many), which is analogous to Newtonian absolute space on a minature scale, Whitehead proceeds to define motion. One can see readily that motion for Newton meant the effective occupation by a body of contiguous points of absolute space at contiguous moments of absolute time. But if all spaces are relative; i.e. if they all pass with the passage of events, How can motion be an ultimate fact of nature? I.e. How can we know designs (laws of motion) in nature which are there independently of mind?
19 Science and the Modern World, pp. 94, 101f., 213.
20 Process and Reality, p. 66. See also, pp. 35, 128, 162, 338–360.
21 Science and the Modern World, pp. 60 ff.
22 Process and Reality, pp. 75, 136, 155, 160, 248, 261.
23 Ibid., p. 7.
24 See Process and Reality, pp. 74, 75, 108, 134.
25 See Science and the Modern World, pp. 174, 175, 183–5.
26 Science and the Modern World, p. 183; Proceedings of the Sixth International Congress of Philosophy, 1916, p. 59f; Process and Reality, pp. 104, 434.
27 Science and the Modern World, pp. 175, 219.
28 Science and the Modern World, p. 101.
29 Relativity, pp. 8, 9, 24; Science and the Modern World, pp. 214–15.