1278. Perishing

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ON "PERISHING" 

It appears as though "perishing," as Whitehead understands it, may "Its~. the actual entity's] perishing is its advance~f the ~mitehead means not be something ascribable to an actual entity in itself but can only beascribed to an actual entity in relation to others, i.e., as objectifiedby its nondivine successors. At any rate, if this is Whitehead's meaning,one could explain without difficulty the countless passages in which perishing is identified with objectification (as, e.g., "The notion of theprehension of the past means that the past is an element which perishesand thereby [sic] remains an element in the state beyond, and thus is objectified" [ESP, 89]; orassumption of a new metaphysical function in the creativeuniverse" [AI, 262; italics added; cf. also pp. 227, 305, 375]). One couldalso explain why Whitehead can say that, whereas "in the temporal world,. objectification involves elimination" and "it is the empirical factthat process entails loss; the past is present under an abstraction," nevertheless, "there is no reason, of any ultimate metaphysical generality, whythis should be the whole story" (PR, 517). As objectively immortal in God,actual entities do not perish; their perishing is simply the way in whichthey are objectively immortal "in the temporal world," i.e., as objectifiedby their nondivine successors. This would also explain whatby "the retention of mutual immediacy" in God's consequent nature (PR, 525;italics added), namely, that in the case of God's objectification, in radicalcontrast to all other, "the present fact" does have "the past fact with it"in "full immediacy" (PR, 517. See also his use of the phrase, "direct unison of immediacy among things" (ibid.])

And yet Whitehead also argues that "satisfaction," which "closes uE. the entity," "constitutes the completion of the actual togetherness of the discrete components. The process of concrescence terminates with the attainment of a fully determinate' satisfaction'" (PR, 129 f.; italics added). He then says, "Completion is the perishing of immediacy" (PR, 130. Cf. a Iso PR, 126: "In the organic philosophy an actual entity has 'perished' when it is complete. The pragmatic use of the actual entity, constituting its static life, lies in the future. The creature perishes and is immortal" [italics added]).

 Therefore, as correct as the proposed account may appear to be, it cannot be reconciled with all of the textual evidence--especially that which identifies "perishing" with "completion" or "termination"(= "satisfaction, II "superject") and that which distinguishes between "perishing" and "objective immortality" (e.g., "The creature perishes and is immortal," or "our immediate actions perish and~ live for evermore").

What then, should one do? First of all, one may insist that, insofar "peri~hing" does refer to something ascribable to an actual entity in asitself, as the entity which suffers, or is the subject of perishing, it doesnot refer to the "loss" of anything but only to the "completion" or "termination" or "closing up" of something-namely, that actual entity's process ofconcresence. "Completion is the perishing of immediacy. . an actual entity has 'perished' when it is comp Iete. " Hence, in this absolute, or nonrelative sense of the word, "perishing" is equivalent in meaning with "satisfaction," "superject," "the 'entity as concrete' abstracted from the 'process of concrescence'''in short, the entity as absolutely itself, and thus fully determinate. But, evidently, this absolute sense of "perishing" is not its only sense;whereas I'process enta i ls loss" in the case of all ob jectificat ion other than God's, in Godts objectification "immediacy is reconciled with objective immortality"it also has a relative meaning-even as do "satisfaction," "superject," etc. (cf.,e.g., PR, 71 where "a superject" is said to be "the atomic creature exercising its function of objective immortality"). So far as used in this relative sense, then, "perishing" may indeed entail loss, but only because of the necessarily abstract, eliminating character of objectification 'lin the temporal world" CPR, 517). In other words, (PR, 532).

I conclude then, that even on this revised account, Christian's notion of "perishing" is not implied and is, indeed, disclosed as a misinterpretation of Whitehead's meaning.

Schubert M. Ogden Fall, 1968-1969