The purpose of this article is to provide an introduction to Whitehead’s philosophy of time in Process and Reality. For lack of space, his other writings are not considered.[1] The question of how his categoreal scheme should be understood has been answered in very different ways. Consequently, there have been very different interpretations of his philosophy of time. Thus, for the sake of simplicity, I shall present my interpretation of his philosophy of time in terms of my understanding of his categoreal scheme.[2] In accordance with the overall purpose of this Encyclopedia, my assumption is that it is best to have a comprehensible introductory account of what could be a bewildering topic.[3]
1. Temporality and Subjective Experiencing
Process and Reality is primarily a work in metaphysics, and thus Whitehead’s philosophy of time is primarily a metaphysics of time. However, this article is placed in a part of the Encyclopedia that is entitled “Theory of Knowledge.” It should be realized that Process and Reality does not contain a conventional theory of knowledge. Instead of focusing narrowly on human knowledge, Whitehead was concerned broadly with human experience. Hence this part of the Encyclopedia might have been entitled “Theory of Experience.” It also should be realized that Whitehead thought that metaphysics and the theory of experience are interlinked. Note, in particular, his revealing declaration that he “fully accepts Descartes’ discovery that subjective experiencing is the primary metaphysical situation which is presented to metaphysics for analysis” (PR 160).[4] Therefore, in interpreting his philosophy of time, it is crucial to grasp the following point: the primary metaphysical situation for the metaphysical analysis of time is the subjective experiencing of time.
This crucial point needs further clarification. By means of the method of imaginative generalization, which is “the primary method of philosophy” (PR 10), Whitehead generalized the concept of a human being’s experiences as the concept of an actual occasion’s prehensions. Actual occasions are “drops of experience” (PR 18): their prehensions are their experiences. In this broad use of the term “experience,” an experience need not involve “consciousness, thought, [or] sense-perception” (PR 36). Accordingly, the crucial point is, more exactly, this: the primary metaphysical situation for the metaphysical analysis of time is an actual occasion’s subjective experiencing of time. In this article, the central question to be answered is: how do actual occasions experience time?
Whitehead’s philosophy of time is grounded in his categoreal scheme. Consider, in particular, the Category of the Ultimate—namely, “that ultimate principle by which the many, which are the universe disjunctively, become the one actual occasion, which is the universe conjunctively” (PR 21). This process of the many becoming the one is summarized by the term “creative advance” (PR 21). The creative advance of actual occasions is intrinsically temporal. Each actual occasion is a temporally novel act of becoming.[5] Accordingly, the central question to be answered is, more specifically, this: how does an actual occasion experience the temporality of this creative advance?[6]
2. Temporality and Human Subjectivity
However, since the method of imaginative generalization is the primary method of philosophy, it is illuminating to explore the following question first: how does a human being experience time? According to common sense, human beings distinguish between events that have happened in the past, events that are happening in the present, and events that might happen in the future. “The great question about time is,” D. H. Mellor plausibly asserted, “what past, present and future are and how they differ from each other” (1988, 7). And, correspondingly, a key question about our experience of time is: how do we human beings experience the past, the present, and the future and how do these experiences differ from each other? One answer to this key question, based on what has been termed a “dynamic view of time” (Tooley 1997), and involving such metaphors as “passage” and “flow,” can be sketched as follows. We experience events as looming in the future, occurring in the present, and passing into the past. Consequently, it might be said that we experience the future, the present, and the past themselves as the principal loci of events. Furthermore, we experience the passage (or flow) of events from the future into the present, and from the present into the past. Consequently, it might be said that we experience the passage of time itself.
Although Whitehead accepted Descartes’s discovery about the metaphysical primacy of subjective experiencing, he did not accept Descartes’s twin dualisms of mind and matter and mind and external world. For the sake of comparison, let me outline part of a Cartesian answer to the above key question. From the standpoint of the human mind, ideas of material objects loom in the future, occur in the present, and pass into the past. Such ideas represent material objects in the external world. Therefore, by means of the temporal passage of such ideas in our minds, we experience—albeit indirectly, through representation—happenings to material objects as looming in the future, occurring in the present, and passing into the past. Correlative to the stated two dualisms, there is a third dualism of the subjective time of ideas and the objective time of material objects.
In contrast, Whitehead’s metaphysics was monistic: actual occasions are the “final real things of which the world is made up” (PR 18). Moreover, rejecting Descartes’s conception of minds and material objects as substances, Whitehead conjectured that a human mind is comprised of actual occasions. More exactly, his conjecture was that a human mind is comprised of a linear series of actual occasions that are intermingled with the actual occasions comprising a brain (but “dissociated from the physical material atoms” of the brain) (PR 109). Thus he did not construe the question of how a human being experiences time as the question of how an endurant human mind experiences time. Instead—and this is an important point—he construed that question as follows: how do the occurrent actual occasions of a human mind experience time? Therefore, the key question raised above about our experience of time needs to be reformulated as follows: how does an actual occasion of a human mind experience the past, the present, and the future and how do these experiences differ from each other?
It is essential to understand that Whitehead’s answer to this reformulated key question is radically different from the above answer to the original key question. Rather than the metaphor of “passage,” Whitehead used the metaphor of “advance.” Rather than the passage of ideas through a mind-substance, there is a creative advance of actual occasions of a human mind. Thus it cannot be said that each actual occasion of a human mind experiences the passage of events from the future into the present, and from the present into the past. For there is no endurant present, from the standpoint of which endurant human minds experience the passage of events. There is no endurant future in which events loom, and there is no endurant past into which events pass. Instead, Whitehead relativized the notions of past, present, and future to each actual occasion of a human mind. Each actual occasion of a human mind has its own past, its own present, and its own future.
3. Causal Pasts and Simple Physical Feelings
And, by means of his method of imaginative generalization, he generalized those relativized notions to every actual occasion. Every actual occasion has its “causal past,” its “contemporaries,” and its “causal future” (PR 123, 319).[7] Its causal past is the locus of actual occasions in the past relative to it; the set of its contemporaries is the locus of actual occasions contemporaneous with it; and its causal future is the locus of actual occasions in the future relative to it. Therefore, the reformulated key question should be generalized as follows to all actual occasions no matter how rudimentary, even “the most trivial puff of existence in far-off empty space” (PR 18): how does each actual occasion experience its causal past, its locus of contemporaries, and its causal future and how do these experiences differ from each other? Distinguishing three component questions in this generalized key question, let us start by exploring the question: how does each actual occasion experience its causal past? (The questions about how it experiences its locus of contemporaries and its causal future are considered later.)
In terms of common sense, and typical theories of knowledge, the objects of human visual perceptions are in the present. But, in Whitehead’s metaphysics, “sense-perception” is not one of “the basic elements of experience” (PR 36). Instead, the most basic elements of an actual occasion’s experience are termed “simple physical feelings,” each of which is “an act of causation” (PR 236). In accordance with the doctrine that the cause temporally precedes the effect, the objects of an actual occasion’s simple physical feelings are in its causal past. “In virtue of these [simple physical] feelings,” he remarked, “time is the conformation of the immediate present to the past” (PR 238). In contrast to the traditional emphasis on the (absolute) present, Whitehead emphasized the (relativized) past. The fundamental metaphysical situation for the metaphysical analysis of time is an actual occasion’s subjective experiencing of its causal past.
Whitehead rooted this emphasis on the past in his categoreal scheme. Most significantly, the ontological principle is “That every condition to which the process of becoming conforms in any particular instance has its reason either in the character of some actual entity in the actual world of that concrescence, or in the character of the subject which is in process of concrescence” (PR 24). The concept of actual world in the ontological principle is coextensive with the above concept of causal past. The actual occasions in the subject’s actual world are identically the same as the actual occasions in its causal past. Hence the question of how an actual occasion experiences its causal past is tantamount to the question: how does an actual occasion experience the temporality of its actual world? Whitehead summarized the ontological principle thus: “actual entities are the only reasons” (PR 24). Therefore, in his metaphysics, actual occasions are the reasons for time. In terms of the ontological principle, the question we are exploring is, more exactly, this: how does an actual occasion experience the temporal character of the actual occasions in its actual world (i.e., its causal past)?
To comprehend how actual occasions are the reasons for time, Whitehead’s notion of simple physical feelings needs to be explained (PR 236-39). Let M be an actual occasion. The creative advance of M is intrinsically temporal. M is a temporally novel act of becoming. Moreover, M’s simple physical feelings “also become” (PR 22). M comes into being through a process of concrescence. In the first phase of M’s process of concrescence, M has simple physical feelings of all of the actual occasions in M’s causal past. Each of M’s simple physical feelings is a feeling of a single actual occasion in M’s causal past. Let N by an actual occasion thus felt by M. M is the “subject” of the feeling and N is the “initial datum” of the feeling. In brief, a present subject has a simple physical feeling of a past datum. In this way, a simple physical feeling also is intrinsically temporal. By representing the “vector character” (PR 19) of a simple physical feeling by an arrow (i.e., a directed line), we can represent it as pointing from the present to the past. Finally, having burrowed into the core of Whitehead’s metaphysics, the very first metaphysical situation for the metaphysical analysis of time has been unearthed—namely, an actual occasion’s simple physical feeling of a single actual occasion in its causal past.
By way of illustration, let us return to the question of how an actual occasion of a human mind experiences the past, the present, and the future. Again distinguishing three component questions, the relevant question is: how does an actual occasion of a human mind experience its causal past? A human mind is comprised of a linear series of actual occasions, which are interrelated by (among other things) “memory” (PR 239). Each actual occasion of a human mind has simple physical feelings of temporally preceding actual occasions of that human mind. A human being’s memories of her past experiences are grounded on such simple physical feelings. The very first metaphysical situation for the metaphysical analysis of the human experience of time is the simple physical feeling by an actual occasion of a human mind of a single temporally preceding actual occasion of that human mind—especially the one that is temporally proximate (i.e., the one that is immediately in the causal past).
Presumably, Whitehead held a relational theory of time (cf. PNK 62). In accordance with the ontological principle, temporal relations hold primarily among actual occasions. In particular, the creative advance of actual occasions is temporally ordered. The concept of temporal order is a relational concept, which can be expressed by the term “earlier than.” A main point is that a relation of temporal order among actual occasions is inherent in their relative acts of becoming. Through their acts of becoming, actual occasions are the reasons for their temporal order. In the above schematic illustration, M and N are acts of becoming, and N comes into being earlier than M comes into being. For, relative to the process of becoming of the subject M, the initial datum N has “already become” (PR 65).[8] The relational fact that N istemporally earlier than M is inherent in the relational fact that, relative to the becoming of M, N has already come into being. This relation of temporal order is asymmetric: if one actual occasion comes into being earlier than another, then the latter cannot come into being earlier than the former. This “irreversibility of time” is grounded on the notion of simple physical feelings (PR 237). Simple physical feelings are “concrete facts of relatedness” (PR 22), and this relatedness is asymmetric: if one actual occasion feels another actual occasion, then the former cannot feel the latter.
This account of Whitehead’s notion of simple physical feelings is incomplete. M’s simple physical feeling of N has N as its initial datum, but it also has an “objective datum”—namely, one of N’s feelings (PR 236). (It also has a “subjective form,” but this complication may be ignored.) In the theory of knowledge, the claim is sometimes made that the objects of immediate sensory experience are qualia. In contrast, in Whitehead’s theory of experience, the objective data of simple physical feelings are relational. Just as M’s simple physical feeling is a concrete fact of relatedness to N, so the objective datum—one of N’s feelings—is a concrete fact of relatedness. In short, “a simple physical feeling is one feeling which feels another feeling” (PR 236).
Also, in the theory of knowledge, the claim is sometimes made that qualia represent properties of objects in the external world. But Whitehead did not accept the Cartesian dualism of mind and external world. Although calling the objective datum a “perspective,” he did not mean that the objective datum is a representation (PR 236). Rather than being a representative realist, Whitehead was a direct realist about simple physical feelings. The objective datum of M’s simple physical feeling of N is not a quale in M that represents a property of N. Instead, the objective datum of M’s simple physical feeling of N is (numerically identically) one of N’s feelings. Drawing upon the etymology of the term “prehension,” a simple physical feeling can be said to be an act of seizing or taking hold of its initial datum by means of its objective datum. To illustrate, let us return to the question of how an actual occasion of a human mind experiences its causal past. Human memories are grounded on simple physical feelings. In having such feelings, an actual occasion of a human mind directly experiences the actual world external to it—especially the single actual occasion of that human mind that is immediately in its causal past.[9]
4. Subjectively Experiencing the Temporal Order in the Causal Past
We are exploring the question of how an actual occasion experiences the temporal character of the actual occasions in its causal past. In light of a main point in the preceding section—namely, that a relation of temporal order among actual occasions is inherent in their relative acts of becoming—I want now to reformulate this question more specifically as follows: how does an actual occasion experience the temporal order among the actual occasions in its causal past?
To answer this question methodically, let us begin with a simple case. In the above schematic illustration, let O be a third actual occasion, and suppose that N has a simple physical feeling of O. Furthermore—and this is the critical supposition—the objective datum of M’s simple physical feeling of N is a simple physical feeling by N of O. In short, M’s simple physical feeling is one feeling which feels another simple physical feeling. Instead of being merely qualitative, the objective datum of M’s simple physical feeling is relational: it is a concrete fact of relatedness between N and O. This relatedness between N and O involves a relation of temporal order. Just as N comes into being earlier than M comes into being, so O comes into being earlier than N comes into being. The relational fact that O istemporally earlier than N is inherent in the relational fact that, relative to the becoming of N, O has already come into being. Therefore, when M has this simple physical feeling of N, the objective datum of which is N’s simple physical feeling of O, M experiences this temporal ordering of O and N. However, it is assumed that, even though an actual occasion feels all of the actual occasions in its causal past, it does not feel all of their feelings. Therefore, it does not experience the totality of such temporal orderings in its causal past; instead, its experience of them is partial. With this qualification in mind, let me sketch how the simple case can be generalized. Let X and Y be actual occasions in M’s causal past, and suppose that X has a simple physical feeling of Y. Then, if M has a simple physical feeling of X the objective datum of which is X’s simple physical feeling of Y, M experiences the temporal ordering of X and Y.
“The philosophy of organism is,” Whitehead declared, “the inversion of Kant’s philosophy” (PR 88). Whitehead summarized what he meant thus: “For Kant, the world emerges from the subject; for the philosophy of organism, the subject emerges from the world” (PR 88). In particular, Whitehead’s philosophy of time is the inversion of Kant’s philosophy of time. For Kant, time stems a priori from the subject; for Whitehead, the subject actual occasion experiences time. Presupposing Whitehead’s interpretation of Kant, and expressing some of Kant’s views about time very briefly (and thus inadequately), I shall expand this comparison, utilizing the above simple case. According to Kant’s Second Analogy (entitled “Principle of temporal sequence according to the law of causality”), the objective temporal order of events “cannot be perceived in itself”; instead, the subject obtains knowledge of the objective temporal order of events by applying the “law of causality” to the subjective temporal succession of sensory impressions (Kant 1998, B 233-34). Note that Kant assumed that sensory impressions are not in and of themselves objectively temporally ordered. In general, “Kant, following Hume, assumes,” Whitehead asserted, “the radical disconnection of [sensory] impressions qua data” (PR 113). In contrast, in Whitehead’s metaphysics, “the datum includes its own interconnections” (PR 113). A main point is that the objective datum of M’s simple physical feeling includes its own interconnections—in particular, it includes the temporal interconnection of O and N (i.e., that O istemporally earlier than N). Rather then imposing a temporal order on O and N, M experiences their temporal order. In brief, Kant was an apriorist (and idealist) about temporal order, whereas Whitehead was an empiricist (and realist).
But I have only begun to answer the above question about the experience of temporal order. Whitehead had a conception of the “integration” of simple physical feelings (PR 26), which is similar to (but quite different from) Kant’s conception of the “synthesis” of sensory impressions (Kant 1998, B103). In the first phase of an actual occasion’s process of concrescence, it has many simple physical feelings that are not integrated. Consequently, in this first phase, it only experiences a multiplicity of unintegrated temporal orderings. For illustration, the simple case can be augmented as follows. Let P be an actual occasion, and suppose that O has a simple physical feeling of P. And suppose that M has a simple physical feeling of O, the objective datum of which is O’s simple physical feeling of P. Consequently, in addition to the above experience of the temporal ordering of O and N, M experiences the temporal ordering of P and O. But these experiences are not integrated. Of course, N comes into being earlier than O comes into being, and O comes into being earlier than P comes into being. Nevertheless, the question remains: how does M experience this temporal ordering of P, O, and N?
In later phases of the process of concrescence, an actual occasion integrates its simple physical feelings of actual occasions into complex physical feelings of nexuses.[10] The ontological category of nexuses is crucial to Whitehead’s metaphysics. Most importantly, he categorized the enduring things of ordinary experience and scientific theories as nexuses. A nexus is constituted (or composed) of actual occasions; it is “real, individual, and particular” (PR 20); it comes into being when its constituent actual occasions have simple physical feelings of one another (PR 24). In terms of the simple physical feelings listed above in the simple case, the following nexuses can be listed: the nexus of M and N, the nexus of M and O, the nexus of N and O, the nexus of O and P, the nexus of M, N, and O, the nexus of N, O, and P, and the nexus of M, N, O, and P (cf. PR 226). Also, since each actual occasion feels every actual occasion in its actual world—e.g., M has a simple physical feeling of P—other nexuses are implicit in the simple case—e.g., the nexus of M and P. Accordingly, let us make an additional supposition: in later phases of M’s process of concrescence, M integrates the simple physical feelings of N, O, and P into a complex physical feeling of the nexus of N, O, and P. A main point is that, when M has this complex physical feeling of this nexus, the members of which are temporally ordered, M experiences their temporal ordering. From M’s experiences of the temporal ordering of O and N and the temporal ordering of P and O, and by means of such a process of integration, M experiences the temporal ordering of P, O, and N. However, since M does not experience the totality of temporal orderings of pairs of actual occasions in M’s causal past, M can have a complex physical feeling of a nexus without experiencing completely the temporal ordering of the actual occasions in the nexus.
In conclusion, the actual occasions in a subject’s causal past are temporally ordered. In general, there is a metaphysical relation of temporal order among actual occasions that is irreflexive, asymmetric, and transitive. The actual occasions in M’s causal past have simple physical feelings of one another, and so a unique nexus of them comes into being by means of their simple physical feelings. Let us term this nexus, thus constituted of the actual occasions in M’s causal past, the “total” nexus (relative to M). In intermediate phases of M’s process of concrescence, M integrates various simple physical feelings of actual occasions into various complex physical feelings of nexuses. In the final phase of M’s process of concrescence, M integrates all of these physical feelings into “one complex, fully determinate feeling” of M’s total nexus (PR 26, 230). A main point is that, when M has this one complex physical feeling of this total nexus, the members of which are temporally ordered, M experiences partially their temporal ordering. More explicitly, in earlier phases of M’s process of concrescence, M experiences various temporal orderings of actual occasions. From M’s experiences of those various temporal orderings, and by means of the process of integration in the final phase, M experiences partially the temporal order among the actual occasions in M’s causal past.[11]
With regard to the qualification expressed by the word “partially,” one might wonder how incompletely M experiences this temporal order. Whitehead interpreted the idea of “the order of nature” by means of his metaphysical conception of “society” (PR 89). “Our present cosmic epoch is,” he conjectured, “formed by an ‘electromagnetic’ society” (PR 98)—i.e., a society that grounds “electromagnetic laws” (PR 91). Now suppose that M is in our cosmic epoch. Let us term the part of M’s causal past that is in our cosmic epoch “M’s ordered causal past.” Conceivably, since electromagnetic fields are omnipresent throughout our cosmic epoch—even in “empty space” (PR 92)—M experiences the temporal order among the actual occasions in M’s ordered causal past completely.
5. Contemporaries and Causal Futures
Having explored the question of how each actual occasion experiences its causal past, I shall now consider the question: how does each actual occasion experience its locus of contemporaries? In earlier sections, I have endeavored to explain principal ideas thoroughly; henceforth, for lack of space, my discussions are abbreviated.
The causal future of M “is composed of those actual occasions which will have M in their respective causal pasts” (PR 319). The locus of contemporaries of M is composed of “those actual occasions which lie neither in M’s causal past nor in M’s causal future” (PR 320). An actual occasion does not have simple physical feelings of its contemporaries, and its contemporaries do not have simple physical feelings of it. In this sense, an actual occasion does not experience its contemporaries. Nevertheless, some actual occasions—archetypically, actual occasions of a human mind, but also actual occasions of a “physical object” (PR 321)—are related to their contemporaries indirectly, by means of perceptions in the mode of “presentational immediacy” (PR 61). Although Whitehead was a direct realist about simple physical feelings, he was (in a sense) a representative realist about sense-perceptions. His theory of perception in the mode of presentational immediacy—which includes concepts of “sense-data” and “extension” (PR 61)—is similar to (but still different from) Descartes’s theory of perception.
Concerning the concept of extension, Whitehead made this significant remark: “Our direct perception of the contemporary world is thus reduced to extension” (PR 61). Even though we do not experience contemporaneous actual occasions, we do experience geometrical “perspectives introduced by extensive relationships” (PR 61). Additionally, when an actual occasion physically feels actual occasions in its causal past, it physically feels them “with the retention of their extensive relationships” (PR 67). And actual occasions that will come into being in its causal future “must exemplify” such extensive relationships (PR 66). There is a system of extensive relationships, termed the “extensive continuum,” that “underlies the whole world, past, present, and future” (PR 66). Each actual occasion occupies its own “basic region” in the extensive continuum (PR 283). In accordance with his “epochal theory of time” (PR 68), the spatiotemporal volume of a basic region is finite. Extensive relationships—e.g., a relation of contiguity—are definable in terms of the mathematically primitive relation of extensive connection.
Whitehead also referred to the extensive continuum as “the extensive space-time continuum” (PR 80). Moreover, “the extensiveness of time is,” he also remarked, “really the temporalization of extension” (PR 289). His theory of extension is the basis of his account of the measurement of time. But the idea of temporal extensiveness should not be confused with the idea of temporal order (Lango 2006). Therefore, it is important to realize that experiences of extensive relationships are not experiences of temporal order. For instance, suppose that O is immediately in the causal past of N. That is, suppose that there is no actual occasion Z such that Z is in the causal past of N and O is in the causal past of Z. It also is the case that N’s basic region and O’s basic region are contiguous. Suppose further that, because M has simple physical feelings of N and O, it is correct to say that M experiences the contiguity of N’s basic region to O’s basic region. Nonetheless, such an experience is different from the experience of the temporal ordering of N and O. For the relation of temporal order is asymmetric, whereas the relation of contiguity is symmetric (i.e., if one region is contiguous to another, then the latter is contiguous to the former). Similarly, suppose that it is correct to say that M experiences the contiguity of the basic regions of two of M’s contemporaries. Nevertheless, M’s having such an experience is different from M’s having an experience of the two actual occasions as being contemporaries of M or as being contemporaries of each other. Note that, in accordance with relativity theory, the two “need not be contemporaries of each other” (PR 320).
Even though Whitehead relativized the notion of the present to each actual occasion, he retained an analogue of that notion—namely, his conception of durations. Each duration is a maximal set of mutually contemporaneous actual occasions, and thus it is “a cross-section of the universe” (PR 125). In accordance with relativity theory, each actual occasion “lies in many durations” (PR 125). When an actual occasion perceives a set of contemporaneous actual occasions in the mode of presentational immediacy, that set is the unique “presented duration” (relative to that actual occasion) (PR 321). Although the creative advance of actual occasions is not a “uniquely serial advance” (PR 35), they still are temporally ordered. The temporal order of durations is derivative from the temporal order of their members. Relative to each duration D, there is “the past of duration D,” and “the future of duration D” (PR 320). In the final phase of M’s process of concrescence, M could experience partially the temporal order of durations in the following way. Each maximal set of mutually contemporaneous actual occasions in M’s causal past is a subset of a duration. The temporal order of such subsets is derivative from the temporal order of their members. In physically feeling their members, M could experience partially this temporal order.
Finally, there is the question: how does each actual occasion experience its causal future? M cannot have simple physical feelings of actual occasions in M’s causal future. For, when M is coming into being, actual occasions in M’s causal future have not yet come into being. Thus M’s causal future is a locus of merely “potential occasions” (PR 123). However, it still can be said that the causal future is experienced in a radically different way. According to the category of subjective intensity, each actual occasion’s “subjective aim” is at “intensity of feeling” both in itself and “in the relevant future” (PR 27). Insofar as the relevant future is an aspect of its subjective aim, it can be said to experience its causal future. In contrast to the causal past, which is experienced causally, the causal future is thus experienced teleologically. Additionally, Whitehead alluded to “anticipatory feelings of the transcendent future” (PR 278), but what he meant is quite obscure. Through an analogy with perceptions in the mode of presentational immediacy, it could be argued that an actual occasion is related to its causal future indirectly, by means of perceptions in the mode of anticipation (cf. PR 204).
In this article, a number of overlapping topics in Whitehead’s philosophy of time have been briefly considered or only mentioned—for example, the nonseriality of time, the temporal order of durations, presented durations, the epochal theory of time, the temporalization of extension, the measurement of time, and the subjective aim at the relevant future. The chief goal of this article has been to provide an introduction to a topic that is presupposed by the others: how an actual occasion experiences the temporality of the creative advance of actual occasions in its causal past.
Notes
[1] The subject of time is prominent in his PNK, CN, and R. But the question of how his philosophy of time evolved is too complex to consider here.
[2] Some of my views about Whitehead’s philosophy of time are developed more fully in Lango 2000a, 2000b, 2001, 2004, and 2006.
[3] Usually, books on Whitehead’s metaphysics do not have distinct chapters or sections on the subject of time (although they often contain insufficient discussions of that subject on scattered pages), e.g. Christian 1959, Kraus 1998, and Ross 1983. An important exception is McHenry 1992, whose Chapter 6 is entitled “Time.” For the sake of comparison, it is worthwhile studying writings by other process philosophers—e.g., Bergson 1889, Čapek 1961, and James 1890. Additionally, it is worthwhile consulting pertinent writings on the philosophy of time that are not specifically about Whitehead or process philosophy—e.g., Gale 1967, Mellor 1988, and Tooley 1997.
[4] Since this is not an article about Descartes, Whitehead’s interpretation of Descartes is taken for granted.
[5] For a fuller account of Whitehead’s Platonic conception of becoming, see my article on Plato in this Encyclopedia.
[6] God is an actual entity, but in this brief article the difficult question of how God subjectively experiences time has to be set aside.
[7] Cf. the corresponding concepts of absolute past, absolute elsewhere, and absolute future in the theory of relativity (Hawking 1988, 25-28). Rather than the “classical” view of time, Whitehead was strongly influenced by “the relativity view” (PR 66).
[8] Although adhering to a Platonic conception of time as “perpetually perishing” (PR 81), Whitehead did not mean that actual occasions in the actual world are “nonexistent.” Note his remark that an actual occasion “perishes and is immortal” (PR 82). For a discussion of the ontological status of past actual occasions, see Lango 2006.
[9] Cf. the concept of duration in Bergson 1889 and the section “The Sensible Present has Duration” in James 1890.
[10] Noticing the word “later” in the phrase “later phases of concrescence” (and the correlative word “earlier” in the phrase “earlier phases of concrescence”), we may ask: is the succession of phases in the process of concrescence a temporal succession? For a discussion of this controversial question, see Lango 2001.
[11] This summary is incomplete. For instance, nexuses are temporally ordered, and their temporal order can be partially experienced.
Works Cited and Further Readings
Bergson, Henri. 1889. Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience (Paris, Librairie Félix Alcan), translated by F.L. Pogson as Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness (New York, Macmillan, 1910).
Čapek, Milič. 1961. Philosophical Impact of Contemporary Physics (Princeton, Van Nostrand).
Christian, William. 1959. An Interpretation of Whitehead’s Metaphysics (New Haven, Yale University Press).
Durand, Guillaume and Weber, Michel (eds.). 2007. Les principes de la connaissance naturelle d’Alfred North Whitehead—Alfred North Whitehead’s Principles of Natural Knowledge (Frankfurt, Ontos).
Gale, Richard M. (ed.). 1967. The Philosophy of Time: A Collection of Essays (Garden City, New York, Doubleday).
James, William. 1890. The Principles of Psychology, Vol. 1 (New York, Henry Holt).
Hawking, Stephen. 1988. A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes (London, Bantam Press).
Kant, Immanuel. 1998 [1781 and 1787]. Critique of Pure Reason [Kritik der reinen Vernunft], translated by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).
Kraus, Elizabeth M. 1998. The Metaphysics of Experience: A Companion to Whitehead’s Process and Reality, 2nd ed. (New York, Fordham University Press).
Lango, John W. 2000a. “Time and Strict Partial Order,” American Philosophical Quarterly 37, 4, 373-87.
Lango, John W. 2000b. “Whitehead’s Category of Nexus of Actual Entities,” Process Studies 29, 1, 16-42.
Lango, John W. 2001. “The Time of Whitehead’s Concrescence,” Process Studies 30, 1, 3-21.
Lango, John W. 2004. “Alfred North Whitehead, 1861-1947,” in The Blackwell Guide to American Philosophy, edited by A. T. Marsoobian and J. Ryder (Oxford, Blackwell).
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Author Information
John W. Lango
Philosophy Department, Hunter College of the City University of New York
695 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10065
www.hunter.cuny.edu
john.lango@hunter.cuny.edu
How to Cite this Article
Lango, John W., “Time and Experience”, last modified 2008, The Whitehead Encyclopedia, Brian G. Henning and Joseph Petek (eds.), originally edited by Michel Weber and Will Desmond, URL = <http://encyclopedia.whiteheadresearch.org/entries/thematic/theory-of-knowledge/time-and-experience/>.