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Whitehead's Philosophy: Eternal Objects and God.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

Sydney E. Hooper
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Extract

The Universe cannot be exhaustively analysed if we stop at actual entities or even societies of actual entities which, as we shall see later when we discuss the notion of ‘nexus,’ are equivalent to what we ordinarily mean by enduring objects such as a stone, a tree, or a man. There is another class of entities which plays an important part in the constitution of the Universe called ‘eternal objects,’ and we must now proceed to an understanding of these.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 17 , Issue 65 , January 1942 , pp. 47 - 68
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1942

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References

page 47 note 1 The brief account of the connexion of Plato's ideal theory with the doctrine of Heraclitus in the next two paragraphs is derived from History of Philosophy, by Webb, Clement C. J. (Home University Library)Google Scholar.

page 49 note 1 Process and Reality, p. 66Google Scholar.

page 56 note 1 Science and the Modern World, p. 247Google Scholar.

page 57 note 1 This isolation of eternal objects in the realm of possibility is due to the fact that their relations to each other in this realm,—what has been called their ‘relational’ essence,—do not in any way effect their individual essences. In the realm of possibility the relational essences of eternal objects merely constitute a uniform scheme of relationships which is shared in common by all the eternal objects, so far as the status of each permits. Each eternal object stands internally in all its possible relationships, and by so doing constitutes a pervasive uniform scheme. Accordingly the relationships subsisting in the realm of possibility have nothing to do with the individual essence of eternal objects. They involve any eternal objects as relata only. “The eternal objects are isolated because their relationships as possibilities are expressible without reference to their respective individual essences.” (Science and the Modern World, p. 230.)

page 64 note 1 Process and Reality, p. 33Google Scholar.

page 65 note 1 P. 486.

page 66 note 1 Science and the Modern World, chap. xi.

page 67 note 1 Process and Reality, p. 492Google Scholar.

page 68 note 1 This term means “the property of combining creative advance with the retention of mutual immediacy.” See Process and Reality, p. 489Google Scholar.