Glossary
Actual Entity
Each unit of process is called an actual entity; it is a drop of
experience that comes into existence through the creative process of
concrescence. Actual entities are the "final real things of which the
world is made up." They are the building blocks that, through an
essential interconnectedness, make up the composite world of rocks, trees,
and people
Actual
Occasion
This phrase is almost a synonym for actual entity, with the one
distinction that it applies only to finite entities, not to God.
"Actual occasion" implies a locus in the spatio-temporal
extensiveness of the universe.
Concrescence
This refers to the activity of becoming; it is the unification of many
feelings into the single actual entity or occasion. In concrescence,
feelings are contrasted and evaluated until they are integrated into a
final unity, called the "satisfaction." The activity of the
concrescence is the self-production of the self.
Initial aim
The initial aim originates in God and starts the becoming of the new
occasion. God's knowledge of the becoming occasion's past, integrated with
God's own purposes for enjoyment and the well-being of creation, results
in a particular possibility for what that new occasion might become. This
possibility is given to the occasion as its initial aim. It provides the
occasion with the optimum way of unifying the many influences the occasion
receives from its past.
Intersubjectivity
According to Whitehead, the ultimate facts of the universe
are moments of experience, and these moments of experience are constituted
by feeling all other previous moments of experience. Therefore, subjects
are not just externally related to all other subjects but internally
related, as well. Intersubjectivity refers to the fact of the internal
relatedness of each moment of experience, and our being internally
connected to all others in the universe.
Objective
Immortality
Every actual occasion affects every successor. The effect
is the transmission of its own reality into the new reality by way of
transitional creativity. This can only be a partial transmission from the
point of view of the finite actual occasion. No one occasion can feel
another in its entirety.
Prehension
The feeling of others is called "prehension."
Prehensions involve emotion, purpose, and valuation. Because of prehension,
there is connectedness in the universe.
Presentational Immediacy
The more sophisticated and complex of the two pure modes of preception. (Causal efficacy is the other pure mode, and both combine to form the mixed mode of perception, symbolic reference, which is our ordinary mode of awareness.)
Process theology (or process-relational theology as it is called by some of its proponents today) is an approach to thinking about the major claims of the Christian faith using a philosophy developed by Alfred North Whitehead in the early 20th century. While much of traditional theology focuses on God’s omnipotence, transcendence, eternity, and unchangingness, process theology explores ways of talking about God’s call, persuasion, responsiveness, and love. Process theology envisions a universe made out of relationships and growing in creative transformation, where God is intimately involved with every creature and every creature is everlastingly cherished by God. In this course we will examine the basic features of the process-relational worldview, and see how it gives us resources to understand the central beliefs of Christian faith.
Society
Actual occasions are microscopic. We never see them individually. The
things we see—the real, actual things that endure—are groups of
occasions, series of occasions, like the frames in the movie film. A
society is a series of occasions each of which inherit their defining
characteristic from their predecessors. Looked at from the other
direction, a society is an environment which influences its members to
become in a certain way.
Societies can also be nested in each other. A molecule is a society of molecular occasions; but it can also be a component in the society of a cell. A person is a society of personal occasions, but also a member of a society of persons. The higher-level society is then an environment which contributes its character to the becoming of the lower-level society.
Subjective
aim
The self-determining process that determines what an actual entity will
become. An actual entity, or becoming occasion, adapts the initial aim,
along with its prehensions of the past, and makes its own creative
contribution to succeeding occasions.
Superject
to be something for oneself necessarily entails being
something for others. "Superject" refers to the sense in which
an occasion has an effect beyond itself. This is not optional; it is
simply a matter of fact. Whitehead underscores this frequently by calling
an actual entity a "subject/superject."