Fırat Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi (Jun 2023)
The Dynamic Self in Alfred North Whitehead’s Philosophy of Organism
Abstract
Throughout the history of thought, the body and the soul have been accepted as two fundamental determinative entities in the understanding of human nature. The soul-body problematic, which is sometimes considered as two separate substances, sometimes as two components that together make up a different substantive existence, mostly resulted from the opposition between materialist and spiritualist forms of thought. These two ontologies can be traced back to the Ancient Greek period. Since then, both forms of thinking have often been concerned with finding the constant base behind the being, the uniqueness behind the multiplicity, and the existence behind the phenomenal world in the discussions on the issue of what reality is. Accordingly, body and soul, which are the main references in the definition of human, have gained value according to the characters of change and stability. In order to indicate the permanent aspect of the human being and to express the self, the concept of soul as a immaterial substance has been used, and there has been a strong tendency towards the belief that the soul constitutes the essence of the self as it is unchangeable. The idea of becoming, which has its origin in the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus, clearly emphasizes that reality is more about understanding the background of change than stability. This implies that there is no need to seek a constant substance in the definition of the self. Contemporary English thinker Alfred North Whitehead, similarly, adopts an attitude that aims to explain reality in the process, unlike classical metaphysics' reference to spatial stability in understanding reality. This attitude assumes a dynamic metaphysics of the self based on process and flow in a holistic framework, instead of considering the soul and the body as two separate substances and explaining the self in spatial stability only through the concept of the unchanging soul. This idea is based on explaining the self, which is formed by the soul and body in an integrated way, as an entity that has intense connections and interactions with the external world (nature and society). The organism's coming into existence, the sensory activities of the body, which plays a mediating role in the interaction of the self with the external world, reveal the background of his views on self-consciousness, which is one of the concepts that form the basis of the self in Whitehead's thought. The process attitude that Whitehead puts forward while defining human nature criticizes the Cartesian philosophy that ontologically fragments human nature with the soul-body distinction. According to him, Descartes' modern theory of self could not put some issues such as the relationship between the subject and the external world, human experience and the reality of the objective world on a convincing basis. Instead of an ontological distinction between subject and object, Whitehead assumes a subject who knows and recognizes this world because it is itself a part of the objective world. This aspect allows the self to say that it not only ensures its integrity within itself, but also has an integrated structure with the external world through bodily (sensation, perception, etc.) ways. Thus, the perceiver and the perceived between the subject-external world are considered as components of the same dynamic whole. In this relationship, the individual self and the external world mutually construct each other. In this construction process, the consciousness of the self about the other is realized through sensory means and meaning. An individual's goals and orientations determine his/her way of understanding the external world. Thus, the individual reconstructs the external world by changing it in line with his own goals. The external world, on the other hand, motivates the individual to adapt in his activity towards his own goals, to act in harmony, and thus to satisfy his needs at the maximum level. Whitehead aims to explain the self in accordance with scientific methods. On the basis of this method, it is stated that a large number of subatomic particles that make up an object are both individuals and form that object together with other atoms. Accordingly, human as a conscious being carries both individual and social characters. Therefore, the self possesses autonomy and sociability simultaneously. The self can neither be seen as a mere being in itself, isolated from the external world, nor can it be defined as a being devoid of personal identity, which can be explained entirely through connectivity.
