The Concept of Tension in Philosophy

The Concept of Tension in Philosophy
Albert Millard Dunham, Jr.
Introduction
I N ALL philosophy, whether it be in the normative disciplines, in phenomenology,

or in logic, there appear to be three fundamental laws or principles from which
others are derived. They are first, the principle of originality, that everything which
has being is simply itself and no other thing; second, the principle of polarity, that
everything which exists depends for its being on the existence of what it is not; and
third, the principle of sufficient reason, that for everything existing, there is a sufficient
reason why it is what it is, and why it is not what it is noU The principle of originality
is primarily a principle of feeling and possibility, since bOth of these are essentially
unique-anything has its characteristic feeling, unlike that of anything else, and
somehow independent of how anything else may feel; likewise, any possibility is just
that possibility and no other. The principle of polarity is primarily a principle of
action, exemplified in the fact that for every action there is a reaction, for every agency
there is something comparatively patient. And the principle of sufficient reason is a
principle of meaning and knowledge, ultimately demanding continuity, relevance,
and the assimilation of experiences to a universe of discourse.
My interest in the present essay has cosmologists were fond of telling us, there
been centered almost entirely in the prin- is love-hate. In each case we have oppo-
ciple of polarity, not in the logic of it sition and interdependence. Perhaps
(though that is certainly important), but Hegel came nearer to realizing the logical
in what might be called its phenomeno- significance of polarity than has any other
logical implications, and indeed I have modern thinker. But Hegel's logical prin-
considered only a few of these. The ciples have up to date managed to escape
principle itself I have found to have two formalization, even assuming that some
'roots' or primary determinations, viz., form is latent in them. Meanwhile, as is
the principle of polarity in direction, and often the case with ultimate things and
the principle of polarity in opposition. principles, we can benefit by the principle
These two roots can be Hlustrated easily of polarity without pretending fully to
in familiar terms. The polarity of direc- understand it.
tion is found in such relations as those The two 'roots' of the principle of
of empirical time, where there is a direc- polarity I have found phenomenologically
tion from, and a direction toward, no centered in the experience of tension.
direction toward without a direction from. There are in experience tensions of direc-
Anything exemplifying these directional tion and tensions of opposition, both of
properties is definitely polar. The polarity which have been isolated and described
of opposition is even more easily illus- in recent thought. Although my primary
trated-one becomes aware of that in endeavor has been to set forth the cate-
reading such a humely philosophy of gory of tension in its foreground and
polarity as the one expressed in Emcr- background as a philosophic concept, I
son's es!'my on Com:pcnsation. ThArA iF: have attempted un cxcul':?iion Into its
man-woman, good-evil, and, as the Greek psychological bases, and have endeavored
'Tl1e ultimacy uf the~e prIncIples 'Was asserted by the American philosopher Chas. S. Peirce, whose
discovery ElOOlllU to be vIndIcated by the wlwle hl~tU1'Y uf phIlosophy.
6 [79 ]
80 CONCEPT OF TENSION
to interweave its explication with a rather Occasionally, in the application of the

intensive application to some problems notion of tension to the experience of
of philosophy. In the first place, ac- events, the phrases 'sense of reality' or
knowledging that my own thinking has 'sense of actuality' occur. As will be
been done largely in the shadow, or the shown in the proper place, these phrases
light, of Whitehead's great cosmological are Charles Peirce's own, and I see no
system, I have indicated how the philo- reason why they cannot be taken for what
sophic concept of tension, particularly of they mean in context without technical
directional tension, is to be derived from expectations that might find in them
Whitehead's 'appetition,' and applied to glosses for metaphysical analyses. Had it
the theory of time. Then, after a con- been current enough to warrant its usage,
sideration of tension almost entirely on the term 'eventuality' might have done
its own account, I have shown how its just as well as, if not better than, the
directional and oppositional determina- more familiar words 'reality' or 'actuality.'
tions intersect at the foundations of ex- The primary intention in either case is to
perience in the phenomenology of events. designate neatly what is usually felt when
The second application is really a con- we say that something 'happens,' 'takes
tinuation of or a different perspective place,' or 'occurs.' And by 'sense' in the
upon the first one, since the experience phrase 'sense of actuality' Peirce did not
of futurity in time can scarcely be severed mean anything like cognition. The con-
from the experience of events and change. trast between 'sense' as the term is used
The primary contributions to the theory here and as it might be used in an
of oppositional tension are found in the epistemological theory of veridicality is
phenomenologies of Santayana and Peirce. shown in the fact that while in episte-
Hence I have devoted considerable space mology 'sense' suggests veridical percep-
to expositions of their theories, and to tion, here it is more nearly equivalent to
criticisms of them. what might be called 'aesthetic index.'2
The question might arise as to how far Tensions of opposition are 'aesthetic in-
one can go in the treatment of such prob- dices' of events. In its full phenomeno-
lems as those mentioned above without logical translation, therefore, the 'sense
thorough considerations of metaphysics of reality' would become the 'aesthetic
and epistemology. Frankly, the attempt indication of eventuality,' a phrase which
has been to omit such considerations, is here set down as a terminological haven
steering rather a mean course between for those who find Peirce's language diffi-
them; it is true that at times the stream cult, but whose rankly barbarous char-
becomes rather narrow, and the steering acter prohibits its frequent recurrence.
difficult. On that account, if on no other,
one or two terminological misunderstand- • 'Aesthetic' is here used in its general philo-
sophical meaning, rather than as a name for the
ings must be anticipated, and prevented. philosophy of art and beauty.
Chapter I
Process and Futurity

The reality of empirical time depends ultimately upon the reality of the future.
For contrasted with the comparatively abstract time of physics with its relations of
before and after, empirical time has the three distinct modes of pastness, presence,
and futurity, and it is upon the last one that the chief differences between physical
time and empirical time depend. It is the future which involves those aspects of
novelty, indetermination, or in general, of incompletion, without which genuine
process is inconceivable. Nothing of the kind is implied in bare relations of sequence,
of before and after, though the attempts to reduce experienced time either to an
expression of the principle of sufficient reason, or to a mere succession of discrete
presents or states, assumed implicitly that the qualities of experienced time could
be exhausted by the description of sequence. That this assumption was fallacious
is shown in the failure of its authors to account for time as it is actually experienced.
Those temporal characteristics which seem inseparable from the reality of futures
were simply left out of account. The result was a world of experience in which novelty,
indetermination, potentiality, were omitted from nature, either to be explicitly denied,
or to be dismissed as peculiarities attributable to super-natural centers of experience.
It is not surprising, therefore, that modern naturalism, inspired by the reaffirmation
of the temporal categories in biology and in physics, should have sought to eliminate
inadequacies in the philosophical theory of time by putting back into nature what the
deterministic tradition had left out. The power of such strategy is threefold: it renders
more concrete and empirically descriptive the categories of natural science; it rejects
the denial which had been made of the futuristic element in experience; it eliminates
one of the chief grounds for the assumption of super-natural centers of experience by
naturalizing facts for whose explanation supernaturalism had been devised. Such
has been the import of the theory of time as explicated by naturalists like Dewey,
Alexander, and Whitehead. 1 And for every one of these thinkers the reality of time
has been bound up with that of the future. The emphasis has been upon novelty,
emergence, and indetermination, in accord with the thesis that mere sequence and
mere repetition are insufficient to account for real empirical time. The world of
determinism, on the contrary, is only pseudo-temporal; presumably, if one were
sufficiently acquainted with the determinate structure of his world he might deduce
from it the character of whatever is going to happen. But in that case novelty and
incompletion would be mere appearances, traceable to the finitude of human knowl-
edge. Futurity would be an illusion of the human perspective.
But, now, is it possible to approach the an illusion, time, through its definitive
problem of futurity directly, without more modality, the future, is not only possible
than a bare presupposition of naturalism and describable, but is somehow neces-
as a background for analysis, and without sary for experience. Such indeed does
cosmological pretensions? That is, can seem to be the ease, as our subsequent
the problem of futurity be approached analyses will show. And although the
phenomenologically? It may be that con- necessity of futures for experience, as
trary to the supposition that process is indicated in the phenomenology of ten-
1 See especially A. N. Whitehead's Process and Reality. (New York: MacMillan, 1929.)
[81 ]
sion, entails as its implication the fact can best be made in accord with White-
and possibility of process, both of the head's phenomenology.
latter can be approached directly. If we
were primarily interested in. the possi- 1
bility of futurity, our problem wo~l~ .be Since the 'actual occasion' is conceived
that of individuation. For the possIbIlity by Whitehead as the limiting case of an
of there being any future at all depends organism in its environment, one can
upon the possibility of difference, and of interpret it without injustice as an ani-
differentiation. Of the theories that have mal center of experience. Within the
been advanced to explain individuation, occasion there is an indetermination of
the organismic theory of Whitehead comes direction and of form corresponding to
nearest to comprehension and adequacy. its incomplete conformity to its past.
The older theories were based on the The 'final cause' in this sense is not a
'all or none' principle and involved the thoroughly definite and concrete envisag-
complete exclusion of anything that was ment of what it will be, but rather a
not included in the becoming of a concrete general direction in which it is going,
occasion. However difficult it may be in defining a range of possibilities which
detail, Whitehead's theory offers the are only vaguely given. There is within
possibility of degrees of exclusion, and of this range the class of determinate char-
perspective differentiation. Instead of t~e acteristics which the organism will have,
complete exclusion of the fact that IS i.e., the qualities which it will experience.
incompatible with a given act of experi- But the organism, so long as it is alive,
ence, or the extensive partitioning of the is essentially incomplete, and it feels this
incompatible fact which would, after all, incompleteness as its future. Vagueness,
deprive it of its definitive being, there is generality, indetermination, potentiality,
the possibility of intensive quantification, and novelty are functions of the unrest
such that the fact is felt faintly or vividly, which underlies the organism's 'appeti-
according to its relevance. Relevance in tion' or creative urge. The forces accom-
its turn depends upon organismic 'appe- panying the unrest and creativity them-
tition,' since it is relevance to appetition. 2 selves, however, are to be considered in
This same notion of appetition, when it their turn as constituting the energy, the
is 'purified' of its anthropomorphic and power, of the organism, They are, in
evaluational meanings, when it is 'de- short, the future as effective-not merely
romanticized,' becomes the more precise as experienced-in the present. These
and general concept of tension. It is will be discussed in connection with the
through tension that futurity becomes future as necessary for experience. The
essential to experience. difference between such a role and the
Although individuation, and the possi- role played by the future as experienced
bility of futures, need not be given de- is an important one. As necessary for
tailed consideration in a phenomenology experience, futurity is the potentiality of
of time, there is need for some evidence the organism for acting and being acted
that futures are actual, i.e., that they upon. As experienced, futurity is that
appear in experience. For even though same potentiality as mediating the pos-
it may be supposed that the necessity of sibilities of future occasions. It is with
futures in experience, as revealed in the this mediation that we are at present
phenomena of tension, entails the actu- concerned.
ality of those same futures, it is important The future is vague because its content
that their actuality be shown as amenable does not have the definiteness of concrete
to description. This description should detail which is found in the present. If
precede the derivation of tension and of we think of an event that is expected to
the essential futurity of experience from take place tomorrow, such as t.he making
Whitehead's 'appetition.' It, too, however, of a journey, we cannot, try as we will,
'Process and ReaUty, p. 380. remove the character of indefiniteness
PROCESS AND FUTURITY 83
which clings to our plans and expecta- to the stimulus by way of the character-
tions. The train may leave at five minutes istics it shares with the other components
after the hour, or at one minute before. in its range. The generality in this sense,
Such details as the color and form of the is a function of the situation as a whole;
coaches, the arrangement of the seats, it is a property of the stimulating situa-
and the conduct of the conductor and the tion as well as of the response, since an
passengers, fall upon whole ranges of important aspect of the stimulus is the
possible colors, arrangements, and be- group of common or partially identical
havior. And there is no reason to believe properties which characterize the specific
that less conscious or cognitive experi- metronomic rates. The possibility of such
ences of the future are more definite than conditioning shows how, genetically, gen-
these. Rather we should expect them to erality of the sort found in futures can
be less so, as in the case of vague pre- arise. Also, it correlates perfectly with
monitions of the general drift of affairs, the phenomenological character of vague-
or blind struggles of suppressed impulse ness and indefiniteness which is found in.
to realize itself, and catch in the present the experience of futurity.4 The vague-
the cast of what its future will be. It is ness is the indefiniteness of the response
true that a similar vagueness character- to any particular stimulus in all of its
izes the experience of the past. Memory detail, as instance the general response
. as well as anticipation has this indefinite to the journey we are to make; there we
quality about it. But the difference, which do not respond to the specific details of
is a great one, is that the future is ex- the event which is this train at this
perienced as direction toward, while the moment and place. In the latter instance,
past is unalterably direction from. The the train would be present, and its event
quality of being the direction toward would be particular. Generality, however,
which the organism is tending will be- does not serve by itself to distinguish the
come more evident in a consideration of future any more than does vagueness.
the future as potential. To that end it For through the mechanisms of language
will be helpful if we first make clear the and the sign it is possible to stop the re-
nature of generality insofar as it is in- action before it goes on toward particu-
gredient in the future. larity. At that point there is vagueness,
Behavioristic psychology is suggestive though not experienced futurity; this is
at this point, for a basic account of the the stage at which general characters are
way in which organisms experience gen- experienced simply as present, on their
erality.s Given the 'sign situation' in own account.
which there is a stimulus and the inter- With the acknowledgment of potenti-
pretative response to it, the stimulating ality and the direction toward, we come
situation can be designated not merely nearer to a differentiation of the future.
as a single stimulus, but as a stimulus To consider potentiality first, it is obvious
range. The organism can react to any that in some sense the particular event
one of the class of stimuli which lies is there in the range. The occasion of the
within the stimulating range, as evi- stimulus is one of a series of possibilities,
denced in Pavlov's work on the behavior which taken together constitute the gen-
of apes, in which the response to metro- eral potentiality of the situation. To the
nomic beats as substitute stimuli for food- extent that the situation tends toward
reactions was correlated with a range of the emergence of definiteness, of particu-
oscillatory rates rather than with one
lar stimulus-qualities, and particular re-
particular beat. In such instances the re-
sponse-qualities, the potentiality of the
sponse is a general one, being a response
not to a particular stimulus as such but situation has a direction toward, or be-
comes definitely futuristic. The language
• The behavioristic account of generality is de-
rived from the late Prof. G. H. Mead's theory of • FOr a discussion .of indetermination and vague-
meaning, and occurs in unpublished manuscripts ness in the phenomenology of universals see Prof.
whleh w111 form part of a forthcommg volume edited C. ~. Hartshorne's "l!'our Principles of Method-
by Prof. Chr:w. Morrio. W1tIl Applicatio115," MOItlst, vol. 43, Jail. 1933, 1J. 46.
of emergence is an alternative limguage comes more distant. Consequently the

here to Whitehead's terminology with its more distant future is fraught with more
'ingression of eternal objects in the oc- incipient novelty than the nearer one.
casion'; behavioristically this 'ingression' It is the novelty involved in it which
becomes the emergence of 'stimulus- also distinguishes the vagueness and
response qualities.' I do not see that for generality of the future from mere ab-
our purposes the difference is funda- stractness. As Whitehead puts it, there
mentally important. In either case, the is an urge toward maximum originality
definiteness of the event is possible, and in each occasion, which can be best 'satis-
its mode of being, potential, in addition to fied' by generality. But with the notion
its bare possibility if there is also a ten- of an 'urge' we approach considerations
dency toward its actualization. This is of futurity as necessary for experience,
to say that the response is variable, but rather than as experienced. And this will
comparatively selective. From the stand- turn out to be, from our point of view,
point of the present actual occasion the the most important problem involved in
potentiality of the future is incompletion. the establishment of the reality of the
The past is completed, the future is com- future.
pleting, but the experience of the future, 2
of present potentiality, means that the
occasion is incomplete. However vague Two important conceptions which find
and indefinite the past may be, as past synthesis in Whitehead's philosophy of
it does not have this characterization of organism are the notions of 'organic
incompletion about it. Its vagueness is whole' and 'creative urge' or 'appetition.'
due to the confusion of what might have The 'actual occasion' is an eventual organ-
been with what was, where 'might have ism which can best be conceived as a
been' is past possibility. This, however, dynamic system, so constituted that any
is to be distinguished from the potenti- function of the part or component is a
ality of what may be in the future. 5 function of the whole, and the significance
Along with its vagueness, generality, of the part or component is to be found
and potentiality, the future is laden with in its contribution to the whole in which
coming novelty. To say that things will it occurs. This much of the theory of
be, is to say that they will never be quite organism can be seen as a derivation from
the same. The future occasion will have the logic of idealism, with its insistence
its own novel contribution for the present on the principle of organic unity. But the
in which it will occur, and it is this teleological turn which Whitehead gives
pregnancy with the novel which finally to the notion has not always been prop-
distinguishes the future from both the erly emphasized. As against the teleology
present and the past. In a sense this which is a counterpart of determinism,
based analogously to efficient cause on
aspect is a part of the meaning of potenti-
the principle of sufficient reason, the
ality; potentiality is potentiality for actu-
teleology of organism is a functional one,
ality, with its novel qualities or new
in that the end of the parts is their contri-
definiteness. What will be novel in the bution to the whole organism. The whole
future is that which emerges as a selec- is end, but in order for it to persist as
tion from the possibilities that its present end it must also serve as means for the
indetermination entails. These are not parts, which therefore have some status
clearly given in the present, if it can be as ends-in-themselves. The becoming of
said that they are individually given at the organism, however, demands a princi-
all. The most that is given is the direction ple of its own, and this principle is fur-
toward, which broadens in its indetermi~ nished in t.he p,on("ppt.inn of creative urge.
nation in proportion as the future be- The creativity of the whole world as one
• Those who are familiar with Prof. Whitehead's cosmic organism is what Whitehead calls
Process and Roality will recognize its influence here the 'category of the ultimate,' a notion
and elsewhere in thIs summary, and Its merely sug-
ee~tiv... lI~~mmt. of t.hp. p.xpol'innc!1 of tho future. which echoes the mystical foundation of
Chapter II
The Notion of Tension

In physics, in logic, and in psychology the concept of tension has broadly anal-
ogous meanings. The reason for this is to be found in its derivation from the philos-
ophy of Aristotle by way of Leibniz. Aristotle, and Leibniz after him, found the
content of metaphysics in the fusion of natural science, logic, and psychology. The
Aristotelian idea of entelechy, which is the germ of the idea of tension, combined in
itself three important aspects. It meant that latent activity or tendency toward action
in physical nature, the logical tendency of a term to be and to become itself, and the
urgency or psychic pressure which accompanies directed human experience. Each of
these meanings has come into the notion of tension, largely because of the conceptual
vigor of Leibniz. Their interrelations are worth the most careful attention.
Physics uses the word tension to de- One might say that potential energy is
scribe various phenomena which have in thus an expression of the genius of the
common the fact that they sustain a state physical system, or of its dynamic ten-
of potential energy. For example, the dency to be and become itself. It is this
readiness of an electrical charge to release character which led Whitehead to the
itself is called its tension, or potential. conception of 'appetition' as the analogous
The force with which an elastic body genius of the monadic organism. As a
tends to contract when stretched is also measure of 'deviation from the initial
called its state of tension. In either case, position' potential energy is not a stuff
the basic notion is that certain equi- or substance, but an index of equilibra-
libriums have been disturbed, and tend tion. For the working physicist it is no
to restore themselves. The case of elec- doubt conceived in terms of mathematical
tricity is especially interesting since there functions and operations of measurement.
the synonym for tension is potential. And in this sense it is 'historical' or defi-
Aristotle had already spoken of the po- nitely retrospective. But from the stand-
tentiality of anything as its germinal point of the state of potential energy
tendency toward actualization. Obviously itself, the tension is prospective, indicat-
the language of physics is borrowed from ing what the system is going to become.
philosophy at this point as at some others. It would not do to press the analogy
When we ask what potential energy is, between the physical system and the
the physicist replies in terms of systems organismic system too far, if for no other
and situations. "In an ordinary mechani- reason than that the physical concept
cal system," says Prof. Bridgman, "the has abstract meanings which need not
potential energy simply measures the merge over into pictorial representations.
work done by the applied forces in being Yet it must be remembered that, after all,
displaced from the initial to the final the concepts of physics are derived from
positions; that is, the potential energy concrete situations. The concept of ten-
is a measure of the deviation from the sion arises in the experience of process.
initial position, and so measures a certain As for the imaginative content, it is quite
feature of the history of the system." And probable that the physical tension is con-
in general, "we may look for something ceived as a tendency. This would be in
analogous to the potential energy which line with the Aristotelian tradition.
shall measure the displacement of the We may turn to Hegel for the most
system from its initial configuration. "1 explicit attempt at the logical statement
of tension. Hegel was concerned with the
1 P. W. Bridgman, The Logic of Modern Physics,
p. Ufl. (New York: MacMillan. 1928), movement of consciousness, as well as
[87 ]
the intersection of concepts. He carried of final causation. By way of comment

over the polarity expressed in the Fich- it is noteworthy that Hegel does not
tean self and not-self into the process of identify tension and potentiality; he has
consciousness. The life of feeling and re- already accounted for potentiality in the
flection is a life of contradictions which first book. But again and again, as the
are overcome but to give rise to new ones. dialectic spirals upward, we pass moments
The reflective paradox in consciousness of disjunction which are thoroughly ten-
is the being of the self at any instant of sional in character. This should not be
what it will be found to be later, but can- surprising, since the dialectic itself is
not be experienced as now. 2 The self is supposed to be the expression of the
itself by being other than itself. In fact, equilibration of disjoined concepts. One
anything is what it is by being what it is might, it seems, substitute "equilibrium"
not: there is an essential contradiction for "synthesis" and do no great harm to
in everything but the Absolute. In logic the process. The essential thing is the
this state of affairs culminates in the weaving together of oppositions, the pres-
peculiar nature of the disjunctive syl- ence of otherness in the same. The insta-
logism, in which there is a united opposi- bility in any phase which directs it on
tion between the exclusive grounds, and to the next one is tension. From the
an oscillation between the consequences. language which he uses in his specific
The concept which Hegel derives, toward reference to tension, one might judge that
the end of the dialectic process, to de- Hegel had in mind the analogy of the
scribe logical tension is that of Chemism. 8 chemical tension of an element at the
Chemism is the antithesis of Mechanism, moment it unites with another for pre-
where the rule is mechanical determina- cipitation.
tion. Out of mechanism, by its own self The realistic significance of the notion
transcendence, comes its negation, in of tension is recognized by McTaggart in
which there is a partial indetermination his Commentary on Hegel's Logic. 4 No-
by grounds, and a partial determination where in the book is his criticism of the
by self as well as other. The synthesis master more dramatic. He holds that the
of Chemism and Mechanism turns out to whole notion of Chemism, which is ap-
be Teleology, which is the last moment parently an important one for Hegel, must
of the Absolute Notion before it becomes be unconditionally rejected, and with it,
the Absolute Idea. In ordinary language, therefore, the concept of tension. For,
it is the concept which gives an inter- granting that here we have a category
mediary between the concept of organism of alternation and not an alternation of
and the concept of spirit, just as chemism the categories, there is no way to derive
gives an intermediary between the con- it legitimately from the idea of Absolute
cept of mechanism and the concept of Mechanism. Nor is there any way to get
organism. the notion of Teleology out of it. The
The chemical object, and here "chemi- transitions will not stand the detailed
cal" is a strictly Hegelian term, has in criticism which McTaggart proceeds to
itself a tension between its two extremes give them. But what if, nevertheless, the
which are the exclusions it has been born category is allowed to remain? Then the
of in transcending the sheer atomicity of dialectic process can never attain the
the mechanical. It is seeking equilibrium, Absolute, but will proceed in a circle of
on a basis of what Hegel calls the Nega- perpetual tension and equilibrium. It
tive Object, or indifference. And the does not seem to occur to McTaggart that
tension so established initiates the process the tensional character of the dialectic
of its passing out of itself into the life is essential, though it may be that the
later realization of this accounts in part
• JosIah Royce, p. 206. The Spirit of Mode?'n
Philosophy (New York: Houghton Mifflin and Com- for his rejection of the Hegelian method
"11 1.U:l0).
11(Il1Y,
in hlR own work. Also, the difficulty of
• Hegel, O. W. lr" Bctence of Lortie, Trans. John-
SOli and. t;truthers, p. :168. (London: Allen and
Unwin, 1929.) ·Pp.256-7.
THE NOTION OF TENSION 89
reaching the Absolute by any dialectic if effect of these feelings. Such inclination
it cannot be reached by Hegel's, may might be viewed as continuous in kind
account for McTaggart's spiritual plural- with the inclination which is involved
ism, in which the Hegelian Absolute does in the compulsion of ordinary objects
not appear. Anyway, it is evident that upon the experient. It could be un-
the spiral ascension toward the Absolute conscious in the sense that its component
is given its "upward" curve by a some- feelings need not be clearly focal in per-
what arbitrary selection of concepts. And ception. Yet, these marginal impressions
despite the justly authoritative ring of are retained in memory, and exert their
McTaggart's proposal to get from Mecha- influence on the subsequent psychic
nism to Teleology without the use of process. In this role they are of the
Hegel's Chemism, it is to be noted that nature of perceptual appetitions, or ten-
neither he nor anyone else has been able dencies toward clear and distinct per-
to do it. Whitehead, for example, finds ception. Leibniz' version of them as
it convenient to derive mechanism as a infinitesimal perceptions is not essential
restriction of organism (Teleology) , to the picture. Here he was following the
through the basic mediation of creativity atomic tendency of physical theory, on
or cosmic tension. 5 the one hand, and his interpretation of
German dynamism, whether in Hegel the continuous nature of the mathemati-
or elsewhere, is most heavily indebted cal calculus as constituted by infinitesi-
to Leibniz, the modern author of the mals on the other. What he called minute
psychic meaning of tension. The concept perceptions can be viewed as serial limits
is there in his system, waiting for the in the continuity of ordinary perceptions.
slow development that the history of That was the way Kant conceived the
European thought was to give it. The process, in his theory of intensive sensa-
analogy between tensions in mind and in tional quanta. That also, was the way
nature was clearer to Leibniz than that James conceived the process in his flux of
between either and the tension of logic consciousness. I' do not believe that the
when the latter is considered by itself. change violates meaning. The important
He spared reason the ordeal of an anti- thing, however, is the way in which
nomic dialectic, limiting the psychic ten- Leibniz brought together the seemingly
sions to perception and appetition. The diverse faculties in a conative integration.
latter two functions he endeavored to The analogy between this and the in-
relativize, on the ground that experience tegrative tendency expressed in physical
is continuous in emotion and sensation. tension is revealed most clearly in terms
The appetition of the monad was a func- of the equilibrative character of both
tion of its perceptual activity no less than functions. The psychic organism seeks
its ideal form. The swarm of minute per- to return to equilibrium; at the level of
ceptions was to be conceived as an uni- clear consciousness this becomes the
verse of infinitesimal adaptations of the urgency of desire; coupled with the initi-
psychic organism, whose dominant in- ation of activity it becomes volition. It
clination was toward equilibrium. 6 Hence will be noticed, however, that tension is
the minute perception or feeling was a the generic concept, volition its species.
component in psychic tension, a fact If it be asked how there can be psychic
which Leibniz expressed by correlating tension, or the state of psychic energy,
unrest in the organism with the deter- when there is no such thing as psychic
mination of its inclinations by the integral energy, the reply must be that the ques-
'The order of the world is derived from God, tion has been begged. True, there is no
whQse essential nature is creativIty. But it is the psychic energy if by energy we mean
or~lllr of UlII wod~1 whlch t·,.. :.Ll·icL~ orgllUl~lni, lind
malteo poooible meohanioal oyotemo. The wiodom in stuff, or RllhRt;mr.fl ;'!p;'!rt. from RYRt.ematic
maltins the chcmiatry divine ia evident. Sec Pr-ocoao organization. But what I ,eibni~ seems to
and Reatitll.
• fl., W, T,f"ihni7., 7Ilp.1I1 1i':,.,.f1-1/,. nnru:p.rninn ff1l.mf1.1!. have meant was the differential withIn
Under-standing, trans., Alfred Langley, p. 171. (New
'lCU!'k: MacMUlall, 1!l96). a dynamic system. Such a differential is
a dynamic function expressing the inte- the basis of a tensional theory there would
gration of the system. Leibniz himself be no need to posit pleasures and pains
did not use the term energy in any but in the rat's learning process. The assump-
an Aristotelian sense in this context. But tion would be that certain tensions are
in view of what he said about it, the con- established which tend to discharge them-
clusion that he was describing what he selves when the proper situation· is
might have called psychic tension does afforded. The tension associated with the
not seem unjust. complete carrying through of the act, say
Among the recent psychologists who of getting food, would be reestablished
have in one way or another inherited the in a return to the situation. Repetition
Leibnizian standpoint are the psycho- of the act would simply make it easier,
pathologists, Janet and Freud, the func- in the sense of having less disease or
tional and configuration schools, and disequilibrium associated with it. Intro-
certain behaviorists who have been in- spection reveals on the part of the ob-
fluenced by any or all of these. Reserving server an uneasiness when a customary
detailed consideration of the psychology act is not completed, as when one passes
of realization, or tension as the sense of by a corner that one is accustomed to
reality, until later, it will be well worth- turn. The customary discharge of tension
while to show what tension means by has been balked, resulting in a disturbance
illustrating how psychologists have inter- of equilibrium.
preted it. The concept of tension has also been
The 'complex' of Freud and his follow- introduced successfully into the solution
ers, to instance the usage of abnormal of problems in social and political psycho-
psychology, is a locus of emotional ten- logical theory. The socialization of the
sion. The repression of impulse leads to individual can be viewed as a process of
a state of tension in which the functional learning to control tensions, and to keep
balance of the organism is threatened or the proper balance between inner and
seriously disturbed. The complex is the outer stresses. S The successful integra-
particular ideational or imaginal content tion of the individual in society is the
of the tensional situation. The tensions, equilibration of the individual and of
once set up, tend to discharge themselves society. The tensions which the indi-
along the line of least resistance, which vidual has to control are at first merely
leads to the various circuitous discharges organic: certain urgencies must be re-
of impulse in descriptions of which the pressed, or diverted. But at higher levels
Freudian literature abounds. The thera- of organization the control is indirect
peutic technique involves the restoration through habit, or direct through conscious
of normalcy by the re-casting of the ten- volition. The same approach in politics
sional set-up, or the breaking down of the
would mean an interpretation of political
complex.
ideation and behavior in terms of the
It has been suggested that tension re-
individual and group tensions. Phe-
place the function of pleasure and pain
nomena such as group control through
in the phase of memory which psycholo-
gists call "stamping in." 7 The accepted the manipulation of symbols, or the emer-
view attributes the physical memory of gence of timely leaders and demagogues,
the rat to run the maze to pleasures and can be understood as the tensional adjust':
pains involved in the course of the process. ments of dynamic social systems in which
The assumption was that the pleasure individual systems such as selves and
accompanying success, as the consump- organisms are components. The attempt
tion of food, and the pain accompanying is to give both a phenomenological and a
failure, tended to preserve or eliminate genetic account of political experience. u
respectively the reactions concerned. On 8 L. K. Frank, "Physiological Tensions and Social
Structure," Publications of American Sociological
1E . .T. Swift, "The Learning Process, A Criticism Society. 1927, pp. 74-83.
and a Theory," PS1J(;holoQical Rlmill1l1, vol. ilil, 1020, • H n T,,,,q~wpll, P811(';hopathnlnOll mn.rl Politi".• ,
pp. 27-43. (University of Chicago Press, 1931).
THE NOTION OF TENSION 91
In philosophy the idea of tension has equilibration is also great. The spirit, in
played an increasing part in theories of this sense, can be either the object which
value. The reason for this is the ease establishes the tension, or the object
with which a dynamic viewpoint has been which releases it, or both; or again, one
derived from the implications of a nine- object can serve both roles. The attribu-
teenth century philosophy. Through con- tion of power to the spirit is a direct
figuration psychology, whose contribution response to the tension associated with
is important enough for especial consider- it. 13 These are but two instances of many
ation later, and particularly through the that might be cited. The concept of atti-
older functional psychology, the organ- tude in social psychology and the theory
ismic or "wholistic" perspective has be- of meaning, the determining tendency of
come fairly dominant in philosophic value the Wurzburg school, the governing pro-
theory. In a sense the debt to functional pensity of the American behavioristic
psychology is a debt to Leibniz no less value theorists, are all based upon the
than is that of the Gestalt school. For it fundamental conception of tension.14
is well known that Dewey derived his It might be questioned, with some
reflexologiCal dialectic from Hegel, and justice, whether the meaning of tension
that in his earlier years he was a thorough is the same in all of the uses of it which
student of Leibniz. As I have already have been cited. Perhaps, like the early
suggested, both Hegel and Leibniz surely interpretations of the term idea, it is a
did much to explicate the tensional cate- highly ambiguous notion, whose appeal
gories. On the basis of his modification to the psychologist lies in its essential
of the reflex-arc concept so as to relativize vagueness. The easiest way to answer
stimulus and response, Dewey early held such an objection would be to point out
that thought, i.e., the conscious process, that the basic concepts in any science,
is a tension between stimulus and re- especially a new one, are derived at some
sponse. iO Obviously this is in accord with time through some striking analogy, and
his conception of the stimulus and re- that their generality and consequent
sponse as functions of an organiC circuit, utility are inseparable from a certain
or dynamic system. Mead, whose psy- degree of vagueness. So long as the
chology more or less interpenetrates meanings do not fall in entirely different
Dewey's at every point, suggested that universes of discourse, or do not have
the inner content of the organism, its here internal inconsistency, the suggestive
and now, was to be conceived as a content value of the concept is not impaired. But
of tension, or, as he puts it, of stress and to follow out the line of criticism in more
strain.l1 Among the value theorists, Prof. detail, several differences in meaning are
Parker has expressed most succinctly the certainly evident. There is the possibility
general significance of tension for generic of a sharp divide between physical and
value. His notion of inner and outer mental categories, such that one might
harmony is based on the theory of inner conceive either physical tension in the
and outer equilibration of tensions. 12 Prof. organism, or mental tension, or both,
Ames has isolated the religious value basis without finding any real relation between
in experience in terms of tension. A spirit,
them. So-called physiological tension, for
says Prof. Ames, is any object which func-
example, is a description of the dynamic
tions in a focal way in a situation of high
state and process of the physiological
tension. Here speaking of a tension as
organism. It need not essentially have
"high" means, as it always does, that the anything to do with consciousness, or
disequilibrium is comparatively great, and whatever is considered distinctly "men-
consequently the tendency to return to
M 1':. R. Am\!~. The P811u7wZo.<7!J oJ n~liflioU3 Em
,. John Dewey, "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psy" pananae, p. 106. (Boston: ROllghton, Mltfiln and
elwLugy," P&Jj()hololYf.M,/. IMtJ!~w, 1890. Cumpany, H110.)
n G. H. Mead, unpubllshed manuscript, "Mind and 14 ~ee,' for example, Prof. R. B. Pel'l'Y's discussion
'Anlly!' uf u!'KiiUllc equilibration 1n his (] ono'rat '1'heOTlI uj
"Dewitt Purker, lIuman Values, sec especially p. Value. (New York: Longmans Green and (.)0111-
32. (New Yu1'lc Harpel', 1081.) p>iny, 1020.)
tal." Psychic tension, on the other hand, a mere flux in the naive sense. There are
might be simply a state of feeling, such isolable structures, constancies of func-
as the introspective phase of emotion, or tion, invariants of pattern, and recur-
of volition, and without any real organic rences of content. There are, in a word,
significance. But one important value in discernible states or situational condi-
the tensional approach lies just here. tions, with definite functional character-
Whatever be the metaphysical interpre- istics. Tension, though fundamentally a
tations of its various exponents, as to its dynamic concept, has its 'static' import, in
physicality or mentality, the concept of that it represents the state of a dynamic
tension is neither mental nor physical system. If, now, that state is processional,
exclusively. It is organic, which means as it is in behavior, the systematic char-
that it is either or both. It constitutes, in acter is there nevertheless. And the
a word, the conceptual passage from the supposition is that invariably it is accom-
"physical" to the "mental" or in the other panied by tendencies toward equilibra-
direction. tion, and that these tendencies are
In a similar way we can dispose of the functions of the integration and differ-
question as to whether we are dealing entiation of the components involved.
with a behavioral or a non-behavioral The further assumption, that there is in
category. From the dynamic standpoint some sense a phenomenological or dis-
there is no phenomenon which is not tinctly 'psychic' meaning involved, re-
either a behavior component or a behavior quires further detailed discussion.
correlate. It is true that the state of Descriptively tensions are dynamic,
psychological knowledge makes it im- directional, ambiguous-they are the in-
possible to find these components or dices of events. They are not 'essences,'
correlates in many instances, but the though they may be immediate; they are
point of view assumes that they are there. not primary 'data' of intuition, if by the
Nor is there any need to limit the term given we mean simply the specious.
behavior to the gross organic or recogniz- Rather they are immanent directors of
ably motor segments of the process. The intuition, its limits, trends, origins. As
activity of the sense organs, for example, such they are presentiments of change,
is their behavior just as truly as is overt novelty, and emergence, harbingers of
action the behavior of the organism as a becoming. Their psychological history is
whole. And in neither case is the process a story in itself.
Chapter III
Some Aspects of the Psychology of Tension

For philosophy, which is concerned with the whole of experience, there is no
better psychological perspective than the dynamic one. By dynamic psychology I
mean the view which takes into account the feelings, thoughts, emotions that can
best be grasped and reported from within the self, and also the physiological and be-
havioral structures and events that can be externally apprehended. These data, com-
ponents all in the process with which psychology has to deal, must be viewed in their
corr~lations and interrelations, in order that they may be submitted to a functional
analysis which will reveal their unique roles in the process as contributions to the
total experiencing situation. In one way or another the current names such as
'modified behaviorism,' 'functional,' 'wholistic,' 'organismic,' or 'total-situation,' or
'configuration' psychology designate methodological assumptions and conceptual
matrices radically empirical, and therefore dedicated to the dynamic point of view.
It is from this standpoint that the psychology of realization is to be most truly con-
ceived. However important may be the cumulative results of more restdcted outlooks,
more specialized methodologies, their limitations are apt to become manifest at the
very point in whose illumination the philosopher is most deeply interested. Intro-
spection, rigorously pursued, gives valuable results, but it may fail completely in the
endeavor to establish such continuities as those between higher and lower animal
forms, or between perceptual data and perceptual processes in man. Like limitations,
translated into the failings of their peculiar systematic distortions, become inseparable
from other restricted points of view. The dynamic viewpoint is the answer to a
demand for descriptive explanations of psycho-physical phenomena that shall be both
general and adequate. Yet it is both possible and convenient to attack the situation
from its two main aspects, the 'inside' and the 'outside,' without treating of both at
the same time. They can be considered separately each in its turn,and then viewed
in their more concrete relation.
diverse dimensions. By element James
1 did not mean 'atomic constituent' of the
Because of the philosophical interest sort that is suggested by the aggregation
which bent his psychological research of marbles or bricks. He meant rather
toward the fundamentals, and because of 'component,' in the sense in which the
the genius with which he pioneered the elements of any genuine continuum are
dynamic consciousness, William James its components and not its mere constitu-
can best give us an introduction to tension ents. Among the elements of the stream
as seen from within the self. Conscious- James found, in addition to the substan-
ness, said James, is not what the naive tival and the adjectival ones, the now
associationists had taken it to be. It is justly celebrated relational factors corre-
not a bundle of impressions fortuitously sponding to verbs and prepositions. 1 It
stranded together, nor is it a panorama was here that he posited the interpene-
of RhRolutely c'liRRevcred ideational and tration or connexity of the relatively
::;ensational states. It is a fiux-'stream' discrete data of awareness, and gave once
is the word J ames used~-of continuous for all his answer as to how relations are
eharaeter constituted by the (lOnl':retion
• WilHam Jam~~. Pd'n"ivles uf Psychology. p. 243.
of diverse elements and the variation of (New York: Henry Holt and Compuny, 1800,)
[93 ]
experienced. In his own thinking and in the more recent restaging of that con-
that of his American followers the dis- troversy in the analysis of acts of choice.
cernibility of immediately experienced re- Those who were influenced in the earlier
lations became extremely important. period by the work of Ach maintained
There was, however, another phase of with him that there is an original non-
his contribution which is certainly no less sensational factor in the experience of
important. Among the 'transitive ele- willing.s Ach claimed to find in his ob-
ments' James found what he called 'feel- servers a definite potential energy, psy-
ings of tendency' or tendencies toward, chic in nature, which could be described
such that we can experience what is and measured. The phenomenological
emerging in thought or awareness before moment which especially differentiated
it arrives. Attaching this dynamic char- volition for him was the moment de-
acter to the brain as its basis, James scribed by the expression 'I really will,'
wrote : "We believe the brain to be an and the conclusion was that this moment
organ whose internal equilibrium is al- need not be accompanied by any identi-
ways in a state of change, the change fiable imagery, kinaesthetic or otherwise.
affecting every part."2 It seems reason- Against this, no doubt motivated by the
able to suppose that the feelings of ten- supposition that there is no way to derive
dency which James found were tensions, feelings on the motor side of experience
or feelings of equilibrium, whether we excepting via the sensory after-reports of
view that equilibrium as correlated with motor processes, the opponents of Ach
specific brain process or not. The dy- argued that imagery was present if his
namic character of James's view, how- observers had but attended to it. In the
ever, as indicated in the above quotation, more recent controversy, a like objection
is something of an anticipation of later was urged against the work of Wells, 4
physiologies such as that of Lashley, who has stated definitely and convinc-
which we shall consider below. ingly the absence of kinaesthetic sensa-
Of these tensions, if we may now call tions on the part of her observers during
them such, two important questions may acts of choice. In the latter instance the
be asked, both of which must be answered objector was Prof. Wheeler, who claims
from the self-inclusive point of view. The that under the influence of proper train-
first has to do with the originality of ing his observers were able to detect
tensions, the second with their affective kinaesthetic imagery in situations where
neutrality. Both of these are important Wells' subjects had found none. 5 So far
in the differentiation of pure tension. as a layman in psychology can judge,
Both of these problems are extremely Wells has carried her point for the pres-
difficult ones, whose final solutions call ence of original feelings of tension in acts
for a much more careful consideration of choice, since the reports of her ob-
than I shall be able to give them. Thus, servers do not seem to evidence lack of
what may seem to be conclusions are to training, and do evidence original ten-
be understood as but tentative proposals sional experiences.
that the truth may lie in one direction Turning now to a discussion of bodily
rather than in another. and kinaesthetic sensations by Hunter, 6
Psychologists themselves are not agreed who for the most part might be described
on the originality of feelings of tension. as a liberal behaviorist, we find nothing
Two controversies staged in the field of • A summary of the earlier controversy is given
the theory of volition will reveal this in an article by R. M. Ogden, "Imageless Thought,"
Psych. Bull. 8, p. 183. For Ach's own statement,
basic disagreement. The first has to do see Narziss Ach, Uber den Willensakt und das
Temperament. (Leipzig: QueUe and Meyer, 1910.)
with the earlier controversy about the 'TTnnnri~ M. Wf!IlR, 'Phil Phrmmnmwlooy of Act.9
possibility of 'imageless thought'-whkh of Choice, Brit. Jour. Psych., Monog. Suppl. No. 11,
1927, IV, 155 pp.
was held to be exemplified in the phe- • R,\:ymQn(l, H. Wheeler. "The ActiOn Conscious-
nomena of volition~and the RAcond is ness," Brit. Jour. Psych. 19, 1929, pp. 253 ff.
4 W. 8, HUllt"'!", Gene'rat. PlIye.lwlooy, ChaPter V.
"The Affective Process." (University of Chicago
Press, 1918.)
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TENSION 95
to warrant dogma about the role of 'neutral' emotion. 1o It is suggested that

kinaesthetic sensations. Not only is their the emotion of excitement be viewed as
introspection fraught with difficulty be- one of the basic emotional types. The
cause of their vague and fleeting charac- result of careful analysis reveals that
ter on the one side and their constant there is such an emotional primitive, and
presence on the other, but comparatively that it is independent of pleasure and
little is known about the neural physi- pain. Excitement may be either pleasant
ology concerned in kinaesthesia. The as- or unpleasant, indifferently, or it may be
sumption that the feelings of action at neither. It is interesting to note that the
the level of consciousness can be reduced . theory of excitement as an emotion upsets
to elements in kinaesthetic and organic one of the most cherished of psychological
sensations is founded on the basic as- dogmas. Instead of the usual assumption
sumption of the older theory of sensation, that emotion is disruptive in effect and
that all experience is ultimately reducible chaotic in origin, it is assumed, on the
to sensory elements. Hunter, whose be- basis of observation, that excitement
havioristic liberalism does not, as one serves the definite function of preparing
might expect, take him beyond a sensa- the organism for action by raising the
tionalist point of view, expresses the hope behavioral tone and marshalling the
that this will turn out to be the case with organic energies. It has already been sug-
the experience of activity, and leaves the gested by Cannon 11 and others that some
question open for future decision. One such function is served by emotion in
suggests, however, that the phenomeno- general; but the usual view has been that
logical evidence seems to point toward the feeling aspect of emotion is epiphe-
non-kinaesthetic feelings of process. nomenal, while some emotions, like joy,
The neutrality of tensions hinges on have been assumed to have no adaptive
the possibility of a neutral element or value whatsoever. 12 The isolation of ex-
dimension in affectivity. Plato suggests citement as an emotion would allow its
in Philebus that there are feelings in the independent variability, and yet make
affective continuum which are neither it basic in the emotional scheme. For
pleasant nor painful, but indifferent, and given a state of excitement, it might be-
possibly more fundamental than either come pleasant or unpleasant according
pain or pleasure. 7 The appeal is simply to how its pleasure-pain content is deter-
to the fact that we do find such neutral mined, and so might, but need not, be-
feelings in our awareness. The modern come determined specifically as joy, fear,
return to realism has brought with it a or rage.
revival of interest in the possibility of The affective neutrality of tension was
neutral affect, in accord with the demand posited by Peirce, who in more ways than
one anticipated the later phenomenologi-
for continuity between the cognitive and
cal findings. Peirce rejected explicitly the
non-cognitive phases of experience. One
view that tension is primarily hedonic,
writer has suggested that the immediate
asserting indeed that here was one potent
experience which is usually called intui- argument against ethical hedonism. On
tion intersects affective experience in its the contrary, tension is the basic feeling
neutral zone. S The problem is therefore form, and more likely is the only type of
one for the theory of affectivity. feeling which characterizes the simple
Multi-dimensional theories of affectivity cell, as behavioristically revealed in the
tend to acknowledge a dimension of ex~ exp1'ln~lon and contraction of protopla::3l11,
citement or strain. o The most recent work in a word, by its equilibration. Pleasure
in the theory of emotion finds one of its
10 G M Rt.rRUon, "'f'hp Flln~t.ion of l<'mot.ion :lR
challenging Vl'uVUi:iltiuml ill that uf a Shown Particularly in Excitement," Psych. Rev.,
vol. 35, no. 5, pp. 351, if.
• Philebus 33, E. Jowett. 11 W. B. Cannon, Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger,
• G. Dawes Hicks, in a Symposium: Immediate Fear, and Rage. (New York: Appleton, 1927.)
Experience, Proc. Artist. Soc., Supp. Vol. IX, p. 183. 12 On the epiphenomenal character of joy, see H.
• See Hunter, op. cit., for a discussion of Wundt's Carr, Psychology, p. 276. (Longmans Green & Co.,
f;xdtemel1t and Rtrain dimensions. 192".)
7
and pain-and here again Peirce is ex- tion of a functional standpoint is evident.
plicit-are 'higher,' more 'abstract'; more It means, more specifically, that elemen-
'derivative' feelings depend on specific talist doctrines, whether of brain locali-
types of consciousness. 13 zation or of energy as a quantified psychic
We have, then, in view of the phenom- 'stuff,' do not suit the facts. For it is
enological evidence that can be adduced, found by the extirpation of brain areas
reason to believe that there are felt ten- that not a particular function, but whole
sions or feelings of tendency toward equi- ranges of function are affected, and that
libration in awareness, and that these can efficiency of response is dependent on the
be distinguished both from kinaesthesia total mass of tissue in operation rather
and from volition insofar as the latter is than on the specific area injured. Also,
dependent on pleasure and pain. A com- the configuration of the injury is a potent
plete account, however, demands at least factor in post-operational reaction: if but
a speculative version of what physiologi- one side of the brain is injured, behavior
cal and behavioral correlates are involved. may be disturbed, while symmetrical
injury to both sides leaves the behavior
2 system intact. There is no evidence that
responses change qualitatively by addi-
That the unit of behavior is the com- tion or subtraction of physiological ele-
plete act of behavior itself was posited ments.
by Dewey in his now famous paper on To such facts Lashley fits the following
the reflex arc concept in psychology. theory, endeavoring to account for both
There, as will be recalled, he insisted on unified and differentiated aspects of be-
the organic and inter-constitutive nature havior. The fact that specific responses
of the stimulus-response relation. The depend in part on the condition of the
more recent work in dynamic psychology organism as a whole can be explained by
has not only vindicated Dewey's concep- assuming that nerve integration is a
tion, but has given independent elabo- gradient. The conduction of specific nerve
rations of detail which can be well impulses is facilitated or inhibited by the
integrated with it. Especially important electric condition of the whole system
toward that end are the psychologies of involved. There is no 'wearing down' of
Lashley and Lewin, the former a physi- tissue to make facile connections. On the
ological behaviorist, the latter a gestalt contrary, it is found that unused channels
behaviorist. can take over the conductive function, or
An imposing theory of behavioral even the reaction function, of trained
psycho-physiology has been advanced by ones, and consequently conduction de-
Lashley,14 who carries over into neural pends on the mass effect upon the channel
physiology the gradient theory used so which does the conducting. Lashley cites
successfully by Child 15 in the explanation the instance of a pianist who under the
of neural development. Behavior, says stress of public recital transposed one-half
Lashley, is a function of the central
tone higher a whole movement of a
nervous system as a whole, not of par-
Beethoven sonata, a feat which she had
ticular end organisms or brain areas. The
never tried or done before, and could not
behavior mechanism is a dynamic system
such that the equilibrium of the total repeat afterward with some practice. The
nervous organism is involved in any presence of dynamic systems in such be-
stimulus and response situation. Here havior is the most logical explanation of
the agreement with Dewey in the assump- its organic character.
The general assumption is that stimu-
13 C. S. Peirce, Collected Papers, Vol. I, Par. 333. lation, at the end-organ, sets up a differ-
(Editors C. S. Hartshorne and Paul Vvciss; Cam~
l.>!'ldge, Ma~".: IIarvard University l're~~, 19:n.) ence of potential, or a gradient, between
14 K. B. Lashley, Brain M p,dl,ani.~m..~ and Intelli-
gence. (Unlver81Ly of Chlcugo Press, 1!l2!l.) stimulated areas. Tn the Janguage which
"C. M. Child, Thll T'hYI('iollllji,cn/. li'oMnl!a#ons of we have been using, this means that
Behavior. (New York: Henry Holt and Company,
Hl2H.) stimulation produces a state of tension.
This same difference of potential is pro- with the peculiar conformance to laws of
jected in the brain area. The unique gestalt. The processes activated by the stimuli
have the 'tendency' in their own right, to
character of any stimulus is the difference actualize definite gestalt movements. 1 7
of potential it sets up, or its gradient
effect. (Conversely, the identity of two This, I take it, is the psycho-genetic de-
instances would be the identity of the scription of the gradient function, in
tensions involved.) Hence, the relational which the stimulating situation is pre-
as well as the integral and dynamic char- cipitated by the total one. I shall be
acter of the behavior mechanism is discussing this phase of the 'constitution
posited. The gradient is a dynamic ten- of stimulus by response,' as Dewey would
dency to react in a given direction, even have called it, and would like to give it
if in a partially indeterminate one. The a name. Because of its precipitating char-
energy involved is no mystical stuff, but acter, I call it the 'catalytic' phase of the
an integer of the total gradient situation. process.
Lewin,16 the gestalt behaviorist, gives The above description of the dynamic
a phenomenological and genetic account factors in experience does not allow itself
of the act of behavior which might well be the generality to which it is entitled. For
the behavioral counterpart of Lashley's it specifies that such dynamic factors are
physiological account. Lewin himself is present "where conditions are at issue
not dependent upon physiological specu- which do not in themselves already fully
lations. He bases his account on a criti- settle the gestalt character." By this we
cism of the naive behaviorism which would be led to suppose that some stimu-
confuses phenomenological and 'geno- lating situations are not of the dynamic
typic' accounts, insisting that there must sort. But if we turn to the modern theory
be some adequate source posited for the of sensation, it becomes evident that any
energy which enters into the act. The sensation is more or less of this nature.
assumption that the description in terms Such would seem to be the burden of the
of stimulus and response is sufficient, and law of stimulus rate, where the rate as
that the stimulus is causal in the act, is well as the intensity of stimulus is in-
groundless, according to Lewin. What volved in adequacy.18 What this would
must be assumed is a state of tension seem to imply is that, conversely, the
involving the total situation. The tension tension which is partially expressed in
is an expression of the energy available the 'charging' of the conductors, always
for the act. And the tension is purely plays a part in the precipitation of the
psychic, as an ingenious series of experi- stimulating situation. It is important to
ments indicate. That is, it is felt tension, remember at this point that from the
not merely postulated physiological set.
dynamic standpoint the term 'behavior'
The concept of behavior here expands
means 'organismic activity,' so that the
to include behavior that is peculiarly
'mental.' activity of the sense organs, or of the
nervous system, is comprehended under
T.p.e compatibility of 'gestalt dynamics'
the general description of behavior.
with assumptions such as those of both
Dewey and Lashley is shown in the fol- It is now possible to attend to certain
lowing description of the configurational phases of the process, with a view to the
attack: isolation of the tensional polarity in-
volved. The 'catalytic' phase taken in
Gestalt dynamics is always in evidence
where conditio no arc at ioouc which do not unanalyzed form, that is, the phase in
in themselves already fully settle the gestalt which the energies of the organism are
character. Upon insufficient or 'weak' stimu- marshalled at the point where the stimu-
lation by the stimulating situation, the final lating situation is forming, has been
gestalt structure is of its own accord pro-
duced from within outwards, in accordance n B. Peterman, The Gestalt Theory and the Prob-
lem of Configuration (New York: Harcourt Brace
,. J. F. Brown, "The Methods of Kurt Lewin in and Company, 1932).
thE> PRy~hology of Ar.tion ;mel Affection," Psych. 18 K n. Aelrilln, The Rasis of Sensation (New Vork:
Rev., vol. 35-36, 1928-9 pp. 200 If. W. W. Norton, 1928).
identified by Prof. T. V. Smith as the ing it as 'inter-equilibria!' or 'intra-cata-

primitive 'moral' phase, basic in con- lytic'-Le., as the process and direction
science and therefore functional as the of precipitation-it does not seem un-
dynamic differentium of the moral con- reasonable to suppose that in this polarity
sciousness, or conscience. Conscience, on we have the tensional correlate in the
this view, is precipitant of readiness for behavior process of the tensions which
action. 10 Into this same general structure are found phenomenologically in the
can be fitted two other phases of con- analysis of the 'stream of consciousness.'
sciousness whose differentiation has been The picture, which we have drawn at first
rather successfully undertaken on a from the inside of awareness itself, be-
psychological basis. First, there is the comes completed through the attainment
religious consciousness, as defined by of depth and perspective, from the outside
King,20 and Leys.21 Essentially their de- point of view. It is true that the 'outside'
scription finds the religious primitive in account is a highly speculative one, but
the phase of the act in which, as Leys
it does give the possibility of mechanisms
puts it, there is 'no response,' Le., no ade-
which may be assumed to underlie the
quate response is found for the stimulus
that is arising. If conscience is a function more immediate experience of tensions,
of readiness for action, so also, one must at the same time retaining a generality
suppose, is the religious consciousness. which does not seem to demand the super-
The difference would seem to lie in the structures demanded by an elementalist
fact that while conscience leads immedi- theory, or the break between behavior and
ately to action, the religious attitude sensory experience which sensationalism
allows the possibility of a general readi- brings out.
ness in which the action is facilitated, And if, whether viewed phenomenologi~
whatever it may be. In general, the re- cally or speculatively, the process of ex-
lation between moral and religious con- perience seems to presuppose directional
sciousness or behavior is difficult to define. tensions, we may be justified in assuming
One would suppose, however, that the their pervasive character in experience,
difference between 'readiness' as such and insofar as iUs the experience of organisms
'readiness to act' would express fairly as we know them. That is, we may con-
well the difference between the religious clude, at least provisionally, that tensions
and the moral phases of the act. If the of direction, and therefore empirical
aesthetic phase is to be found in this futures, are essential in any present ex-
general picture, one might expect to find perience, in order for that experience to
it associated with or in some sense a be what it is. At the level of symbolic
function of the moment of equilibrium. analysis this rather simple conclusion is
However they disagree in detail, aesthe- expressed in the pragmatic propositions
ticians are almost unanimous in describ- that meaning is expectational and judg-
ing the aesthetic experience as that ment is teleological. I have not presumed
characterized by 'disinterestedness,' 'bal- to give either a theory of the symbol or
ance of faculties,' or 'organic harmony.'22 a theory of purpose in terms of the phe-
If, now, we attend to the polarity which nomenology and psychology of tension.
runs through these isolable phases, view- But if the analysis is correct, it should
19 T. V. Smith, Beyond Conscience (New York: accord with adequate theories of both
McGraw-Hill, 1934). The term 'catalysis' is Prof. meaning and intention, even though these
Smith's.
•• Irving King, Differentiation of the Religious latter require further and much more
Consciousness (New York: MacMillan, 1905).
21 Wayne Leys, The Religious Control of Emotion
elaborate descriptive and explanatory ac-
(New York: R.. Long, and R. R. Smith, 1932) . counts. At present, however, this must
•• On this ehal"Hlt.P.l' of thll flll~t.hlltlc Ilxpllrilll1CIl seA
n. W. Prall. 4e$thetic ./udfJment. P. 57. It goes remain one of many important and un-
without saying that in this, as in the other types of answcrcd questions.
experience mcntioncd in the text, the summary
characterl7.ation which we have given does not evell Throughout this discusRion we have
begin to do them justice. It is, at best, merely
indIcative. been dealing with the directional 'root'
of polarity, or what might be called the made by phenomenologically inclined

directional tension. This is in accord with philosophers, and to the second 'root' of
the assumption that one meaning of ten- polarity, which is the polarity of opposi-
sion lies in a generalization, or purification, and how both are involved in San-
tion, of Whitehead's notion of 'appetition.' tayana's account of the experience of
We now proceed to some applications of events will be indicated in the following
the concept of tension which have been section.
Chapter IV
Santayana's Dynamic 'Essences'

Nothing is so foreign to Santayana's essences as polarity, either of direction or of
opposition. In the realm of essence there are no changes, no novelties, no tendencies,
or polarities involving direction from and toward; and each essence being responsible
only to itself, there are no contradictions or oppositions. In a sense, the absence of
direction involves that of opposition, since these two determinations of polarity are
interdependent. The polarity which is direction toward something gets its meaning
partly from the fact that it is also a direction against something; namely, against
whatever is going in the opposite direction. But direction against is of the very essence
of the polarity of opposition, hence the interdependence of the 'two roots of the
principle of polarity.' The absence of polarity from the realm of essence should entail
the absence of polarity's dynamic phenomenological counterpart, the experience of
direction and opposition which is found in feelings of tension. There should be no
directional tensions, no oppositional tension, in Santayana's immediacy. Yet there is
a point of view from which tensions in immediacy are expected, if not welcomed,
simply because they seem essential to experiencing, whether as indices of events, or
as involutions of the future in the present. Such a viewpoint, of course, would in some
way assert the immediacy and the reality of time, process, change: it would be that
which Wyndham Lewis calls 'futuristic.' But Santayana has never wanted the winds
of futurism to gain permanent hold on his ethereal essences.
Change is among the things that can assimilate, need not detract from the
be doubted by the adept in scepticism. value of his phenomenological contribu-
For it is an inference, a positing of animal tion. There is, moreover, the whole posi-
faith and specious like all of the others. tive theory of tension worked out in The
Suspending animal faith "I no longer Realm of Matter, which, when purged of
seem to live in a changing world, but an its cosmological pretensions, becomes defi-
illusion of change seems to play idly nitely futuristic.
before me, and to be contained in my For Santayana the field of awareness
changelessness."! But doubt, once ad- is a manifold of static data which either
mitted, becomes ground for a generalized as qualities or as forms or both are selec-
belief that "~vents, and the reality of tions from a 'realm of essence.' The par-
change ~he~ In~?}ve, may theref?re be ticular quale 'this red, here and now' is
always IllUSIOns. Let the sceptIc cast immediate in intuition as an 'essence' no
aside his animal urge~cies,. his fears, less than is the form 'triangularity.'
regrets, hopes, and desIres, In a word, Consequently whatever is present to feel-
all that, when purified phenomenologi- ing or awarer~ess whether it be sensation
c~lly, bccomes wh~t we have called ten- or memory, imp~lse or meaning, is pres-
slOnal, and the realIty of change has been t' th' d' f t t' d' t
cast off with them. en. In e Imme lacy 0 a s a IC, Iscre~,
umversal essence. Essences are Platomc
Yet paradoxically enough, Santayana
Ideas relieved of their dynamic and
does finally admit to immediacy data that
existential meanings, and welded with
are candidly temdonal That in rioing RO
he becomes disloyal to his essential thesis, qualia in immediate experience. Since
s
even contradicting where he dare not they are intrinsically Irrelevant to exist-
ence, both physical and mental, they are
1 George Santayana, Scepticism and Animal Faith,
JJ. 30. (.New York: ~crHmers, 1930.) • George ~a11tayal1a. The l~e(tlm of Essence, Pl.'.
"llJtd. Hi:i l't. (New York: l~l:dbu"I·~. 1HZ'/).
r 100]
SANTAYANA'S' ESSENCES' 101
not immediate warrants for any reality lutes whose perfection implies their own
save their own, and although spirit or 'subsistence.'
active awareness is dependent on them These and a good many other diffi-
for content, they are not dependent on culties would arise in a critique of Santay-
awareness for their being. As non-exist- ana's position. I cite them, however, not
ent, their reality is constituted by their simply as vicious contradictions, realizing
inner necessity, which along with their that they are essentially dialectic diver-
universality, or infinite potentiality for sions. What most of Santayana's critics
exemplification, is reality in the mode of seem to have missed is that his method is
·substance.'4 Yet they are in some sense a variety of static Hegelianism, in which
real both as independent of awareness contradiction is methodological. The posi-
and compulsive at least on themselves. tive final contribution then becomes an
They are what they are whether anyone exhaustive revelation of certain funda-
happens to intuit them or not. One might mental aspects of experience through the
question the seemingly contradictory poetry of intellectual mood rather than
characteristics that are here involved in the rigor of logical deduction. The bring-
the notion of essence: qualia and quali- ing to focus of immediacy and univer-
ties seem to be confused, the former be- sality, of intuition and clairvoyance, tends
ing described as essences only through by its very distortion of experience to
their borrowing of properties from the illuminate areas that are often overlooked.
latter.5 On the other hand, universality This may be true even of the major
is used in a way that excludes generality contradiction in the system, the denial
from it, contrary to the more classical and affirmation of the fact and function
usage, because forms and qualities take of tension in consciousness.
on enough of the nature of qualia to for- But with essence as the immediate
feit generality.6 The doctrine that es- datum, reality of any other description
sences are independent of their being becomes the object of belief, or 'animal
intuited, moreover, raises the embarrass- faith.'7 Santayana writes with customary
ing question of whether the status of clarity: " . . . . a long experience must
essence is empirically determined, and if intervene before the problem arises which
so, in what manner. If their status is I am here considering, namely, whether
given, then its givenness must involve anything need be posited and believed in
some immediate intuition of both the at all. And I reply that it is not inevitable,
inner necessity of the datum and of its if I am willing and able to look passively
infinite potentiality for exemplification, on the essences that may happen to be
not to mention a sense of its transcend- given, but that if I consider what they are,
ence of the intuition in which it is given. and how they appear, I see that this
There would be some sort of vagueness, appearance is an accident to them; that
or indetermination, and some sort of com- the principle of it is a contribution from
pulsion, neither of which essences allow. my side, which I call intuition."8 Clearly,
But if their reality is not given, then, the immediate data of awareness contain
whatever modality one ascribes to them, no warrant for those modes of reality
the assertion that such data are the most which include existence and actuality.
real, the most indubitable of beings, be- True, the categories in which Santayana
comes doubtful if not even groundless. often discusses the positing of reality are
The problem is at least as old as Spinoza's the cognitive ones, but by implication,
idea of a God whose essence was his and often explicitly, he refers t.he sense
existence, simply by definition. Santay- of reality, however primitive, and what-
ana's essences are thin and specious Abso- ever its content, to the act of animal faith.
Belief is but the definiteness of animal
• Ibid., pp. 24-25.
5 Cf. on this point the criticism of 'essence' theories
faith at the consciously cognitive level.
in ,Wind and the World Order, by Prof. C. I. Lewis,
and ill Prof. Chas. Morris's S'i:r ~'heO'l·ie$ of ~Utlt!. r RrmtflYIlI1f1, 'RllaZm, of EllfH1!We, p. :'10.
$ Realm of Essence, p. 36. • Scepticism and Animal Faith, p. 133.
Pursuing the theoretical consequences tension of the event reaches a maximum,

of the 'trick of arresting the immediate,' whilst the nature of it remains so obscure
that perhaps my only sense of it is a question,
we gradually purify immediacy of any- a gasp, or a recoil. The feeling present in such
thing but the essence of the moment. In a case is, with but little further qualification,
ultimate scepticism there is no more need the sheer feeling of experience. 10
to assume connection between essences Here be it noted that the 'thatness' and
than there is to assume the connection of the eventuality of the datum are given
anyone essence with actuality. Here we even more clearly than its 'whatness' or
have the stability, the equilibrium, that essence. Its nature remains obscure in
goes with the complete loss of tension. the overwhelming sense that it has hap-
We accept our illusions for what they are, pened, is actually there. The dynamic
content that they make no demands upon balance of the psychic organism is chal-
us beyond the demands of the moment. lenged to reset itself according to the
There is something here of the paradox tension of the event, causing feelings of
that one finds in Bergson's duration. surprise and recoil. Shock is a local vibra-
Arresting the immediate is not such an tion registering the emergence of new
easy task, but must demand some effort tensions and the reluctant discharge of
and feeling of tension. Yet, the stability old ones. Even the most transparent of
of essence, like that of duration, bears essences, insofar as we feel that they are,
with it the accent of eternity and ultimate must be accompanied by their 'sheer feel-
balance. It is possible that if Santayana ing of experience.' In the givenness of
had taken into account more fully the any 'what' there must be the giving,
sense of effort that accompanies the intu- which constitutes its 'that.' It will be
ition of certain essences, such as the noted too that Santayana frankly dis-
intellectual ones, he might not have covers in the shock of experience the
identified so easily the discovery of es- vagueness, compulsion, and sense of inde-
sence in lazy revery or sensuous enjoy- pendence which are so foreign to essences
ment with that which occurs in intel- themselves. Yet these are involved in
lectual activity. Of course the intention the 'feeling present,' that is, an immediate
of such an identification is similar to that intuition. Despite his dialectic use of
in Bergson's somewhat favorable com- shock to establish, by inference, the exist-
parison of the freedom of action with that ence of the self prior to that of anything
of spiritual creation. 9 In both instances else, our author has candidly admitted
there is the endeavor to lend a glow to that 'the fact that something has hap-
the commonplace, and an emotional im- pened . . . . is obvious.' Hence the con-
mediacy to insight. For Santayana, either tradiction to which he commits himself:
can be 'enjoyed' in the solipsism of the nothing given exists, and existence is not
present moment. given; but existence is given in shock,
But the world and experience will not therefore something given exists; namely,
be denied for long and in their return to the event that is given in shock. On the
awareness it is tension which serves to latter point we are not to be left in doubt,
admit them. At the root of belief, and of as the following passage will show: "Ex-
animal faith, lies the tensional experience perience of shock, if not utterly delusive,
of shock. Says Santayana: accordingly establishes the validity of
But when a clap of thunder deafens me, or memory and of transitive knowledge. It
a flash of lightning at once dazzles and blinds establishes realism."ll That experience of
me, the fact that something haS happened is shock may be delursive we are given no
far more ohvioUR to mp. than .iust what. it. i::; reason to SUppOS0, thou/)h the paradox
that has occurred; and thore arc pcrhaps
shocks internal to the psyche in which the so stated does not escape Santayana's
attention.
• For Henri Bergson's discussion of tension. see
Matter and Memory, pp. 237-8, trans. Paul and '" Scopticism and Animal Faith, p. 140.
PalIlllu-, (New York; MacMUlun, WI]), "i;C{'Trtl.cil<'/77, (!nll A ni'l'I'w/' ,b'ttit;h-, p. 14:..1,
Santayana himself brings his antinomy the sensationalist hypothesis, and its cor-
to a focus in a passage remarkable for its relative transcendental unity, in the as-
philosophic irony: sumption of discrete and static data. 15
Nevertheless shock, like any other datum, Certainly, if the transcendental logic can
intrinsically presents an essence only, and be used, as Kant positively used it, to
might be nothing more; but in that case the ground the possibility of experience, it
dogmatic suasion of it <which alone lends in· can be used also to ground the possibility
terest to so blank an experience) would be
an illusion. . . Shock will not suffer me, of non-experience. In fact, Kant did make
while it lasts, to entertain any such hypo- negative use of it in his treatment of
thesis. 12 noumenal reality. That which was not
That shock might be only an essence is a encompassed with the apperceptive ac-
deliverance of the theory of essence, and tivity of the transcendental ego was
not of an analysis of the data of aware- simply not to be known.
ness as such. But the theory has borne It is evident, then, that a denial of the
more than it can support since in it there proposition which we have been trying
is no place for the immediacy of event. to defend; i.e., that events are presented
in oppositional tension; may lead to self-
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If we cease with Santayana to revert to

the extreme case of thoroughly disrupting contradiction on the part of the one who
shock, and accept the possibility of de- would deny it; and as well may lead to
grees of 'tension in the event' we have the plausibility of the tensional view in
good reason to suppose that intuition is light of its evidence.
never without tensional feelings where Nor is this all, for there is the un-
that which is given seems real, and that abashed positive contribution found in
shock 'lasts' indefinitely, allowing no the poetically cosmological Realm of
sufferance for the hypothesis that it is Matter, where its naturalistic disguise
merely an essence. The philosopher of need not hide from us a definite pheno-
essence never accepts this possibility, but menological import. By 'matter' Santay-
even after grounding the sense of change ana means simply the flux of events; he
of shock, he can write: calls this 'material' not for descriptive
If change has really occurred, and not purposes, but merely to reassert in
merely been imagined, shock is not only intui- another form his doctrine that events are
tion of change, but trouble in a process of not given as happening. They are ma-
change enveloping that intuition of change. terial as opposed to the spirituality of
I am right in positing a desultory experience
in which this intuition is an incident. . . . .IS the psyche which is privileged to see them
only through the thin fine veil of essence.
But the only way conceivable that change Again Santayana is worth quoting:
has not really occurred, and has been
merely imagined, is for the 'change which "I do not think," he writes of the experience
of the flux, "that analytically transition can
I feel' to be 'merely a feeling within the be otherwise expressed than as a transforma-
unity of apperception.'14 That is to say, tion of one thing into another, involving two
we can give up the immediacy of events natural moments, and leaving the bond be-
only by resort to a transcendentalism in tween them obscure." 16
which immediacy itself is resigned. And If we bear in mind the fact that shock
although Santayana does not go in the proclaims an event, which is nothing
direction of transcendentalism explicitly, other than a terminus in change, the re-
he sees its possibility as the possibility lation between this statement and the
of trans-ultimate sceptiCism. Perhaps a
theory of shock will be evident. The ex-
thorough analysis of his essence theory
perience of shock is also the experience
will show, as suggested above, that it
actually does imply the transcendental 15 On this point see Whitehead, op. cit., and J. H.
Randall, "The Latent Idealism of a Materialist,"
logic. There is probably nothing less than Jour. Phil. Vol. XXVIII, No. 24, Nov. 19th, 1931.
Both Whitehead and Randall discuss Santayana's
12 Thid., p. 140. sensationalism.
'" Ib.d., p. 1'13. "' George Santayana, :I'he Ueahn oj M'nttm', p. 01.
141bid. (New York: Scribners, 1930.)
of change; now the problem IS the more matter, which a mere diminution of mathe-
detailed one of describing what had earlier matical scale or use of the microscope may
never reach.18
been mentioned as the 'tension of the
event.' Santayana continues: The analogical significance of tension,
But it is not analytically that transition which is here narrowed to the sense of
may be understood; it is lost when its terms action, need not be called on in a pheno-
are divided; and yet it is no synthesis of menological account. Rather, what we
these terms, but a generation-whatever that should say is that insofar as the 'heart of
may be-of one term out of the other. Within
each term, however, we may expect to find matter' seems real to us, it is somehow,
a synthetic symbol and counterpart of transi- perhaps in imagination, associated with
tion. Let me call it the forward tension of its own proper realization. It would be
the natural moment. This name is not meant but a short step from the cosmological
to attribute to the elements of the flux aims and position suggested in the method
any conscious effort or expectancy; they are
restless without the feeling of unrest; yet of analogy to the grounding of the com-
the analogy implied in the metaphor must be pulsive character of eventuality in im-
a real analogy, since effort and expectancy are mediacy, along with the surfacing es-
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creatures and expressions of this very tension

in the flux of matter, when it takes the form sences. But the cosmologist stays by his
of a psyche. 17 poetry and writes of the nature of things:
"Now, on the human scale the most
Now, from the standpoint of what hap-
obvious units in action are men, and their
pens, it might be said that shock is the
forward tension is dramatically called
experience of novelty, or of difference
their Will."19 It would not do for the
between the forward tensions of the event
and the act of experiencing it. hardy naturalist to admit that his method
is the method of intensive concretion,
We must not think because the com-
pulsion of an event in awareness is direct tracking to its lair the essence of the will
and immediate that it is not the com- that he feels in himself, and seeking its
pulsion of the event itself. The point is essential function in awareness. So that
that its compulsion upon awareness is on the one hand he justifies the attribu-
the way we experience the forward ten- tion of something like will to nature not
sion of the event, and our own tensional on the ground that we feel will there-
resistance to it. Santayana, who makes the essence theory precludes that-but
events depend upon inference, cannot go on the ground that we ourselves have
so far in his philosophical theory; but in emerged from nature, and on the other
philosophical practice his meaning is un- he finds drama in the description of our
mistakable. own forward tension as will, when quite
Any doubt on this score is relieved obviously, there is nothing better to call
when we consider his method, which is it. Not a genetic, but a historical cos-
not unlike that of Schopenhauer. Events, mology must serve for the description of
like men, are intuited through their dis- a content which is barren of immediacy.
positions. Outstanding in the life of Nevertheless, here we have isolated with
awareness is will, and the life of events classic precision the relation between op-
is to be conceived by analogy to it. positional compulsion and the sense of
Human action has forward tension and change.
thus: Immediacy, then, is after all dynamic,
We may therefore confidently attribute the not merely a segment or region come
forward tension proper to our life to all the upon by chance in a field of placid es-
rest of nalure down to its primary elements, sences. It contains tensions, pointers of
without attributing to those elements, or to
that total, any specifically human quality. . . . the emergent, oppositions that shall chal-
We may therefore appeal to our experience lenge and confuse. The 'animal' whose
of action on the human scale to suggest to us 'faith' Santayana finds so intriguing is an
the nature of action even in the heart of
18 Ibid., pp. 91-92.
17 Ibid. 19 Ibid,
organism recasting in new dynamic con- If one were looking for a name more
figurations the system which is its being. poetically suggestive and at the same
It is characterized by major and minor time as representative of becoming as the
directional tensions, and by the vibrant term 'essence' is of being, he might find
recoils that occur in opposition. These it in the Latin word 'future,' using it
tensions are registered in the flux of where necessary in the plural. 'Futures'
awareness-where self observation allows might then take their deserved place as
us to speak of this flux-as tendencies fundamentals in experience as we know
toward equilibrium, and shocks that ac- it. But if, when we speak of tensions,
company new data. One might be their accent of futurity is remembered,
tempted to call such data dynamic es- there is small danger that any romantic
sences, were it not that the term 'essence' love of essences will cause us to neglect
is already laden with meanings of being the ultimately dynamic nature of experi-
and contemplation rather than of becom- ence by trying to reduce time to eternity,
ing and action. Tensions are dynamic becoming to static being. Thus sensitized
data, best known for what they are, to the eventual dimension of immediacy,
and perhaps best designated simply as we might be prepared to admit the plausi-
tensions. bility of an 'aesthetic of events.'
Chapter V
Peirce and the Aesthetic of Events

The importance of an aesthetic of events has been recognized of late by Whitehead,
but its metaphysical significance was pioneered by two earlier thinkers whose con-
tributions to the intensive concretion of concepts can scarcely be overestimated. I
refer to Immanuel Kant, the genius of the post-enlightenment, and to his methodo-
logical descendent, the more recent Chas. S. Peirce. Kant called his chapter on the
intuition of space and time the "Transcendental Aesthetic," intending to emphasize
his interest in the forms of intuition. The general sense in which he there uses the
term, 'aesthetic' is the precise sense in which it signifies the descriptive method in
philosophy. Following and generalizing the insights of his master in this as in other
ways, Peirce declared that phenomenology, or the science of immediacy, is but a
branch of the general aesthetics. Moreover, in their concern with reality, both of
these thinkers conceived the real as the actual, and grounded experience in the
experience of events. A glance at their method will make clearer the reasons for such
emphasis, and at the same time prepare us for a more detailed consideration of their
contributions to the descriptive definition of reality.
It was Peirce who most fully realized Peirce's originality lay at this point if
what Kant had tried to do and how he at no other: for the first time in the
had tried to do it, much to the augmen- history of modern thought-if the logical
tation of his own philosophical stature. unrest of Leibniz be excepted-Aristotle's
The attempt had been to get at the in- power was recaptured; he made genuine
evitable structure of experience by way discoveries in logic serve him in meta-
of the forms of logic, viewing those forms physics, and many of those discoveries
as derived from experience, yet not were his own. It was in one of the cate-
genetically so. Their derivation was sim- gories attained through his logic that he
ply the transcendental method in its role isolated the intuition of events, just as
of purifier for the trans-empirical cate- Kant had found it before him, less clearly,
gories. Then, on the other side, these through the neo-Aristotelian forms. In
logical forms, by analogy, by application, both cases the particular category in-
and by function, were to be correlated volved was the category of relation,
with the most general facts of experience. though its meaning was not the same for
Hence they could serve as guides or both of them. The differences can be
points of metaphysical orientation, giving brought out in a review of their relational
both stimulus and control in the more analyses.
aesthetic endeavor. Their justification From the standpoint of the modern
would lie in their empirical suggestive- logic used by Peirce the category of re-
ness and adeqw'lcy; the rationale of ex- lation is much more fundamental in one
perience would be found in their logical way, and less so in another, than Kant
ultimacy. Just as Kant selected for his seems to have made it. It is more funda-
work on space the only geometry that mental because it cannot be reduced to
was at hand, the Euclidean, so he selected the substance-attribute relation of inher-
with no important modification the only ence, or to any of the species to which
available logic, the traditional logic of Kant tries to reduce it. It is less funda-
Aristotle. From the latter he selected mental because, and here some logicians
the aspects which had been dominant in would differ with Peirce, it cannot be
the classification of judgments, and set used to arrive at totality and continuity
them up as the ultimate categories. without a particular mathematical quali-
[ 106]
PEIRCE'S AESTHETIC OF EVENTS 107
fication; namely that relations must be implication of independent persistence.

triadic. The question as to whether all Phenomena being existential are events;
relations can be reduced finally to triads differences between events are qualita-
is a difficult and highly technical one. 1 tive, yet there is a something which per-
Kant, of course, allowed room for syn- sists through the change, and this is the
thesis in at least two ways: transcenden- feeling which underlies the notion of
tal synthesis in thought, and the triadicity substance. The description of such a feel-
or continuity implied by the sub-category ing in terms of tension as given by San-
of reciprocity. So that granting the latter, tayana is well in accord with Kant's
the question would be one of phenomeno- conceptual analysis. It is failure to lapse
logical purity, depending on whether the in something not 'properly transitQry,' as
category of relation has a sufficient con- Santayana would have it, but something
dition in dyadicity, and whether therefore which persists, even 'drags' if you will.
Kant does not suppose an unexplicit cate- This is what might be called passive
gory, such as that of continuity, through- efficacy, or sheer resistance to the cor-
out. rosive effects of time.
If we assume, with Peirce, that syn- Compulsion as a function of efficacy
thesis is triadic, and yet that the category comes out in the second analogy. Indeed,
of relation finds a sufficient condition in throughout the Critique the category of
dyadicity, as most surely we should sup- dependence or causality tends to be more
pose that it does, it may be possible to basic than the others. It is used by way
drop away some of the transcendental of illustration where examples of cate-
superstructure in our consideration of gorical functioning are demanded; it is
Kant's description of reality or objectivity, in one way or another made inseparable
and look for the feelings involved. That from the possibility of experience. But
is, we may ignore for the moment the in the second analogy the objectivity of
assumption that sensation is in the aggre- phenomena is grounded on their neces-
gate and demands transcendental syn- sary determination in time; the order of
thesis. We can assume an immediacy of events is irreversible, compUlsive. It
relations in which continuity and there- would have been but a short step from
fore synthesis are immanent. This is this to the more empirical grounding of
simply a device for simplifying the inter- causality on memory of the immediate
pretation of Kant; with synthesis and past. What is worthy of note, however,
continuity we are not primarily con- is the derivation of the compulsive char-
cerned, and mention them only in order acter of the object in terms of its taking
to reveal the general background and place. Nothing is added to this in the
setting of Kant's approach to actuality. notion of reciprocity-if we subtract its
What will impress us immediately is the triadic character-beyond the recognition
importance of the three schematic prop- of mutuality of compulsion and response.
erties, persistence, efficacy, and interac- In interaction the spatial rather than the
tion. These, it would seem, are the temporal character of efficacy stands forth
properties of the object which remain if only if we ignore the temporal implica-
we take away the transcendental and tions of such a relation say as that be-
synthetic significance of the analysis. tween subject and object. Here, as
From this standpoint the important thing elsewhere, we may assume that interac-
about the category of substance is its tion takes time; this is the fact which
may from one viewpoint lead to a causal
1 The method of Russell and Whitehead in Prin- theory of perception. The difference is,
cipia Mathematica seems to assume that no rela-
tional properties demand triadicity as a necessity and it is of course an important one, that
of condition. A similar view is inlplied in H. M. in spatial thereness we have no feeling
Sheffer's logic forms, for which see "Notatiol1al
Relativity," Proceedings Sixth International Can- of the time that is being consumed, the
1I1'(lIls oj Philosophy.: 011 Ull;! otller' l1UllU the worlt
Qf Hoyce ("Types of Order and System Sigma," dis- polarity is instantaneous, us struin or
cussed in Prof. C. I. Lewis's Survey of SymboliC stress, but not as memory. It is on this
Logic) as well as Peirce's own, points toward ir-
reducible triadIc properties. account that the causal theory of pcrccp-
tion seems questionable from the stand- thetic judgment a priori: that there is
point of experience. a similar difference between revery and
What seems actual may be viewed, in logical discourse, in that the former is
Kantian terms, as whatever has the par- noncompulsive while the latter makes de-
ticular modality of actuality. In the mands, Kant would have granted without
subject-object relation the objectivity, if hesitation. But that imaginary data, if
it is eventual, demands sensation, or the they have a reality, or actuality of some
complete determination of the event in sort, have a degree of some kind of com-
experience. This is the other side of the pulsion, and that the compulsion of logic
equation for which the first term is fur- is continuous with that of external events
nished by efficacy. The dualism between in kind, though other dimensions may
concept and content is broken on the one be involved in the former, Kant would
side by the causal schema and on the scarcely have admitted.
other by the demand for what Kant called The nearest he comes to bridging the
material conditions, or sensations. The divide between reason and sensation
latter prevent the actual from being that which will not allow such generalizations
"in regard to which we can, if we choose, of his realism is in value theory. It must
resort to playful inventiveness." Sensa- be remembered that after all we have
tion here corresponds to what we have been talking about phenomena, but not
called the shock-value of an experience, ultimate realities. Again, this is an effect
an element which is invidiously abstract of the dualism between reason and feeling.
and unimportant only if we also couple But two phases of Kant's theory of value
with the term sensation the material or tend to make more general the analysis
discrete import which Kant was wont to of reality which he gives in the first
assume. Kant asks the question in his Critique. They are, of course, the theory
note to the Refutation of Idealism, of the good will as noumenal, and the
"whether we have an inner sense only, theory of the aesthetic judgment as re-
and no outer sense, but merely an outer flexive. It was perhaps these two notions
imagination."2 His immediate answer to which gave impetus to Schopenhauer's
this question leaves us in no doubt as to generalization toward a world as will and
how he intends to characterize the actual: representation. The volitional aspect of
It is clear, however, that in order to imagine awareness, which, if its generic form in
something as outer, that is, to present it to tension had been recognized, might have
sense in intuition, we must already have an been seen as continuous with thought and
outer sense, and must thereby immediately perception, was limited by Kant to the
distinguish the mere receptivity of an outer
intuition from the spontaneity which charac-
moral realization. Apparently the ten-
terizes every act of imagination. s sional nature of the experience of events
escaped him in its general form, though
I attach extreme importance to the role as we have seen he was keenly aware
which Kant assigns the faculty of judg- of the compulsive character of eventu-
ment as an ability to immediately dis- ality, and of the independent persistence
tinguish what is real from what is not, which distinguishes passive existence.
and the emphasis which he places upon What Schopenhauer saw was that from
the freedom. from compulsion, or the the inside this substantial character was
'spontaneity' which accompanies data the tensional set which he rather nar-
which are not actual. This includes, in rowly identified with will, while the
the judgment of the individual upon a occasions of its change through external
perception, the judgmental recognition of perception were nothing other than the
lack of compulsion or forced response in compelling character of eventuality. As
reaction to what we call unreal data. In for the aesthetic judgment it represented
general, this is the function of the syn- for Kant the balanced or equilibrated
• 1. Kant, Gritiqu,Q of Pnm R(?a~onJ p. 246. trans.
C0l1dition of the organism, reflexive be-
Norman Kemp Smith. (New York: MacMillan. cause it expressed that condition rather
1929.)
3 Ibid. Ttalics minI'. than the determinations of logic or the
flux of existence. At its best, Schopen- as generalizations to reason. On this ac-

hauer's version of the form or Platonic count, if not others, Peirce seems to have
Idea was a descripti9n of this aesthetic felt that the chief role of the categories
or post-realizational phase of experience, is that of suggestive explanation. '
representing for him the cessation of He characterized the sense of actuality
struggle and the attainment of organic from this standpoint with remarkable
poise. Quite possibly it was some glim- detail, deriving it from his profound
mering of the relation between realization 'Cenopythagorean' categories, particularly
in general and moral realization in par- from the category which he called
ticular that led Kant to identify the sense 'Secondness.' The three categories 'First-
of ultimate reality with conscience and ness,' 'Secondness' and 'Thirdness' are
moral experience. Also, his theory of general descriptive notions whose tradi-
value suggests that he did conceive the tional approximations are Quality, Re-
aesthetic phase to be in some sense the lation, and Mediation, respectively. First-
final or consummatory phase of process. ness is sheer feeling, simple and absolute.
Instead, however, of giving to the ten- It is the monadic property whereby any-
sional factor in experience its basic status, thing is simply itself, without reference
he tended to limit it to the post-critical to anything else whatsoever. An instance
data of understanding, with the disturb- of Firstness would be the complete ab-
ing result that the existence of the world sorption of consciousness in the color
is finally conceivable only as a foil for blue, or in the tone Middle C. Ontologi-
the good will, yet the good will as made cally Firstness is mere possibility, insofar
ontologically independent in God is so as this is conceivable. Secondness, the
epiphenomenal that it is only a postulate. category in which we shall be especially
By the time Peirce took over and recast interested, is the category of opposition,
Kants' logico-intuitive method enough interaction, reference to another (hence
had been done with the categories to otherness), factuality, and the indexical
show that they were inadequate as Kant nature of reality. An instance would be
had accepted them, and that even when the sheer feeling of hitting or being hit
adequate they could never by themselves by something. Thirdness or mediation
give a theory of objectification. The pre- involves continuity, hence not only refer-
tended 'deduction' of the categories from ence to another, but reference to a third,
themselves as necessary conditions for which is the standpoint, interpretant, or
experience was nothing more at bottom thought. It is this category which gives
than an assertion of belief in their ade- mentality to nature and naturalizes mind.
quacy and this was precisely what time We shall have as little to do with it as
had called in question. It was evident possible in the hope that the sense of
that from the empirical standpoint the actuality can be characterized without
categories must, all the way through, be the host of intricacies which Thirdness
considered either as generalizations of brings in its train. Certainly, to the un-
the modes of experiential determination, biased observer, the task of mentalizing
or as 'analogies of experience.' More they nature and naturalizing mind is a formid-
could not claim. But since meanwhile able one, which would require a disser-
the role of analogy in generalization had tation all of its own, even if that would
come to be recognized, both in mathe- be quite enough for it. Fortunately, the
matics and in the empirical sciences, the sense of reality does not seem to demand
two alternatives tended to reduce to one. Thirdness.
The method of descriptive generalization Phenomenology was one of Peirce's
at bottom, is the method of analogy, a constant concerns; phaneroscopy, he
fact which in itself makes dubious the quaintly called it, or the science of what
hreap.h whir.h 'Kant lert between reason appears or is present to the mind. Here
find fealing. For analogiet:l 11CtVC the pc~ OllU ::luek::l the feeling, and hence the First-
culiarity that they appeal to both; as ness, of each of the categories, be it of
descriptions they appeal to feeling, and Firstness itself, of Secondness, or of
Thirdness. The categories are relative, in and Firstness is an essential element of both
the sense that anyone of them applies Secondness and Thirdness. Hence there is
such a thing as the Firstness of Secondness
in, some way to the others. Any phe- and such a thing as the Firstness of Third-
nomenon involves all of them to some ness; and there is such a thing as the Sec-
extent, though one or more of them may ondness of Thirdness. But there is no Sec-
be dominant. For example, in pheno- ondness of pure Firstness and no Thirdness
menology all of the categories are ap- of pure Firstness or Secondness. 5
proached in terms of feeling quality, in This means, to render it in more conven-
logic all of them are approached through tional language, that one can seek the
meaning, and so on. Wound up in these feeling and definition (possibility) of feel-
conceptions and their interrelations lies ing, of interaction or relational character
one of the most elaborate and suggestive of meaning; but you cannot rationally
systems of philosophy that has appeared look for the meaning or mediatory char-
since Kant. Our own mention of this acter of either interaction or feeling, and
system, aside from its method, will be cannot look for the interactional character
restricted to those aspects of it which of pure feeling. It is stipulated, however,
seem to justify the comparative isolation that these restrictions presuppose that the
and description of the phenomenological categoreal contents are 'pure.' Of course
correlate of Secondness, or the sense of contents are never found in such purity
actuality. That is, though on the one hand in experience. Now one might ask
the relativity of the categories precludes whether this is because of the nature of
the consideration of one of them without experience, that it somehow overflows the
the others, as of feeling without relation, categories, or whether it is due simply to
and relation without continuity, conti- analytic weakness of most human minds.
nuity without feeling, and so on, for If, for example, we are constructing a
special purposes that same relativity per- theory of emotion, we do seem to look for
mits of the shifting of emphasis to one and find a 'Thirdness of Firstness,' i.e.,
place or another. So long as in the process a meaning and mediatory aspect of feel-
there is no pretense of a complete system ing. What I am interested in is the iso-
of reality-and we make no such pretense, lation of Secondness, so far as it involves
being content to characterize reality itself what I have called the oppositional ten-
-there should be no danger in selection sion. If, now, the Secondness of feeling
of one category more than another for is proscribed by the statement that there
consideration. If, for example, one were is no Secondness of Firstness, i.e., pure
treating of the theory of sensation, and Firstness, feeling would have to be left
Peirce's contribution thereto, he would out of account, even account by implica-
most naturally tend to emphasize First- tion. But surely there is an objectivity
ness, or feeling; if of the symbol, then or otherness of feeling, such as that re-
Thirdness, mind, and meaning. Likewise, quired by some important phases of art
the sense of reality demands a treatment or social intercourse, which, though it
in the way indicated by Secondness. may not be pure in Peirce's sense (he
Of the relativity of his categories Peirce would no doubt call it a 'degenerate case'),
says at one point: is pure enough from some points of view,
But now I wish to call your attention to and especially from the standpoint of
the kind of distinction which affects First- reality as such.
ness more than it does Secondness, and Sec- Another way to indicate the same possi-
ondness more than it does Thirdness. This bility is this; that the categories as stated
distinction arises from the circumstance that may be a cross-division of one sort which
where you have a triplet you have three
pairs; and whp.re you have a pair you have intersects another of equal importance for
two units. 4 Thus, Secondness is an essential • c. S. Peirce, Collected Papers, Vol. I: Principles
part of Thirdness, though not of Firstness, Qf Philosophy. paragraph 530. Editors C. S. Hart-
shorne amI Paul Wei:;». (Cambddge, Mass.: I-lar·
• The reference to number indicates the mathe- vard University Press. 1931.) Sul.Jsequent references
matical derivation of the categories. Peirce at- in this discussion are by paragraphs unless other-
tributes them to his work in symbolic logic. wise indicated.
some, though not for many, purposes. sort of actual compulsion, since the meaning
Peirce himself seems to have thought of must be actually embodied, what you are
thinking of is a Secondness involved in
this possibility of 'mixed concepts.' Of Thirdness. 7
these he says:
This, in its application of the general
Thus we have a division of seconds into
those whose very being, or Firstness, it is to category to aspects of the reality of ideas
be seconds, and those whose Secondness is which might easily be overlooked, is also
only an accretion. This distinction springs an illustration of the power of the
out of the essential elements of Secondness. phenomenological method which Peirce
For Secondness involves Firstness. The con-
cepts of the two kinds of Secondness are discovered. The finding of continuity be-
mixed concepts composed of Secondness and tween events and thoughts, through the
Firstness. One is the second whose very concrete compulsive character of the
Firstness is Secondness. The other is a sec- latter, is evidence of a type of thinking
ond whose Secondness is second to a First-
ness. The idea oj mingling Firstness and which in Kant was scarcely more than
Secondness in this particular way is an idea germinal. Where the earlier rationalist
distinct jrom the ideas oj Firstness and Sec- tradition had tried to assimilate eventu-
ondness that it combines. It appears to be a ality to the principle of sufficient reason
conception oj an entirely different series oj by making the latter a theory of natural
categories. 6
cause, or the empiricist had eliminated
This passage seems to indicate that Peirce the principle of sufficient reason because
was not sure whether instead of demand- he could not find it in the flux, thereby
ing complete purity for his own cate- calling into question the reality of ideas,
gories, it would not be better to recognize Peirce can, by a scrupulous application
that sooner or later their adequacy must of his analogistic categories, keep the con-
be called in question, with the consequent crete in reason without reducing it to
search for an 'entirely different series.' blind compulsion. Also, and this I am
Such a search, for example, is to be found not so sure he would have admitted, he
in the work of our great contemporary c~m find something of the rational in
Whitehead, whose elaborate categoreal set, eventuality, to the extent that compulsion
though it makes no claim to such elegance among events is the concrete expression
as one finds in the Peircean triad, seems of law.
to have dimensions that Peirce conceived In addition to the sheer feeling of a
but vaguely. At any rate, the fact that particular quality, and the consciousness
Peirce did clearly distinguish and deal of meaning involved in symbolic refer-
with the particular aspect of his system ence, there is a type of awareness which
that he called Secondness is indication is relational or dyadic in its very essence.
enough that further analysis along the It is original in that it cannot be reduced
same lines can be made, whatever its to simple monadic or absolute feelings;
fruitfulness and generality. it is important because it underUes the
The Secondness of Thirdness, or the sense of actuality. Actuality ascribed to
reality of meaning, need not lead to diffi- an event means that it takes place, that
culties of this methodological sort, since it is then and there, that it has relations
Thirdness includes or involves Second- to other existents. Hence the sense of
ness by definition. actuality not only demands a relation
When you contrast the blind compUlsion of between subject and object in which the
an event of reaction considered as something latter must be 'other,' but relations of
which happens and which of its nature can suffering and doing, of action and reac-
never happen again, since you cannot cross tion, between objects there in the field.
the same river twice, when, I say, you con-
trast this compulsion with the logical neces- A court may issue injunctions and judg-
~itation of a 'me'aning considered as sonleth1nA' monts aga,inst l1'l.e and I care not a ::U1Hp of illY
that has no being at all except sO far as it finger for them. I may think them idle vapor.
actually gets embodied in an event of thought, But when I feel the sheriff's hand on my
Ilno y(m rPl?llrd this loeic<ll nl;'Cl;'ssitation as a shoulder. I shall bee-in to havp a RPnRf' of
o Ibill., pur. 628. Itullc~ mine. " Ibid., par. 530.
S
actuality. Actuality is something brute. There goes beyond feeling, and it is this going
is no reason in it. I instance putting your beyond which gives the sense of reality
shoulder against the door and trying to force
it open against an unseen, silent, and un- as a "resistance all ready to exist." The
known resistance, which seems to me to sense of effort is a feeling, but it is not
come tolerably near to a pure sense of actu- merely a feeling of a feeling; it is a feeling
ality. On the whole, I think we have here a of interaction.
mode of being of one thing which consists in From the above description one might
how a second object is. I call that Second-
ness. S be led to believe that Peirce means to
refer the sense of actuality to mere kin-
The sense of effort and resistance is a aesthesia. The sense of effort and struggle
direct deliverance of the phaneron, which involved in such an instance as pushing
is all that is present to the mind. It is against a door would certainly seem
immediate, not demanding the construc- statable in terms of muscular and organic
tions of transcendental epistemology for sensation. The question is, however,
its support. whether that is the generic way of stating
The logical aspect of this analysis lies such an experience or whether it is a
in the fact that in the simplest conceiv- specific type of instance presupposing a
able relation, there must be two terms, much more general concept. That the
the relation is a function of both of them, latter is the case with Peirce is shown
and either term is what it is, not consid- both in the application of Secondness to
ered by itself, but with relation to the the compulsion of ideas, as indicated
other. This is what Prof. Morris Cohen above, and in its implications for per-
has isolated as the essence of the concept ception and for self-consciousness. The
of polarity. Polarity, he says, is related same 'dual consciousness' is involved in
otherness, the fundamental notion which perception, where we expect one thing,
was at the back of Hegel's mind in the and are compelled to accept something
development of the 10gic. 9 Peirce's point else. The tension which accompanies ex-
is that any relation involves otherness, pectation is not discharged, but recoils
and that consequently otherness, relation, in the change of its rate, direction, or
and actuality cannot be conceived or ex- intensity, and we say that experience or
perienced apart. In the sense of actuality perception 'outruns expectations.' As for
the logical demand holds good empirically: self-consciousness, one is reminded of
Effort supposes resistance. Where there is Kant's Refutation of Idealism, and of its
no effort there is no resistance, where there development in the objective idealism of
is no resistance there is no effort, either in the Romanticists, by Peirce's statement
this world, or any of the worlds of possi- that "We become aware of ourselves in
bility. It follows that an effort is not a feel-
ing or anything priman or protoidal. There becoming aware of the not-self." The
are feelings connected with it: they are the great difference is that for the Romanti-
sum of consciousness during the effort. But cist the self posited the not-self, while for
it is conceivable that a man should have it in Peirce the resistance and effort are simul-
his power directly to summon up all those taneous. Herein lies Peirce's positive
feelings, or any feelings. He could not, in any
world, be endowed with the power of sum- realism.
moning up an effort to which there did. not The logic here is reminiscent of that of
happen to be a resistance all ready to exist. Schopenhauer. There are two phases in
For it is an absurdity to suppose that a man duality, doing and suffering, action and
could directly will to oppose that very will,10 patience. Perception involves the con-
Effort cannot be reduced to a simple feel- sciousness of being acted upon, while
ing or aggregate of such feelings, on a par volition, as the positive tension of self,
with experience of simple unit qualities. involves the sense of acting upon another.
In a definite sense, although it is felt, it The waking state is a consciousness of re-
uction; und un the conociouDnCEm itf]olf if] two-
ill'la., !Jur. ~4.
If
"M, R Cohen. Rca&,m and NatuTr., pp, 101(1

ff, (New
sided, so it has also two varieties; namely,
Ym'j,: HIJ..[·!~O\,lI'I.. BI'HI:~ HtII! r:llrnr1rmy, IKIU. Mtiol1, wl1m"(, om' modification of other thlngll
10 Collected Papers, Vol. 1, par. 320. is more prominent than their reaction on us,
and perception, where their effect on us is cognition, through the conative and tele-
overwhelmingly greater than our effect on ological aspects of meaning, involves both
them. And this notion, of being as other
things make us, is such a prominent part of feeling and volition in ways which the
OUr life that we conceive other things also to more Kantian division did not seem to
exist by virtue of their reactions against one suspect. But the polar sense enters per-
another.ll ception as its volitional aspect, furnishes
Two slight modifications seem necessary the very essence of will itself, and lends
in this description. The first would recog- realism to cognition. Peirce's illustration
nize the fact that it is in volition that of this sense can scarcely be bettered.
we have the sense of modifying other There is an intense reality about this kind
things more than they do us. If this sense of experience, a sharp sundering of subject
is restricted to action as such, it leaves and object. While I am seated calmly in the
dark, the lights are suddenly turned on, and
out of account the possibility of positive at that instant I am conscious not of a
reaction on the part of those things upon process of change, but yet of something more
which we act, and thus the empirical fact than can be contained in an instant. I have
that quite often they do modify us, and a sense of a saltus, of there being two sides
to that instant. A consciousness of polarity
our very actions, more than we do them. would be a tolerably good phrase to describe
But in volition the consciousness of acting what occurs. For will, then, as one of the
upon other things predominates, even great types of consciousness, we ought to sub-
though the state of affairs is such that stitute the polar sense. 13
their actions upon us are more important. The statement that there is not the ex-
The other modification has to do with perience here of a process of change is to
the word "conceive" in the proposition be taken with qualifications. If by process
"we conceive other things also to exist we mean of a series of changes, then such
by virtue of their reactions against one is not given in polarity. But as we shall
another." If, instead of it being said that see later, the experience of change itself
we conceive things to exist because of is involved in the polar consciousness,
their interactions, it is held that we ex- much as Santayana has found it to be in
perience them for that reason, a positive his notion of forward tension. The idea
account of the experience of plurality in of something that is 'more than can be
existence can be given. But the finding contained in an instant' yet is not genu-
of dual consciousness in perception, as inely a process, seems to get at the heart
well as in volition, gives ground for a of what we mean by occurrence. The
generalization beyond mere kinaesthesia, 'something more' is what gives the sense
toward a type of awareness which is of transcendence by the event of the
original and generic. present moment. It is the 'brute' other-
One is reminded of Santayana's version ness seen from a different point of view.
of shock by Peirce's characterization of So similar is Peirce's analysis of the
the dual consciousness, or what he chose aesthetic import of his relational category
to call the polar sense. 12 He realized that to Santayana's theory of shock that the
the traditional division of mind into affec- latter might well have been derived
tive, volitional, and cognitive functions from it.
would not bear phenomenological analy-
That shock which we experience when any-
sis. Perception, for instance, which is thing particularly unexpected forces itself
usually included under cognition, has upon our recognition, <which has a cogni-
fundamental aspects much like those of tive utility as being a call for explanation
affection. It is to a great extent feeling, of the presentment), is simply the sense
or firstness. More important for the prob- of the volitional inertia of expectation, which
strikes a blow like a water·hammer when
lem in hand, it also has in it character~ it is checked; and the ,[orce uf LhiK hlow,
istics much nearer to the nature of volition if one could measure it, wOlllrl hI;' the mea-
than the older trichotomy admitted. And sure of the energy of the conservative voU-
U l/J'id., par. 324. 13 Ibid., par. 380. The 'polar sense' is quite obvi-
12 Ibid., par. 330. ously tensional.
tion that gets checked. Low grades of this hopes that characterizes the 'other' can
shock doubtless accompany all unexpected be called the negation of something that
perceptions; and every perception is more
or less unexpected. Its lower grades are, is already there. But the notion of polarity
as I opine, not without experimental tests of does not presuppose the taking of one
the hypothesis that sense of externality, of pole rather than another for ori~in of
the presence of a non-ego, which accompanies interaction. It is questionable how basic
perception generally and helps to distinguish in experience the notion of mere negation
it from dreaming. 14
can be, despite Hegel's foundation of his
The notion of shock to which both Peirce dialectic process upon it. 'Otherness' is
and Santayana attach so much importance something positive, involving at least dis-
is worthy of further analysis. junction, at most, downright opposition.
Etymologically the word 'shock' is There are faint glimmerings only in sym-
traceable to its root in 'shake,' meaning to bolic logic, that Hegel's oracular phrase
jolt or jar. The shocking is in one respect "Negation is internal differentiation" has
the striking, and that which is struck ex- any precise symbolic meaning. 15 If polar-
periences vibration. It is this flavor which ity involves negation at all, it would seem
permeates one of the technical meanings to involve partial negation, a notion
of 'sensation' as used by the French whose present vagueness makes it un-
psychologists-who identify the 'sensa- available. On the whole, it has seemed
tional' and the frappant-and also finds best to reserve the concept of negation
currency in the idiomatic English usage for the symbolic phases of experience,
of 'sensational' to stand for that which is and in place of 'self and not-self' put
outstanding, surprising, or even startling. simply 'self and other.' The concrete ex-
Vibration is the intra-equilibrial phase of perience of 'otherness' is something which
organic adjustment, expressive of tension seems original enough and pervasive
away from or toward equilibrium. In its enough on its own account, without help
vibratory character actuality overflows from a metaphysical logic.
expectation; it is the 'more than' in the To say that actuality is compulsive as
statement already made that actuality is well as indifferent and vibrant is but to
'more than possibility.' If we conceive admit that events in the field of experi-
Santayana's essences as possibilities, we ence compel and direct awareness itself,
may say that their stable character, which at the same time exerting force upon one
gives them their aesthetic glamour, is also another. This was the meaning of Kant's
functional as the general form of organic second analogy, and it is the meaning
expectation. There are no shocks or sur- of Peirce's effort-of-the-other. Compulsion
prises in the realm of essence; all is pre- expresses the remorselessness of eventual
pared for in the vagueness of expectation. indifference, sometimes called the brutal-
This is one appeal of Platonism on a par ity of the actual, and the outward reference
with its ideal stability, tending to soothe of vibration, often called the pressure of
the contemplative spirit in its peaceful existence. But these epithets, brutal and
connotations. The actuality of an event forceful, are reactions of discourse in its
is a disturber of this peace: the settled more tender and fearsome moments, not
rhythm of expectation fails, the balance honest descriptions of reality itself. The
is upset. Greeks, who were friendly with nature,
It will be noticed that in referring even peopling her with god-like images
'otherness' to polarity as a ground for of themselves, recognized the fatal char-
vibration we have refused to introduce acter of the event, and tried through
the idea of negation. That is largely be- prophesy to foretell what. they could not
cuu~e of the trRrlitiol1::l1 ~onnotations of
forestall. The direction of an evenl,
negation, and the difficulties which sur- whereby it embodies the accent of its past
round them. There is a sense, it is true, and the intonation of its future, was the
in which the indifference to wishes or
"l'i1lr11etl1Inll' Ilf thll:1 surt 10\ l:luln:i:;;lLi:u !Jy Lilt,!
theory of incompatibility in th~ logIc of Pt'opo~lt.I()l1~.
sign that it lived a life of its own, and without prejudging what other categories
was not only indifferent to its experient apply in either relation. From the real-
or other, but was vibrant on its own istic point of view, or that suggested by
account. Attention theories of realization the facts of immediate tension, the sub-
ignore the wisdom of the Greeks, rather ject-object relation is not to be seen as
pretending that reality is merely a func- unique.
tion of interest. Yet it is events above all Some implications of Secondness do not
that compel attention, whether or not we enter directly into the theory of actuality.
would give it, sweeping intuition with Here these need be barely mentioned, as
them in the direction their vibrant actu- indications of the scope and depth of the
ality suggests. category. Peirce extends the polar analy-
It might be objected at this point that sis into phenomenological logic as the
a theory of immediacy cannot use polarity theory of facts, as distinguished from
in Peirce's sense, because he resorts to qualities and interpretations. His intri-
the subject-object relation, while reality cate theory of the symbol has as one of
must be transcendent. Against this objec- its phases the indexial character of 'ob-
tion several points are in order. In the sistent' signs, or those that refer directly
first place, Peirce has admitted that we to objective reality. Even the theory of
'conceive' the relations between real ob- probability finds one of its bases in the
jects as polar: these relations may be doubt that accompanies various degrees
viewed as transfers or projections of our of objective reference. Then, Secondness
own interactive experience, much as enters physiology as the contractility of
Schopenhauer viewed them. But if polar- the cell; it enters metaphysics as blind
ity is considered as an immediate fact, urge and efficacy, epistemology as one
there is no need to posit a projection or ground for realism. In a word, it is
transfer, or a subject-object relation as brought into play wherever the system
underlying it. As Peirce suggests, polarity demands indexicality and polarity. Inter-
establishes the reality of the self no less esting and important as those functions
than of the object. If Peirce is not clear are, they do not demand consideration in
enough on this, we have but to recall the phenomenological context with which
Santayana's use of shock to establish the we are concerned. They are problems of
reality of self, and thence of the world. more general interest.
But the reality of the ego is its objectivity, Finally, and what is more important
as objective it is itself somehow immedi- for our thesis, Secondness, through the
ately given. This is not to hold for an tensional character of the 'polar sense,'
awareness of awareness in the mystic or gives rise to the awareness of change,
non-Kantian sense. It is, rather, to reject which for Peirce was inseparable from
the skeletal transcendental ego as an ex- the very basis of experience itself. The
planatory device in experience, in favor polar sense is but an expression, in the
of the vague mass of feeling which gives older language of mental faculties, of the
personal identity on the one side, and the important fact and function of tension.
particular moments of the self as there It represents both the polarity and tension
for awareness on the other. These latter of direction, and the polarity-tension of
aRpects of the Relf can and do enter into opposition. So much is certainly justified
the 'dual consciousness.' Just how they as a conclusion from Peirce's phenomeno-
do, it is beyond our present province to logical analysis. It is an index of the
consider; the theory of the self is not to eventual character of experience. We
be deduced from polarity and relation. perceive objects, says Peirce, but what
But the 'effort' side of the polar sense we experience is more particularly an
1s an aspect of the self and is also a datum event. Tensional sets, 'inertias,' are set
in the field of awareness. Polarity can up in the psychic organism by the given
be conceived as holding between the self situation, and the resistance of these 'sets'
and its objects, 01' between the ohjects, to the emergence of novel qualities, to
change, is characterized by shock. 16 Here these they are denying the very possi-
is a contrast between directional and op- bility of experience itself. As against the
positional tensions which despite its great scepticism of a Santayana which incon-
divergence from the more recent state- sistently finds in shock an indubitable
ment of Whitehead, is really a pheno- ground for experience, the statement of
menological purification of the White- Peirce is positive, straightforward, and
headean analysis. In the latter, it will be exhaustive. Shocks are resultants of ten-
remembered, the atomic organism or sional 18 states as modified by new and
monad has a directional tension which disturbing components. As such they
Whitehead calls 'appetition.' But appe- record change, or the difference between
tition is but one side of a two-fold princi- the termini of events; what happens has
ple, the other side of which is the at least some small duration, else it would
exclusion of aspects of the 'prehended not happen at all. The interval of oppo-
entity,' i.e., the tensional opposition to it. sition between its beginning and its end
The direction of appetition, with its un- is the interval recorded in the experience
rest and urgency, comes up against a limit of it as an event. Novel qualities emerge
in the 'other.' Were it not for this con- in the process, the note lowers, the lights
trast, this dual polar function, the act of go out. But these novel characters are
experience would not be an act, it would data whose realization is dependent also
not be experiencing. Herein lies the on their being components through ten-
essential futurity of experience. Peirce sional accents in the organismic configu-
recognizes as much in the statement that ration. If tension expresses the loss and
"It is more particularly to changes and regaining of equilibrium in a dynamic
contrasts of perception that we apply the system, it is after all this system which
word 'experience.' We experience vicissi- strives to regain that equilibrium, and
tudes, especially."17 though the balance may be a 'new' one,
Here the facts are that should give it is never entirely so, any more than it
is ever entirely complete so long as the
pause to those who would deny the reality
organism persists.
of time, process, change, since in denying
18 The term tensional is mine, not Peirce's. But
16 Ibid., par. 336. it seems to indicate his primary intention quite
11 Ibid. fairly.
Chapter VI
Conclusions : Further Problems and Possibilities

We have suggested that Whitehead's theory of process gives a basis not only for
the mere possibility of futurity, in his theory of individuation, but for the description
of futures and their establishment as necessary for experience. Descriptively, the
future is vague, indefinite, potential, general and latently novel. This is but a summary
definition, an outline of the nature of the future.
Most important, however, in showing the philosophic implications of the concept
of tension, is the founding of a descriptive and explanatory approach to the problem
of the essential futurity of experience by a consideration of the nature of tension.
Among the various meanings and analogical bases of tension is its definitely 'psychic'
and organismic meaning as the tendency of the organism toward equilibration. This
tendency illustrates one 'root' of the logical principle of polarity, a principle which
underlies the whole phenomenology of tension. For it exemplifies the polarity of the
organism, or its direction from and toward, and seems inseparable from the organismic
process. Yet, the other 'root' of polarity, the oppositional one, is not far to seek where
there is polarity of direction. Likewise, directional tensions are functions of tensions
of opposition, since going forward inevitably involves going against.
The psychological aspects of tension viously excluded. He does this in the
can be approached from the inside, as theory of shock, and in the theory of ten-
exemplified in James's descripLion of ::;ion eluuuruLeu i11 hi::; Real-m of Matter.
'tendencies' in the stream of awareness, Before he has finished, he has acknowl-
or from the standpoint of the behavioral edged both 'roots' of the principle of
correlates, as posited by Dewey, Lewin, polarity, the directional and the opposi-
and above all by Lashley. Introspectively tional, and has admitted the essential
tension is probably original and effec- futurity of experience by finding in shocks
tively neutral: evidence from the psy- the oppositional indices of events, and in
chology of 'appetition,' i.e., of affectivity forward tension the directional nature of
and volition, seems to point in that direc- process.
tion. Behaviorally, tension is the polarity But a directly positive and fairly ex-
involved in the equilibration of the organ- haustive account is found in what might
ism, a polarity which goes to the very be called the 'aesthetic of events.' This
foundations of experience, and hence to is a suggestive name for the contribution
the 'behavior' of the mechanisms of per- of Charles Peirce, who was in philosophi-
ception and adaptation. cal method a lineal descendent of Kant.
Phenomenologically such findings are Kant, by implication, correlated his analy-
corroborated in the philosophy of George sis of the c.ategory of relation with a
Santayana. Here we have a philosopher recognition of the oppositional, i.e., the
who begins by excluding from awareness tensionally compulsive, and the direc-
all that is characteristically significant of tional, i.e., the irreversible, character of
tension, in favor of a field of static events. Peirce's 'Secondness' is that
'essences' from which intuition seJects its member of his remarkable categoreaJ
specious data. But before he can return triad which takes over the category of
from his pretended suspension of impulse relation, finding as a sufficient condition
and faith to any adequate account of for it dyadicity, duality, and polarity.
experience, Santayana must re-admit to His discovery of the fact and function of
luuuedlw..:y Lh~ LelwloutJ that 1m had pru temlioH iu to 1Iu fo,md in his mrhUUi:lt.1vc
[117 ]
characterization of what he called the tion in its relation to consistency, com-

'polar sense.' Quite obviously he was patibility, and relevance. Relevance itself
struggling to free himself from the older must thoroughly differentiate itself from
psychology which had compartmentalized structural and relational irrelevance or
the mind, and had ignored the essential nonsense. This would lead on the one
relativity of mental functions. But in a side to an attempt to correlate the theory
fashion much more exact than San- of meaning and the phenomenology of
tayana's later way, Peirce indicates the symbols with the theory of tension, and
relation between directional and opposi- on the other to considerations of the
tional tensions, between what he some- nature of importance, or of relevance in
times called 'volitional inertias' and the valuational sense. The relation be-
'shocks.' The interpretation which we tween tension and experienced value
have made of Santayana is justified by would be one further problem from this
the anticipatory authority of Peirce. Fin- point of view. Such would be a compara-
ally, Peirce goes to the heart of the prob- tively new approach to the modern prob-
lem by insisting upon the role of tension lem of the relation between facts, or
in the experience of events in experience event-structures, and values.
as such. Indeed the two tend by their Within the theory of tension itself there
very meanings to be identical. By ex- is the problem of equilibrium, requiring
perience here is not meant 'all of ex- much more exhaustive discussion than
perience, and its content,' but simply I have been able to give it. This would
'experiencing.' But if Peirce's account seem to involve the possibility of dimen-
can be accepted, the phenomenological sions and species of tension. If there are
discovery of the necessity with which degrees of tension, these degrees must
tension, and through it, futurity, accom- correspond to dimensions, for whose defi-
panies the act of experience, renders the nition such variables as duration, com-
essential futurity of experience well-nigh plexity, intensity, seem to be likely
indubitable. candidates. But also it might be possible
Of the unsolved problems and unex- to find fundamental species of tension,
plored possibilities which remain but a corresponding to the three basic princi-
few can be mentioned by way of conclu- ples of experience and thought. From
sion. There are, first the background this standpoint tensions might be normal,
problems of individuation and the logic i.e., the tensions of comparative equili-
of polarity. Although Whitehead's theory brium and of growth or assimilation,
of individuation is the best available at polar, i.e., tensions of direction and oppo-
present, it bristles with analytic difficul- sition, and persistent, i.e., tensions that
ties. Chief among these is the problem are somehow functions of rhythm, pat-
of negative feeling, and negative relation. tern, and order. It is true that the notion
There is need for a careful analysis of of a dynamic system involves these as-
the phenomena of contrast and exclusion pects anyway, but they must be given
such as the exclusion that may be in- phenomenological precision each on its
volved in the experience of black as the own account. Persistence, for example,
absence of color. Concomitant with this would seem to involve social dimensions
should go a theory of negative fact, rela- of process which a comparatively gross
tion, and judgment which is prepared to analysis does not include.
answer the questions raised by negativity Finally, taking quite seriously the dic-
in logic. Also, in addition to the positive tum of James that relations are immedi-
logic of polarity, which was vaguely ately experienced, it might be possible
grasped by Hegel, there is the whole to construct a theory of modal immediacy
question of degrees of otherness, and its by viewing the basic modalities-possi-
correlative problem of degrees of polarity bility, actuality, necessity-as derivative
and oppositional temdon. Tn logic: the .in th~ir imm~cliilt,e <'lRpectR from the Cly-
polarity of s,ystems uem:.mdliJ (!onRidcra- nnmic rdatium; of what they modify. The
,CONCLUSIONS 119
assumption here would be that the dy- to get a factual or 'neutral' statement of
namic relations are themselves immedi- metaphysical phenomena and theory. For
ate, where by dynamic relations we mean example, corresponding to the theory of
the Kantian relations of sequence, in- meaning and the valuational theory of
herence, and reciprocity, or their basic truth, there is no theory of 'ontological
relational determinants. It might on this value.' Yet the ontological urge has been
basis become possible to describe the ex- recognized by philosophers from Plato on
perience of possibility, and so forth, as down to our own time. One business of
well as reveal its logical analogues in the philosophy, as I conceive it, is to secular-
relational analyses of contemporary logic, ize, make available objectively, the flashes
where the logical modals are functions of insight and grounds of motivation that
of the systematic properties of relations. seem buried in the clouds of mysticism,
Just as in logic the relations defined are religion, poetry. One such secret is the
conditions for operation, so that relational secret of the sense of important human
and operational statements are alterna- values in a given cultural epoch. Another
tives, it may be that in the philosophy is the secret of Platonism, with its so-
of the act, or 'pragmatics,' the dynamic called hypostasis of ideas. Hypostasis it
relations are conditions for action; if this may be, but that merely names a complex
is so, pragmatism might turn its attention and important fact. It is the business of
to the refinement of its conceptual instru- phenomenology, at least, to get at the
ments and the precision of its insights basis of such facts. For example, in addi-
by attending to the dynamic relations tion to the sheer form, quality, and inter-
from an immanent point of view, i.e., in penetration of parts that characterize a
immediacy. But further, recalling the good piece of music, there is sometimes
possibility of species of tension, it might the sense of its formal eternity: one must
be, since tension is definitely processional, have heard it before, someone must be
that these species correspond to or are
hearing it always; at least it was not
functions of the three primary modalities:
merely 'created' but seems to bear with
normal tension as involving the immedi-
acy of possibility, polar tension involv- it a warrant for its own immortality. In
ing actuality, and persistent tension, a word, it has a kind of 'ontological value'
necessity. that will not be denied. Vague and fleet-
Whereupon, since the basis of the logic ing though the feelings in this value may
of metaphysics is inextricably bound up be, they may finally be subject to descrip-
with the three chief modalities of being, tion in communicable terms, if not to
it might be within the bounds of concep- explanation through the meanings of the
tion that a new descriptive approach to modern conceptual matrix.
metaphysics could be derived. The ques- All of this is indefinite, vague, and am-
tion of the nature of metaphysics is at biguous, no doubt exemplifying in the
present a decidedly open one: meta- realm of ideas eclectic distraction and
physics must be descriptive, compre- contradiction, live tensions of opposition.
hensive, adequate. But just what is But it may also be suggestive, signifi-
involved in these demands as demands cantly potential, shot through with im-
upon metaphysical systems is open to plications and significant tensions of
question. Without going in the direction direction. In a word, it may be mere
of mysticism on the one hand or of logical nonsense, but it may also be almost
atomism on the other, it might be possible prophetic.
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The Concept of Tension in Philosophy

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The Concept of Tension in Philosophy

Albert Millard Dunham, Jr.

I N ALL philosophy, whether it be in the normative disciplines, in phenomenology,

to interweave its explication with a rather Occasionally, in the application of the

Process and Futurity

of emergence is an alternative limguage comes more distant. Consequently the

The Notion of Tension

the intersection of concepts. He carried of final causation. By way of comment

Some Aspects of the Psychology of Tension

to warrant dogma about the role of 'neutral' emotion. 1o It is suggested that

identified by Prof. T. V. Smith as the ing it as 'inter-equilibria!' or 'intra-cata-

of polarity, or what might be called the made by phenomenologically inclined

Santayana's Dynamic 'Essences'

Pursuing the theoretical consequences tension of the event reaches a maximum,

If we cease with Santayana to revert to

creatures and expressions of this very tension

Peirce and the Aesthetic of Events

fication; namely that relations must be implication of independent persistence.

flux of existence. At its best, Schopen- as generalizations to reason. On this ac-

"M, R Cohen. Rca&,m and NatuTr., pp, 101(1

Conclusions : Further Problems and Possibilities

characterization of what he called the tion in its relation to consistency, com-

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