Journal of the History of Philosophy

BOOK REVIEWS 101 they are felt under an abstraction.... Thus the initial data are felt under a 'perspective' which is the objective datum of the feeling" (PR 353). Whitehead's problem, and Pols's, is that whatever description is given of an actual entity must be in terms of eternal objects (forms of definiteness) while the presence and power of the datum felt in the real internal constitution of the prebending entity is simply there. The snag is that to talk about it we have to use descriptions via forms of definiteness (eternal objects). The datum is brute presence and power: felt, intuited, effective, real, internal, but beyond description. Whenever any thinker tries to explain this brute fact, he traps himself, and his systematic rationalistic goals lead him eventually to neglect and forget the initial datum. One can only grasp this fact. The ladder of description must be cast aside. I have no quarrel with Pols's account of the intricate roles eternal objects play in concrescence by providing the definiteness (determinate character) to it. He does a beautiful job. But When this job is finished, he cannot suppose it completes the picture. To do so leads to his Platonism concerning Whitehead. There simply remains, inexpressible but present and powerful, the initial datum in the real internal constitution. Similarly, no description can be given of creativity itself, only of its effects, and for the same reasons. When Whitehead speaks of "a remainder for the decision of the subject-superject" (PR 41) and "the final reaction of the self-creative unity" (PR 75), this is creativity working with the power and presence of the datum according to the forms of definiteness (eternal objects). This is why Whitehead asserts, "Among these eight categories of existence, actual entities and eternal objects stand out with a certain extreme finality" (PR 33). My third basic criticism of Pols's book is that he imports into the discussion of freedom in Process and Reality a meaning of freedom common in Western thought but, I think, not in Whitehead. I think this common meaning of freedom will not bear examination, which is why Whitehead doesn't use it. Pols introduces this meaning when he states, "The elimination of indetermination would then come about by way of the intervention of this indeterminate active power" (p. 121, cf. also pp. 38, 39, 82, 122, 138, 142). What this view requires is that freedom be: not caused, not chance, not self-caused, not ex nihilo, but that "I choose." I want to suggest there is no such beast in Whitehead. No wonder Pols cannot find it. For Whitehead "persons" axe a special type of nexus, a personal society. This is hardly the common sense 'T' who chooses. Freedom in Whitehead is what he says it is: a decision by a selfcreative unity in the sense of a final reaction via creativity under the limitations in each concrescence. The lesson of this is: don't import foreign bodies into novel systems. PAUL F. SCHMIrrr University of New Mexico The Metaphysics of Naturalism. By Sterling P. Lamprecht. Century Philosophy Series. (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1967. Pp. xiii+228. $5.50) More and more contemporary American teachers of philosophy seem to have become intimidated by the ancient charge that the college subject they teach consists solely of its own history. Hence they have turned away from substantive matters to dwell upon methods and techniques. Professor Emeritus Sterling P. Lamprecht of Amherst College belongs to an older and wiser school. In his classes many generations of students have achieved a thorough grounding in the history of philosophy along with an abiding sense of its continuing vitality. Not only was their instructor superbly versed in the history of philosophy, but also he was actively engaged in the making of that history by means of his many books, articles, and reviews, and his editing of the Century Philosophy Series. These writings have now been listed in a bibliography included in The Metaphysics of Naturalism consisting of eleven essays published during the last four decades and three written for this volume. The title, while most appropriate, could hardly have been chosen as a bid for popularity...