All Actual Entities Matter to Themselves
The Ontology of Self-Enjoyment in Whitehead's Philosophy
The organic philosophy interprets experience as the “self-enjoyment of being one among many, and of being one arising out of the composition of many.”
An actual entity, when considered in reference to the privacy of things, is a ‘subject’—that is, it represents a moment in the genesis of self-enjoyment. This process involves a purposeful act of self-creation, utilizing materials at hand due to their publicity.
—Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality
All actual entities "enjoy" themselves, according to Alfred North Whitehead in Process and Reality. They enjoy being one among many—distinct from, yet related to, others. They are not absolutely independent; rather, they arise from the multiplicity of entities in the past actual world and cannot be separated from them. They come into being through their own feelings (prehensions) of those others. In this process of arising and responding, they "enjoy" themselves. This self-enjoyment is their subjective immediacy, the importance they have for themselves and the value they find within their own existence.
This value is not so much a noun as it is a verb. As an activity of self-enjoyment, it is not imposed by others or by God, nor is it reducible to the value they hold for others. It is their intrinsic value.
The intrinsic value of any actual entity is its self-enjoyment—the value it holds for itself. A human being has intrinsic value, as does a chicken, a mosquito, or even a living cell. Whitehead goes so far as to propose that something akin to self-enjoyment extends into the very depths of matter. Even quantum events in atoms enjoy being one among many. This enjoyment spreads outward to the stars and planets, even to momentary occasions of experience in empty space. It reaches the ultimate subjectivity—the encompassing consciousness in which the entire universe unfolds. Even God enjoys being one among many.
To be clear, Whitehead’s concept of "actual entity" does not refer to enduring substances in the public world, like a mountain or a rock. In his philosophy, such entities are enduring objects traveling through space; they are societies of actual entities. When Whitehead speaks of an actual entity, he is referring to a momentary act of experiencing others, in which an actual entity receives and responds to what it experiences. This activity is “private.” Privacy is always fleeting, except perhaps in the case of God, whose ongoing self-enjoyment may be everlasting—extending temporally forever.
This privacy can be understood in different ways. Andrew Davis, a leading process philosopher, describes it as an aesthetic achievement, a realization of an ideal beyond itself. For Davis, the value an actual entity has for itself is a moment of Beauty—an act of participating in an ideal that is part of the very nature of the universe. Truth and Goodness would be examples of other such ideals.
Roland Faber, another leading figure, interprets it as an act of self-interpretation. As an actual entity arises from the many, enjoying itself, it simultaneously interprets the world to itself and itself to the world. As Faber notes in The Mind of Whitehead: "every event is an interpretation of its past and a self-interpretation of its own becoming."
A Buddhist might add that privacy, in this context, does not belong to a separate subject that oversees or possesses it. The self that enjoys itself in the act of achieving value or interpreting the world is the activity of self-enjoyment itself. The subject of a momentary process of concrescence is not distinct from the act of concrescence. To think otherwise is to fall into the trap of imagining selves as enduring objects.
Still, it is important to recognize that the privacy of self-enjoyment inevitably becomes public. The subject becomes a superject. Once a private act of self-enjoyment has occurred, it becomes an object for others through its causal effects. Private moments of self-enjoyment are transformed into public objects, which in turn are transmuted into other private moments of self-enjoyment. The universe can be seen as an ongoing process of inter-subjectivity or, alternatively, inter-objectivity.
What are the implications of this for how we live? There are two lessons. First, we best recognize and appreciate the private side of life—the side of another person, another animal, or any sentient being that is its value for itself. We must never reduce value to mere instrumental value, nor should we reduce a sentient being to an object alone.
Second, we best recognize that the public world of enduring objects, including human beings and the more-than-human world, is not simply a collection of objects. It is itself a self-expression of value—of aesthetic achievement, self-enjoyment, and subjective immediacy. This is true for everything material, whether solid, liquid, gaseous, or otherwise - earth, air, fire, and water. All that is material is the self-expression of something that matters to itself: the self-mattering of matter. In human interactions this holds for all living beings and for all human beings, including those we love, but also those we fear and hate.
Nothing is purely public and objective; all that is public and objective is, or has been, subjective. At the heart of the universe lies an enjoyment of experience—a self-creative spontaneity that is important in its own right: sometimes tragic, sometimes terrifying, sometimes tender, sometimes delightful, always relational, and sometimes sublime. Even the Holy One, even the subjective unification of the universe, is self-creative and self-enjoying. The Oneness of the Holy One is not self-contained, but the Oneness does have a private side. There is a side of the Holy One that is by no means reducible to an instrumental value for the world, just as there is a side of each human being and each animal and each quantum event that is not thus reducible.
Enjoyment as an Ontological Category
Heidegger is well-known for his book Being and Time. His aim in that work was to develop an ontology—a way of understanding the being of beings—of which human being (Dasein) is the instance of being we humans know most intimately. Were Whitehead to write such a book, we might imagine it titled Being and Enjoyment. What Whitehead proposes, in suggesting that self-enjoyment is fundamental to the nature of actuality wherever it is found, is that enjoyment itself is existence. It is not something extrinsically added to existence from afar. The very act of self-enjoyment, in its private immediacy that subsequently becomes public, is being itself.
In Whitehead’s view, enjoyment is intrinsic to the process of becoming. Every actual entity, in the moment of its self-creation, feels the world, integrates those feelings, and enjoys itself in that integration. This self-enjoyment, this immediacy of experience, is the act of being. Thus, Whitehead shifts the focus from existence as a static fact to being as an ongoing, dynamic process of feeling and enjoyment, in which every moment of existence is an expression of value for itself. In this way, Whitehead's metaphysics reveals that existence is not a dry or detached state but a living, feeling, self-enjoying process—a creative becoming that is, in itself, a form of enjoyment.
An actual entity, when considered in reference to the privacy of things, is a ‘subject’—that is, it represents a moment in the genesis of self-enjoyment. This process involves a purposeful act of self-creation, utilizing materials at hand due to their publicity.
—Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality
All actual entities "enjoy" themselves, according to Alfred North Whitehead in Process and Reality. They enjoy being one among many—distinct from, yet related to, others. They are not absolutely independent; rather, they arise from the multiplicity of entities in the past actual world and cannot be separated from them. They come into being through their own feelings (prehensions) of those others. In this process of arising and responding, they "enjoy" themselves. This self-enjoyment is their subjective immediacy, the importance they have for themselves and the value they find within their own existence.
This value is not so much a noun as it is a verb. As an activity of self-enjoyment, it is not imposed by others or by God, nor is it reducible to the value they hold for others. It is their intrinsic value.
The intrinsic value of any actual entity is its self-enjoyment—the value it holds for itself. A human being has intrinsic value, as does a chicken, a mosquito, or even a living cell. Whitehead goes so far as to propose that something akin to self-enjoyment extends into the very depths of matter. Even quantum events in atoms enjoy being one among many. This enjoyment spreads outward to the stars and planets, even to momentary occasions of experience in empty space. It reaches the ultimate subjectivity—the encompassing consciousness in which the entire universe unfolds. Even God enjoys being one among many.
To be clear, Whitehead’s concept of "actual entity" does not refer to enduring substances in the public world, like a mountain or a rock. In his philosophy, such entities are enduring objects traveling through space; they are societies of actual entities. When Whitehead speaks of an actual entity, he is referring to a momentary act of experiencing others, in which an actual entity receives and responds to what it experiences. This activity is “private.” Privacy is always fleeting, except perhaps in the case of God, whose ongoing self-enjoyment may be everlasting—extending temporally forever.
This privacy can be understood in different ways. Andrew Davis, a leading process philosopher, describes it as an aesthetic achievement, a realization of an ideal beyond itself. For Davis, the value an actual entity has for itself is a moment of Beauty—an act of participating in an ideal that is part of the very nature of the universe. Truth and Goodness would be examples of other such ideals.
Roland Faber, another leading figure, interprets it as an act of self-interpretation. As an actual entity arises from the many, enjoying itself, it simultaneously interprets the world to itself and itself to the world. As Faber notes in The Mind of Whitehead: "every event is an interpretation of its past and a self-interpretation of its own becoming."
A Buddhist might add that privacy, in this context, does not belong to a separate subject that oversees or possesses it. The self that enjoys itself in the act of achieving value or interpreting the world is the activity of self-enjoyment itself. The subject of a momentary process of concrescence is not distinct from the act of concrescence. To think otherwise is to fall into the trap of imagining selves as enduring objects.
Still, it is important to recognize that the privacy of self-enjoyment inevitably becomes public. The subject becomes a superject. Once a private act of self-enjoyment has occurred, it becomes an object for others through its causal effects. Private moments of self-enjoyment are transformed into public objects, which in turn are transmuted into other private moments of self-enjoyment. The universe can be seen as an ongoing process of inter-subjectivity or, alternatively, inter-objectivity.
What are the implications of this for how we live? There are two lessons. First, we best recognize and appreciate the private side of life—the side of another person, another animal, or any sentient being that is its value for itself. We must never reduce value to mere instrumental value, nor should we reduce a sentient being to an object alone.
Second, we best recognize that the public world of enduring objects, including human beings and the more-than-human world, is not simply a collection of objects. It is itself a self-expression of value—of aesthetic achievement, self-enjoyment, and subjective immediacy. This is true for everything material, whether solid, liquid, gaseous, or otherwise - earth, air, fire, and water. All that is material is the self-expression of something that matters to itself: the self-mattering of matter. In human interactions this holds for all living beings and for all human beings, including those we love, but also those we fear and hate.
Nothing is purely public and objective; all that is public and objective is, or has been, subjective. At the heart of the universe lies an enjoyment of experience—a self-creative spontaneity that is important in its own right: sometimes tragic, sometimes terrifying, sometimes tender, sometimes delightful, always relational, and sometimes sublime. Even the Holy One, even the subjective unification of the universe, is self-creative and self-enjoying. The Oneness of the Holy One is not self-contained, but the Oneness does have a private side. There is a side of the Holy One that is by no means reducible to an instrumental value for the world, just as there is a side of each human being and each animal and each quantum event that is not thus reducible.
Enjoyment as an Ontological Category
Heidegger is well-known for his book Being and Time. His aim in that work was to develop an ontology—a way of understanding the being of beings—of which human being (Dasein) is the instance of being we humans know most intimately. Were Whitehead to write such a book, we might imagine it titled Being and Enjoyment. What Whitehead proposes, in suggesting that self-enjoyment is fundamental to the nature of actuality wherever it is found, is that enjoyment itself is existence. It is not something extrinsically added to existence from afar. The very act of self-enjoyment, in its private immediacy that subsequently becomes public, is being itself.
In Whitehead’s view, enjoyment is intrinsic to the process of becoming. Every actual entity, in the moment of its self-creation, feels the world, integrates those feelings, and enjoys itself in that integration. This self-enjoyment, this immediacy of experience, is the act of being. Thus, Whitehead shifts the focus from existence as a static fact to being as an ongoing, dynamic process of feeling and enjoyment, in which every moment of existence is an expression of value for itself. In this way, Whitehead's metaphysics reveals that existence is not a dry or detached state but a living, feeling, self-enjoying process—a creative becoming that is, in itself, a form of enjoyment.