After Whitehead has listed “categories of existence,” he identifies two of them as having “a certain extreme finality.” We have discussed one of these, the actual entities, at some length. The other one is “eternal objects,” and we will now turn to them. To get into the right ballpark, we can begin by saying that mathematical forms and formulae are eternal objects and that qualities of all kinds are eternal objects. E=mc2 is an eternal object; so is a definite shade of yellow. These eternal objects are directly illustrated in our world—in quite different ways. Anything that can be abstracted from experience and then can recur is an eternal object. There are also eternal objects that have never been actualized and never will be. A seven-dimensional space, also, is an eternal object, in that it can be thought about by mathematicians.
Whitehead himself gives the following equivalent terms: “pure potentials for the specific determination of fact,” and “forms of definiteness.” Occasionally he uses the term “abstract possibility,” and students have often made the contrast between eternal objects as pure possibilities and actual entities as possessing full actuality. However, Whitehead generally associates possibility with something that could actually occur. It is better to stay closer to his language. Eternal objects are pure potentials, and that means forms that could in principle characterize something actual, but that are in their nature indifferent to whether they do, or ever will, characterize anything actual. It is well to ask why Whitehead invented the term “eternal object” instead of sticking with the more familiar language of potentials and forms. First, “objects” establishes their status as depending on subjects. Objects exist only for subjects. They can be felt; they cannot feel. In themselves they cannot act. They are, indeed, passive.
For Whitehead “eternal” means nothing more than nontemporal. That is another way of saying that “eternal” objects have no actuality at all in themselves. They do not come into being and they do not pass away. They are related to every temporal moment in the same way, so far as their own nature is concerned.
Cobb Jr, John B. Whitehead Word Book: A Glossary with Alphabetical Index to Technical Terms in Process and Reality (Toward Ecological Civilization Book 8) . Process Century Press. Kindle Edition.
Short Video on Eternal Objects
from Jay McDaniel's Whitehead Video Series (apologies for the distorted image at the outset; fortunately, the rest of the video is clear)
Charles Hartshorne's Critique of the Idea of Eternal Objects
Charles Hartshorne critiqued the idea of eternal objects. One of his objections was that the “existence” of eternal objects undercut the creativity and novelty of concrete existence. If everything existed potentially before it was actualized, God would know all human creations before they were constructed. In that case, Mozart’s composition of music and its orchestral renditions would add nothing to God.
From Whitehead’s perspective this reflects an insufficiently abstract idea of the eternal objects. It is true that every pattern that is exemplified in every symphony that has ever been written or performed has always existed as an eternal object. Indeed, since no symphony is ever exactly the same in two performances, we must say that there is a slightly different pattern ingredient in every performance, and since no two listeners will hear it in exactly the same way, there is a slightly different pattern for every hearer and on each occasion of hearing. But these are only patterns. As patterns they have no different status from trillions of other patterns until they are selected by Mozart and the orchestras that actualize the music. In any case, as eternal objects they are not patterns of sound. The sound does not exist until it is heard. Even God cannot hear it until God can share the hearing with creatures. Similarly, God had no visual experience until there were creaturely eyes.
Cobb Jr, John B. Whitehead Word Book: A Glossary with Alphabetical Index to Technical Terms in Process and Reality (Toward Ecological Civilization Book 8) . Process Century Press. Kindle Edition.
John Cobb on Eternal Objects of the Objective and Subjective Species
Eternal objects function to objectify past actual entities and nexūs for new subjects. The subjective form of the new occasion is also characterized by eternal objects. Often the same eternal object functions to characterize both the objective datum and its subjective form. For example, in one moment I may feel the previous occasion of my experience as anxious. The subjective form of this feeling may well be anxiety. Anxiety belongs to the “subjective species of eternal objects.” There are other eternal objects that cannot characterize the subjective form of an occasion. The objective datum may be characterized by squareness, but the subjective form of seeing a square object cannot be squareness. Squareness, like mathematical forms generally, belongs to the “objective species.”
Cobb Jr, John B. Whitehead Word Book: A Glossary with Alphabetical Index to Technical Terms in Process and Reality (Toward Ecological Civilization Book 8) . Process Century Press. Kindle Edition.
John Cobb on God and Eternal Objects
Note: Whitehead does not say that God creates eternal objects but rather than God prehends them and orders them for the sake of nurturing a world filled with intensity (strength of beauty, importance).
God’s ordering of eternal objects thus functions as the basis of regularity in the world, the basis of novelty, and the basis of purposiveness. Whitehead believes that this ordering is the work of an actual entity. This actual entity evokes worship from human beings, and this justifies naming it “God.” However, Whitehead is emphatic that some of the characteristics attributed to God in some theistic traditions are not justified by this account. For example, God is not the “ultimate.” God is an instance of creativity. God does not control what happens. There are many “reasons” for what happens in every event, of which God is always only one; that is God never unilaterally determines what happens. Still God is always one of these reasons, the one who calls for the realization of optimum value and makes that realization possible.
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Whitehead calls God’s ordering of eternal objects for the sake of realizing value in the world, God’s “primordial nature.” He thinks of this ordering asa single nontemporal act, preceding and conditioning every actual occasion. The meaning of “primordial” here is much the same as the more usual term “eternal.” Hence one may say that God is eternal. God has no beginning and no end. However, Whitehead speculates that God’s primordial nature does not exhaust what God is. According to the ontological principle, in order that God be the reason for anything in the world, God must be an actual entity. The primordial nature of God can be thought of as the conceptual pole of God. But for actual occasions, the conceptual pole by itself is not actual. What is actual is the dipolar occasion, physical as well as conceptual. Unless God is actual, God cannot be the reason for the order of potentials that, in turn, provides order and novelty to the world. But for God to be actual would seem to require that God have physical feelings as well as conceptual ones. Those physical feelings would be and, Whitehead speculates, are, God’s prehensions of actual occasions.
Cobb Jr, John B. Whitehead Word Book: A Glossary with Alphabetical Index to Technical Terms in Process and Reality (Toward Ecological Civilization Book 8) . Process Century Press. Kindle Edition.
