Abstract

Whitehead develops a metaphysics of internal connection amongst actualities conceived as centers of feeling and value. 'Intensity' expresses the unity of feeling achieved as each actuality becomes a unification of all entities in its universe. The complex feeling involves gradations of importance and value of the entities thus unified by the actuality in its teleological process of coming to be. 'Intensity' is Whitehead's primary concept in describing this value-complexity which is the cornerstone of his metaphysics of atomistic, creative process. ;This dissertation is an analysis of the concept of 'intensity' as it functions in Whitehead's scheme. My objectives are: To elucidate the concept as the primitive in terms of which the Categoreal Scheme of Process and Reality may be understood; To use the conclusions drawn as to the metaphysical status of intensity to resolve critical questions raised in regard to the ontology of Whitehead's atomism; To sketch the beginnings of a moral philosophy as derivable from a metaphysics of intensive becoming. ;The treatment of the first two objectives is of a piece. Chapter One undertakes an initial analysis of intensity in regard to problems raised as to the status of the 'satisfaction' of an entity versus its process of coming-to-be. Both descriptions of an actuality refer directly to its intensive character, but there appears nonetheless to be a tension between the ontological status of becoming and that of 'being' or completeness. ;Chapter Two draws out the significance of intensity in each of the Categoreal Obligations, the conditions to which all process must conform. This will render clearer the intepretive efficacy of 'intensity' for the purposes of addressing critical issues engaged in Chapter Three as to the coherence of Whitehead's atomism. The tension between the being and the becoming of actualities will be resolved, by demonstrating that readers of Whitehead have insufficiently appreciated the radical revision of ontology effected in his atomism. Chapter Four, an exploration of the metaphysics of intellectual experience, will finally identify the conceptual problems whereby such misconstruals arise, as well as preparing the ground for the final task of the thesis--an initial attempt to construct an ethics in light of Whitehead's metaphysics. In Chapter Five I bring Whitehead's thought into dialogue with that of Iris Murdoch, in developing the foundation for an ethics of 'Attention.' The connection between the metaphysics of intensity and the morality of attention is spelled out in a manner suggestive of further inquiries