Abstract

Holding that the Whitehead of Principia Mathematica is still to be found in the later speculation of Process and Reality, Lango attempts to show in some detail how the various particular entities and relations of Whitehead’s metaphysics are definable in terms of the formal properties of a universal relation which he calls "synonty," the relation by which one entity "has being for" another entity. This universal relation, he claims, is implicit in Whitehead’s "principle of relativity," according to which each entity in the universe is related to every other entity such that all entities, actual and non-actual, are characterized by the "potentiality for being an element in a real concrescence of many entities into one actuality." Lango then draws out the more general principle that "it belongs to the nature of a ‘being', that it is a potential for entities of all types." Thus, the prehension of one actual entity by another is a special case of the universal relation of synonty. Lango then proceeds to show how "derivative created entities," such as prehensions, subjective forms, and contrasts, are also special cases whose logical properties can be defined in terms of the universal relation of synonty.