"This course of lectures is designed as an essay in Speculative Philosophy. Its first task must be to define 'speculative philosophy,' and to defend it as a method productive of important knowledge.
"Speculative Philosophy is the endeavour to frame a coherent, logical, necessary system of general ideas in terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted. By this notion of 'interpretation' I mean that everything of which we are conscious, as enjoyed, perceived, willed, or thought, shall have the character of a particular instance of the general scheme. Thus the philosophical scheme should be coherent, logical, and in respect to its interpretation, applicable and adequate. Here 'applicable' means that some items of experience are thus interpretable, and 'adequate' means that there are no items incapable of such interpretation." (PR 3)
With these words, Whitehead begins his essay. He identifies his project as an exercise in "Speculative Philosophy," describes what that should entail, and defends it as a worthwhile activity.
The criteria for a successful "system of general ideas" are four in number: These are coherence, logical consistency, application and adequacy.
"The term 'logical' has its ordinary meaning, including 'logical' consistency, or lack of contradiction, the definition of constructs in logical terms, and the exemplification of general logical notions in specific instances, and the principles of inference. It will be observed that logical notions must themselves find their places in the scheme of philosophic notions." (3)Whitehead, as a mathematician, presents the criterion of logical consistency in a fairly straightforward manner, including inductive logic (inference) as well as deductive logic in his description.
By "applicable," Whitehead means that various items in our experience are interpretable by the system of ideas. Applicability requires that the speculative endeavour must have some bearing and relevance to real life. "Adequacy" takes it several steps further and "means that there are no items incapable" of interpretation by the speculative scheme. Clearly, Whitehead is aiming high.
Coherence is perhaps the most important and crucial criterion outlined at this early stage. He describes it in this way:
"'Coherence,' as here employed, means that the fundamental ideas, in terms of which the scheme is developed, presuppose each other so that in isolation they are meaningless. This requirement does not mean that they are definable in terms of each other; it means that what is indefinable in one such notion cannot be abstracted from its relevance to the other notions. It is the ideal of speculative philosophy that its fundamental notions shall not seem capable of abstraction from each other. In other words, it is presupposed that no entity can be conceived in complete abstraction from the system of the universe, and that it is the business of speculative philosophy to exhibit this truth. This character is its coherence." (3, emphasis mine)What Whitehead is expressing here is a clear ecological mandate, in the sense that all parts of the speculative scheme, and indeed all parts of the universe, are connected -- interdependent -- with each other. It is not simply a case of building up some parts from others, or equating one part to a sum of some others. Rather there is a more intrinsic connection to be found. Compare this short description of coherence with the John Locke passage that Whitehead previously identified as so important. In particular, review Locke's closing statement:
"This is certain: things, however absolute and entire they seem in themselves, are but retainers to other parts of nature for that which they are most taken notice of by us. Their observable qualities, actions, and powers are owing something without them; and there is not so complete and perfect a part that we know of nature which does not owe the being it has, and the excellencies of it, to its neighbours; and we must not confine our thoughts within the surface of any body, but look a great deal further, to comprehend perfectly those qualities that are in it."Whitehead is building upon Locke's intuition that things are never entire and absolute all by themselves. Locke gives examples from among the realm of mineral objects (gold, for example), from plants and from animals. Locke further describes how crucial the sun is for life on Earth, even though it is a seemingly distant and remote body. The progress of science in the 300 years since Locke's writing has divulged a goodly amount of the secrets that were so mysterious to seventeenth century onlookers. This scientific progress has disclosed one thing above all else: apparently discrete entities are tightly interconnected with each other and with their surroundings. This holds true for chemical entities (think, for example, something so simple as free oxygen gas in the atmosphere) and even more so for living entities. The gravitational attraction among masses demonstrates important connections between celestial bodies. Such masses even affect the behavior of light. Modern physics discloses many more subtle and not so subtle interactions.
Why does Whitehead bother to reiterate what may seem to many to be an obvious fact of the universe? Because so many of us, whether trained philosophers or not, blithely continue on as if this ecological essence wasn't the case. It will be interesting to see how Whitehead carries through on his idea of coherence as the book unfolds.
Section I concludes with a categorization of these four criteria (coherence, logical consistency, adequacy and applicability) into two "sides:" the rational side, and the empirical side. Whitehead places coherence and logic on the side of the rational, and applicability and adequacy on the side of the empirical. He sees these sides as united in one whole (hence his use of the term 'side'). They are connected through a deeper understanding of the term 'adequate:'
"The adequacy of the scheme over every item does not mean adequacy over such items as happen to have been considered. It means that the texture of observed experience, as illustrating the philosophic scheme, is such that all related experience must exhibit the same texture. Thus the philosophic scheme should be 'necessary,' in the sense of bearing in itself its own warrant of universality throughout all experience, provided that we confine ourselves to that which communicates with immediate matter of fact. But what does not so communicate is unknowable, and the unknowable is unknown; and so this universality defined by 'communication' can suffice.If at this point you are thinking that Whitehead has set him self an impossible task, you may be on to something. His claims are bold: The universe is both rational and knowable, insofar as it reveals itself to human experience. Whitehead wants to capture that essence, in general terms, in the space of some 351 printed pages. Can it be done? Should any self-respecting philosopher even attempt such a thing? Perhaps Whitehead was fortunate to have been trained originally as a mathematician, and not as a philosopher.
"This doctrine of necessity in universality means that there is an essence to the universe which forbids relationships beyond itself, as a violation of its rationality. Speculative philosophy seeks that essence." (3)
