Expression

Lecture II of Section I in Alfred North Whitehead’s book Modes of Thought

“Importance is presupposed by expression” (20)

Expression comes from the finite occasion, the moment - specific responses to singular events. → The activity of finitude impressing itself on its environment

“Selection belongs to expression,” and Expression is intrinsically individual.

Expression centers around Corporeality - “we cannot define where a body begins and where external nature ends” (21)

• “The body is part of the external world”

“Thus we arrive at this definition of our bodies: The human body is that region of the world which is the primary field of human expression”(22)

Whitehead creates this idea that animal bodies contain ‘centers of experience,’ where each center possesses its own experience. Basically, a stomach experiences digestion, whereas a heart experiences pumping of blood - and the animal as a whole exists out of the conversation between these ‘centers of experience.’ These organs, these ‘centers of experience,’ are specialists of their own function.

“The body is composed of various centers of experience imposing the expression of themselves on each other. Feeling (in the sense here used, or prehension, is the reception of expressions. Expressions are the data for feeling diffused in the environment; and a living body is a peculiarly close adjustment of these two sides of experience, namely, expression and feeling.” (23)

species and generality - ‘an animal body is a feudal society’ (25)

• One center of experience controls the rest, the brain controls the body. If the dominant center is ‘severed,’ the whole thing falls apart (and dies).
  • (And vegetables are a democracy)

‘novelty’ - singular events/experiences which impose certain reactions? (26)

• What separates mankind from animals is our relationship with novelty. We want to enjoy things, ‘express’ ourselves. Survival instinct vs novelty?

There is novelty in experience and response to stimuli from our environment, and there is novelty in the “entertainment of unexpressed possibilities,” - conceptual feeling. (26)

• “entertainment of the alternative” → entertainment of the “ideal” directly related to Importance.
  • This exhibits itself in “the sense of morality, the mystic sense of religion, the sense of that delicacy of adjustment which is beauty, the sense of necessity for mutual connection which is Understanding, and the sense of discrimination of each factor which is consciousness.” (26)

Importance is derived from this “ideal,” and this unrealized ideal is where human beings derive their worth, their goals, and what guides them through life. We are at a point where we are no longer guided solely by our survival instincts, yet by our thoughts of importance and the ideal.

Expression is the transition from animal behaviors to the history of mankind (27)

“History is the record of the expressions of feelings peculiar to humanity” (27)

Inorganic/non-living beings are defined by their lack of individual expression.

“The inorganic is dominated by the average” (27)

Can we then organize species on a spectrum of expression? From average expression to individual expression, non-living inorganic to human beings. What does it mean to position humans at the opposite end of this spectrum though? Are we the apex? average vs individual expression (28)

Point 3:

“The animal consciousness does not easily discriminate its dependence on detailed bodily functioning. Such discrimination is usually a sign of illness. When we observe the functionings of out viscera, something has gone wrong. We take the infinite complexity of our bodies for granted.” (29)

Novelty requires “conceptual power which can imagine, and practical power which can effect.”

• ‘humans desire fun, desire novelty’ (30)
• Whitehead believes concentration is the pitfall of philosophy, that specialty enables us to ignore context and general circumstance.
• ‘agent of stimulation’ (31)
• (32) sound → language, the functions of language
  • books and recording vs relationships
  • speech→writing→psychology
  • thought expressions (35)