With some peculiar completeness each member
occasion of the living person sums up the past of the society, (PR 244, 531.)
Not exact matches
It's the Hero's Journey told through the
lives of normal
people who rise to the
occasion and demonstrate the simple bravery
of saying yes.
In any case, in the following paragraphs I will first analyze Whitehead's remarks in Process and Reality on societies as the necessary environment for the ongoing emergence
of actual
occasions and then show how this analysis throws unexpected light on Whitehead's further explanation
of the hierarchy
of societies within the current world order, in particular, the difference between inorganic and organic societies, and, among organic societies, those with a «soul» or «
living person» and those without such a central organ
of control.
Gallagher, to be sure, thinks
of these other
living occasions as «subordinate nonconscious «
living persons,»» (PS 4: 264), i.e., as strands
of living occasions with a modest degree
of social order below the level
of consciousness.
Nothing «turns into» agape, but love experienced in depth within the context
of faith in God's agape becomes an
occasion for gratitude, humility and the celebration which expresses the
life of God's
people in his world.
One way to reconcile the difficulty is to allow that
persons act through influencing the self - creation
of actual
occasions, to allow that a
person is grounded in an astronomically large number
of occasions as objectified in comparison to the single
occasion on the cutting edge
of the creative advance through which a
person lives, endures, acts.
Introspective self - consciousness involves causal objectification by the dominant
occasion of some
of the unimaginably large number
of concreta making up the human mind / brain, including what can be called the subordinate nonconscious
living persons responsible for our habitual behavior, that is, sub-personalities (RHNB 148f).
Similarly, the aims for most
living occasions include no (or few) hybrid prehensions, whereas the aim for a dominant
occasion in an animal organism is heavily weighted toward hybrid prehensions
of past dominant
occasions, which in the case
of higher organisms jointly constitute the soul or
living person.
These were»... devised by Whitehead to explain the «
living person»... «3 A hybrid physical feeling regarding God is a feeling
of an eternal object by the concrescing
occasion from a feeling
of an eternal object by God.
In a
living person, on the other hand, the mental poles
of the past
occasions are
of primary importance for their objectification.
The gulf between a soul, any soul, and
living occasions not organized into
living persons is vast, but it must not be confused with the gulf that separates man from the rest
of the world.
On three separate
occasions Jesus is described in the Gospels as bringing back to
life persons who had died: the son
of the widow
of Nain, the daughter
of Jairus, and Lazarus.
Hence, there may be immediate objectification
of many, perhaps
of all,
of the past
occasions in the
living person.
Would these two strands
of occasions then be the same
living person?
God, consequently, is but one
of a number
of prehended data available to a concrescing
occasion and is present within such
occasions in
living persons in generally the same way in which all other prehended data are present.
Indeed, it outranks the possibilities received through all the other routes
of inheritance in at least two respects: (1) the particular region to be inhabited by a newly concrescing
occasion in a
living person and the sort
of satisfaction at which it is aimed initially are granted exclusively through the route
of inheritance from God (CNT 153f.
Elsewhere Cobb is careful to specify that both God and man are best characterized as
living persons consisting respectively
of societies
of actual
occasions (CNT 188, 192).1 In the present context, consequently, it is clear that we are to understand God to be present in man in the same manner in which one actual
occasion is present within another and that this presence concerns the aims at the fulfillment
of a concrescing
occasion in a
living person by the
occasions or «prehended data» in its past.
We have seen that there are two conflicting aims at the fulfillment
of a concrescing
occasion in a
living person.
In the case
of a newly concrescing actual
occasion in a
living person the aims at its fulfillment from
occasions in its past are received through four possible routes
of inheritance: (1) from
occasions residing in the same
living person; (2) from
occasions residing in some other
living person; (3) from
occasions residing in the same body in which it presently is the predominant or chief participant; and (4) from God's special aims for that
occasion (CNT 234).
In fact, if we agree with him that human experiences
of as brief a duration as one - tenth
of a second may be distinguished in consciousness, and if we disregard the problem
of whether a sleeping
person also experiences at about the same rate
of ten
occasions per second, then simple arithmetic enables us to conclude that the concrete reality
of a human being that
lives seventy years is well over two billion individual «selves»!
Where I
live now,
people signal — that is, use the tragedies as an
occasion to display their rectitude and concern (okay, there's more than a bit
of this in prayer requests as well).
The ideal aim which he entertains for the initial aim
of each actual
occasion in a
living person accounts for the varying determination
of his initiative or presence from
person to
person, and it is always uniquely tailored to the most relevant possibilities at work within the
life situation
of each individual
person (CNT 154; PPCT 388).
A case
of even the very earliest childhood experience now recollected by the oldest
person among us, however, involves past
occasions of experience from within the same
living person and not
occasions from another
person in the remote past.
The given situation
of home and office and store and school, and the places where we
live and work, the
people whom we meet, the duties that are laid upon us in the course
of our daily
life, these are the
occasions for our knowing God.
I have found that on
occasion I really sympathize with a friend
of mine who feels that organizations
of people are to be avoided as the plague; but I think that is peculiar
of me, probably because I
live in a rather close - knit community and sometimes find a «gold - fish» existence somewhat fatiguing.
Behind such talk is the conviction that we know what we are doing in theology, Bible and history, and that the problem is to stage
occasions on which the student learns to work with
people «applying» the «input» part
of his education to
life.
For this reason Whitehead speaks
of «the perishing
occasions in the
life of each temporal Creature» (PR, p. 533), referring to
living persons and not simply to individual actual
occasions.
Whitehead called this quite different ordering
of occasions a «
living person.»
Unless we speak
of him as temporal, we can not speak
of him as a
living person, for the
living person is defined by a temporal relationship among actual
occasions.
Each divine
occasion (if, as I hold, God is better conceived as a
living person rather than a single actual entity) must receive its being from its predecessors, and I can image no beginning
of such a series.
These bishops are convinced that they can bring
people the gospel
of life in some mysterious, inner way, even as their words and actions tell the world that the choice
of death should
occasion «dialogue,» not a clear statement
of moral truth.
The distinction in process thought is not between the two component elements
of matter and spirit conjoined to form a
person, but between high - grade, or coordinating
occasions, and low - grade
occasions in a
living nexus, each
of which is its own reality.
Cobb argues that it would be consistent with Whitehead's own understanding
of God's becoming, as well as with the biblical tradition, to consider God a «
living person», an infinite succession
of occasions.22 God would be the pre-eminent
person in a community
of interacting beings.
The amount
of conceptual novelty it can introduce is tiny indeed, and the «cleverest» DNA - molecular -
occasion in the world is oblivious
of the fact that its aims may have an effect on the welfare
of the human «
living person» who happens to inhabit the same organism!
The initial aim
of subsequent
occasions in the
living person will be affected in part by the way in which earlier
occasions have modified their aims, but it includes also an element
of autonomy.
These subordinate, nondominant, and nonconscious (not explicitly reflective) enduring objects ease the job
of the presiding
occasion of the regnant society in integrating bodily experience and are called by Gallagher subordinate «
living persons.
It is not only a reasonable hypothesis to say that «eternal object» and «nexus
of successive
occasions» refer to the pattern
of behavioral definiteness sustained by subordinate «
living persons» and the regnant society: it is also one
of the few hypotheses available for avoiding the «Fallacy
of Misplaced Concreteness» by not making the entire nexus the locus
of subjectively immediate feelings (WEP 183).
Or, as Gallagher echoes Merleau - Ponty, «At times, I act «in the first
person,» while at other times, in fact most
of the time, a more habitual or pre-personal thread
of occasions [subordinate «
living persons»] unifies my behavior.»
The easiest way to understand this would be to regard God, like human
persons, as a
living person.30 A
living person is a succession
of moments
of experience with special continuity.31 At any given moment I am just one
of those
occasions, but when I remember my past and anticipate my future, I see myself as the total society or sequence
of such
occasions.
This is especially true
of history that is predominantly maintained cultically, when past event is the
occasion for present praise
of God and the celebration
of his role in the
life of a
people.
If the teacher takes advantage
of these
occasions when and as they arise, students can learn by experience how to help
people cope with
life's inevitable traumas.
It's an extension
of the warmth and
occasion and the blessing I have to have
people in my
life at my table.
Housework is basically the bane
of my
life and Husband has offered on more than one
occasion to pay for
people to come and make my
life easier — although I usually refuse out
of pure stubbornness and by annoyingly over-blown sense
of frugality!
One, to thank every single one
of you who are here today,
live and in
person, and then to thank all
of those who are viewing this tremendous
occasion on livestream, including those who are viewing from la isla del encanto, her beloved Puerto Rico.
«When there have been significant numbers
of new
people arriving in neighbourhoods, perhaps not able to speak the same language as those
living there, on
occasions not really wanting or even willing to integrate - that has created a kind
of discomfort and disjointedness in some neighbourhoods,» he said.
The Labour leader has previously said he is «angry and fed up» with six million
people earning less than the
living wage and he has been accused
of losing his temper with media on more than one
occasion.
Gov. Ugwuanyi has institutionalized a culture
of governance that is inclusive, endearing and also impacts positively on the
lives of the
people of the state in all spheres
of development, despite the drought in the state's finance,
occasioned by the nation's economic challenges.
«The Ghanaian
people expect the office
of the special prosecutor to rise to the challenge and to the
occasion, and collaborate with other existing law enforcement agencies to fight relentlessly and help eliminate corruption in our public
life.»
That's why, when there have been significant numbers
of new
people arriving in neighbourhoods — perhaps not able to speak the same language as those
living there, on
occasions not really wanting or even willing to integrate — that has created a kind
of discomfort and disjointedness in some neighbourhoods.
CDHR, therefore, called on the «government to rise to the
occasion and tackle the social and economic conditions that created the desperation
of the Nigerian
people to seek better
lives outside the shores
of this country.»