The Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness: Its Importance for Critical and Creative Inquiry H, EDWARD THOMPSON, IiT University of Saskatchewan ABSTRACT: In Science and the Modern World, Alfred North Whitehead (1925/1953) critically discusses the historical development of science and its larger impact on our civilization and culture today. The fallacy of misplaced concreteness (FMC) is a notion central to his analysis, both of the process of inquiry and to the general sustainability of quality of life. This paper is part of a panel of four presentations relevant to the theory, practice, and teaching of science. In this paper I identify the FMC as a set of variations ‘on the central theme ot misplacing concreteness, by mstaking the abstract for the concrete, and I define the component notions involved. More than half of the paper involves a representative range of concrete examples of the FMC, The realm of the acsthotic, of pationt and sensitive attontion, the full range of immediate bodily fooling, and the variety of real values revealed therein, turns out to be both the victim of and the remedy for the FMC. As Whitehead says: “Sensitiveness without impulse spells decadence, and impulse without sensitiveness spells brutality” (1925/1953. p. 200). KEYWORDS: fallacy of misplaced concreteness, inquiry, science, theory, abstraction, the aesthetic, metaphysics (mechanism versus organism), process, reality, dogmatism, natrowness, danger to civilization and quality of lite. Introduction ‘This paper is a general explanation of the fallacy of misplaced concreteness (FMC), a notion introduced by Alfred North Whitehead, in Science and the Modern World (1925/1993, pp. 91 ¢.5., 38). Although 1t 1s sel!-contamed, this paper aims to be a base for three other papers, by Mark Flynn, Bob Regnier, and Howard Woodhouse. ‘They will show detailed applications and implications of the FMC for the proper treatment of, respectively, intelligence, educational measurement, and African science. All of the panelists have a grounding in Whiteheadian process philosophy, but in our presentations we aim to be relevant to the theory, practice, and pedagogy of what is called ‘science,’ and which I will refer to, more inclusively, as “inquiry.” Basically, we are criticizing some of modern science and its interpretations, as committing the FMC, or, in a phrase, mistaking its models for reality. Hopefully these four papers can articulate some convincing criticisms, and even raise some tentative suggestions for improvement. The FMC is detrimental both to good science and to good human living. I should note that Whitehead is not antiscience: as he says , the FMC “is not a vice necessary to the intellectual apprehension of nature .... It is merely the accidental error of Interchange, Vol. 28/2 & 3, 219-230, 1997. ©Kiuwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands,220 H. EDWARD THOMPSON, IIT mistaking the abstract for the concrete” (1925/1953, pp. 50-51). Whitehead is concerned that the actual historical development of science has contributed to a modern world in which miaunderotanding of this basic issuc threatens um voly civilization and quality of life. His penultimate chapter is concerned with the relation between religion and science, and, by implication, with all the issues of real fact and value and meaning that face a world overly impressed with the grandiose visions of early mechanistic physics. And his last chapter, “Requisites for Social Progress,” claims that there is an urgent need for a real aesthetic dimension to basic education. This, we see our panel's concerns as more than merely academic interest. There are two main sections to this discussion. In the next, shorter, section, I will give a general explanation, in which I identify the FMC as comprising several variations on a central theme, and then define the component notions of the FMC. In the last, longer section I will illustrate several forms of the FMC. Generui Explunution: Central Theme and Dejininons The FMC misleads us into thinking we have all of reality, when we have, instead, only part of it. The FMC is actually a paradigm notion, involving several variations on a central theme; that of mispiacing concreteness by mistaking the abstract for the concrete. The variations I will discuss are three. The first concerns what lies beyond inquiry; this is the realm of feelings, or the aesthetic, and is also, for Whitehead at least, the reaim OF value. Whitehead claims that sometimes we actually mistake the map for the territory, and lose sight of the concrete actual situation altogether. The second variation concems the competing metaphysical modes of thought that claim to best support and guide inquiry. Whitehead claims that the modern legacy of 17th-century materialistic mechanism is too abstract, and is the wrong kind of metaphysical frame for conducting good science; he believes we need a frame which 18 more taithtul to our concrete experience, which | will here call organicism. The third variation concerns the best general methodology for conducting inquiry, and there are three common forms of the FMC here. They are: (a) mistaking internal correctness, within the model, for external adequacy to the reality it was devised to explain; (b) dogmatically insisting on the wrong model; and, (c) unnecessarily restricting the range of concrete experience, and features revealed therem, which science ought to consult while seeking the best explanation. I will give explanations and illustrations of these variations in the last section of this paper; and more extensive and focussed applications will be given in the other presentations in this panel. Let me now define the main component notions of the FMC. First of all, the FMC isa fallacy. A fallacy most generally involves making a mistake in reasoning. There are generally two sorts of fallacy: those which, in deductive logic, involve a failure of formal validity, such as affirming the consequent, and a wide range of informal fallacies, such as ‘straw opponent’ or ‘arguing in a circle.’ These latter are perhaps best seen as bad assumptions or strategies in inquiry, and the FMC falls into thisTHE FALLACY OF MISPLACED CONCRETENESS. 221 category. It involves bad assumptions and strategies and, indeed, is based on a bad philosophy. Inquiry is consciously theorizing to gain knowledge and understanding of reality. Now inquiry essentially involves the process of abstraction, of forming concepts about a situation in which certain features are picked out as somehow important to tho real nature of the situation studied. Abstraction is thus very important to us, but its limits, both in inquiry and in human living, need to be scen clearly. The FMC involves a mistake made in abstraction. As will become clear presently, it is the misuas of abstraction which misplaces conerctencss. Consequently, we inquire and live with inadequate abstractions and insufficient concreteness. ‘There are actually two directions of abstraction, which Whitehead (1925/1953, chapter 9) calls “vertical” and “horizontal”; and there are, thus, two potential trouble spots. The vertical kind of abstraction involves making a higher abstraction from existing lower ones, Examples would be: abstracting the concept of order from several diffcrent kinds of organization, or, the concept of number from several different sets of things. The higher we go in our abstractions, the more inclusive is our theoretical system, and, hopefully, the more general and deeper our explanations and understanding become. Higher abstractions are a worthy aim; but they take us ever farther from the concrete particulars they are devised to explain, and there are attendant dangers. Two are: dogmatism, since we have more theory to revise or lose, and a general stultification of thought, cinoo all abstractions seem to have a limited shelf life in a living, growing culture. Another danger is that a metaphysical bias may limit the creativity involved: for example, Einstein's rejection of quantum mechanics on the grounds that ‘God does not play dice with the universe,’ or the notion that matter just cannot have discontinuous existence. And, finally, the value of all of this higher understanding of the world depends on getting our horizontal abstractions right. The horizontal kind of abstraction occurs at the very lowest level; this is the first act of abstraction, where theorizing actually starts. This is where thought narrows down an actual situation, in all its conorete fullness, to just certain features which are focussed on as the ones important for understanding the situation. Here is where the aesthetic, an acute sensitivity to feeling, is crucial; here is where careful attention must be given to the full range of our experience. One danger is that, through insufficient attentiveness, the selection will be too narrow to catch what is important in our experience. Furthermore, since all observation is selection, and may be metaphysically biased, Whitehead says, “it ie of the utmost importance to be vigilant in critically revising your modes of abstraction. It is here that philosophy finds its niche as essential to the healthy progress of society. It is the critic of abstractions” (1925/1953, p. 59). What is concreteness? Conereteness (1929/1957, p. 20; see also ‘concrescence” and ‘concrete’ entries, pp. 358-359) refers to what is most important and basic in our lives, This is our immediate experience, the dimension of the aesthetic, of bodily Jeeling — notice the contrast with the notion of an anaesthetic. The aesthetic is the “pround” for every “figure” we have. This is what Whitehead called “that stream,222 H. EDWARD THOMPSON, III compounded of sense perceptions, feelings, hopes, desires, and of mental activities, adjusting thought to thought, which forms our life” (1929/1957, p. 3). Our concrete hadily experience connects us to the world, snd is thus the bare for all inquiry. So concreteness also refers to what really occurs, whatever is exactly as it is, not possibilities or hypothetical entities, nor abstractions or partial selections of features. Tris the immediacy and fullness af what is uniquely individual, of what is an “actual situation” (1929/1957, pp. 18, 22, 73, 77, 88, 141, 211). How, then, can we misplace concreteness? Misplacement (1929/1957, pp. 7, 18, 93, 94) is actually an equivocal notion. It can mean to Jose concreteness (the aesthetic) altogether, which is the subject of the first variation. It can also mean Jalsely locating concreteness, which occurs in two forms. The one form occurs when. concreteness is attributed to the wrong (e.g., mechanistic) kind of thing, which is the subject of the second (metaphysical) variation; the other form occurs when the ab- stractions selected are too narrow to be the best explanation of the real nature of the canerete citation, which ic the third (methadalagical) variatian. Twill nour give came elementary illustrations of these variations of misplacing concreteness by mistaking the abstract for the concrete. Illustrations The First Variation What lies beyond inquiry: Here the KML takes the torm of focussing exclusively on the map and losing sight of the territory altogether. Radiance perdue: Whitehead gives a simple example of what can go wrong when we do, and rely on, science. He says (1925/1953, p, 199), “When you understand all about the sun and all about the atmosphere and all about the rotation of the earth, you may still miss the radiance of the sunset.” This is to say that something is always left out when we do science. If we know that, we may be all right; but, all too often we scientists and receivers of science mistake the models for the full reality. Tasting Einstein's soup: Einstein, though not particularly a process philosopher, once commented that the job of science is to analyze soup, but it is not to give us the taste of soup. This view does not lose sight of the taste; indeed, it suggests that science could be the means that we would use, to understand and then manipulate and control reality, so that we could make soup and then we could taste it. The richness of reality: There are many who believe in what Whitchead somewhere called ‘the principle of externalization of thought.' that is. that there is nothing in experience or in the mind that cannot be put into language. But Whitehead claims that this principle is false, Indeed, in the broadest sense Whitehead shares with mysticism the view that reality goes beyond language and that there is more in the world than there is in language. There is more to reality than we can say about it. And while poetry and the arts are generally the most concrete expressions of certain aspects ofTHE FALLACY OF MISPLACED CONCRETENESS, 223 our world, Whitehead claims that we always feel reality in a far richer way than we can state what we feel or say things about reality. It is not that saying things about ieality Gauuul bo valuable aud, in some limited sense of the phrasce, tuo, or useful. It is that there is a feeling quality to reality that is never caught completely in language. And one variant of the FMC is not realizing this, or forgetting it in the end. I was IN the earthquake: Whitehead (1929/1957) distinguishes two quite different ways of experiencing an actual occasion; “causal efficacy” and “presentational immediacy.” We might also describe these us bodily feclings and ubjastive ris. An example of the first would be being in the San Francisco earthquake, there on the street, shuddering with the street, being directly affected by the quake, and feeling it through my bodily presence, as purl uf my bodily prescuve. An example of the second would be seeing what is printed out by the seismograph in some office of the California metearological bureau in Los Angeles. Clearly, the earthquake is experienved fir mure cunureicly by shuddering with the street, and more abstractly by reading the seismograph in Los Angeles, although in the latter case, too, the actual experience had involves more than just reading: for example, I was hungry and tired and had unly ikl focliugs of concern for the victims. The Second Variation Competing metaphysical guides: Here the KMU involves an insistence on an overly abstract world-view, resulting in the Aind of abstractions and theories and research programs that do not fit the world as we concretely know and live it. Let me use the earthquake example as a transition. What sort of account do we want? In Los Angeles we have a record, a pen makes marks up and down on a sheet of paper, systematically and precisely measuring certain physical features of the quake. The dominant materialist view today is: ‘Well, this is the most objective sort of account of the earthquake. It is certainly more reliable and useful for understanding, and more likely to get at the real truth, the basic reality, than some participant's subjective story about being there.’ Whitchead would reply that ai accounts are abstractions, but there are metaphysical issues, as well as issues of value, involved in deciding which account is more useful or more true of reality. Held back by history: Whitehead’s complaint about much of modern science is that it still has in the background an outmoded and overly abstract model of reality, a legacy from the substance philosophy and mechanistic physics of the 17th century. He claims that an organic model of reality is more concrete. He also wants to claim that, for three of the four major levels/domains we currently aim to explain — the subatomic, the plain physical object, the biological/ecological, and the psychological/social — the organic view is by now clearly more scientifically224 H, EDWARD THOMPSON, If promising. It is being held back only because a metaphysical form of the FMC was committed at the beginnings of modern science. Substance, mechanism, and determinism: Substance philosophy held that the mark of a ‘thing’ being real, and of a ‘property’ being objectively in it, was its not depending on anything else for its existence; with the birth of physics, that came to imply that things are disconnected, except by key features causally related. On the mechanistic view, reality consisted of isolated bits of dead/ inert matter which had simple loostions in space and time (1925/1953, pp. 21, 49, 2.8., 58, a5, 67, 91, e.s., 119, es. 156; See also 1929/1957, Index, 383, 385). These isolated bits were subject only to deterministic causal laws discovered by physics. And now we take it for granted that it is the business of science to analyze reality in terms of its physical properties so as to find the physical causal laws which affect how reality turns out, and to do so in a way that allows us to predict and control the outcomes. Phycics, supposedly, ic the supreme and basic science, and all other exiences are secondary and derivative from, reducible to, physics. We increasingly accept the concretely incredible: that things which are, ultimately, unable to be explained as causal functions of atems in the void are, ultimately, illusory, unreal figments of “folk psychology.” Consider, for example, BF. Skinner's astounding book title, Bevond Freedom and Dignity. How did we come to this? How did it start? Primary qualities over all the rest: When Galileo wrote his Dialogue Concerning Two World Systems, it was important for him to do some basic metaphysics and philusophy of science. Ic wanted to be able to discover laws of nature that were simple, precise, and general, which would enable him to predict and control results. So he argued that there were two kinds of qualities that things had: ‘primary’ ones, aul Uva ‘sxanwlary’ and ‘tertiary’ qualitics. Primary qualities were ‘objective,’ that is, they were really in the object, since they did not depend on, or vary with, a subject, a perceiver. All other qualities, secondary and tertiary, were ‘subjective.’ These primary qualiticy were also casy to measure with instruments ond, thue, to mathematize. With this metaphysical justification, he was then able to focus only on measuring certain features of the balls that he rolled down inclined planes. He could ignore their beauty, which he called a tertiary quality, and he could ignore their colour, which he called a secondary quality. He could focus only on the distance they travelled, the number of seconds it took, and the angle of the inclined plane. This metaphysios shaped the beginnings of modern science. Notice that, even though Einstein acknowledged that soup had a taste, he placed it outside the purview of scientific knowledge. Unreal tables: Arrogant silliness is not new to history, nor to science. Against the opposition of religious dogmatism, the scientific movement developed, with a self- definal menbership, in order to study and understand some realitics of human experience, Copernicus had to kowtow to the church, but 100 years later Newton was,THE FALLACY OF MISPLACED CONCRETENESS 225 able to simply note that he had no need to mention God in his Principia. Success was increasingly achieved by observing and abstracting some features of reality; theory was increasingly confirmed thrmgh prediction and testing As the theorizing membership gained more confidence, some eventually made the silly claim that reality consists only in what has been found to be objectively measurable and demonstrable, namely, those theoretical entities/forces. Here is one example: Sir Arthur Eddington, in a book popularizing science, once said that the common person mistakenly thinks that tables are real when actually what is real is the atoms that make them up. The idea is that with science yon get dawn below the surface or appearance to the basic reality. Beauty, colour, even tables, become epiphenomenal, secondary; then from ‘not objective’ to ‘not real' is a small but deadly step. A fully concrete empiricism. Whitchead has particular ‘intemal consistency” argument against certain materialist versions of moder science. Moder science has always soon itoolf ao based on empiricism. ‘Empiriciem’ enmes from the Greek root meaning experience, and means that ‘knowledge’ must come from experience. Whitehead points out that this was certainly an advance, because prior to that all knowledge was put forward on the basis of ‘pure reason,’ or merely was based on tradition or dogmatic authority. Whitehead agrees that knowledge needs to be established on the basis of experience, although reason must also be used to help us get cchemes that tie together and give ns models of the relationships between these facts of nature. But his argument, in effect, is this: ‘Look, if you modern scientists claim to base your theories on experience then you ought not to ignore any kind of ex- perience, and yon have. You have. If you analyze only certain features of reality and try to get connections between those, you have not taken into account other experiences that are actually concretely had, and that may be relevant to the true nature of the simation What is needed is a more empirical model of reality, one that is more concrete and less abstract.’ Alive, alive, oh!: What mode! does Whitehead think is better? Naw T am going to try something extremely tricky — to summarize about 400 dense pages of Process and Reality in two longish paragraphs. In Whitehead's metaphysics, reality is process, the flow of events. Events are sctual occasions, which are all that actually eviet This flaw ‘consists of less and more inclusive histories, in which ‘prehensions concresce,” and achieve momentary ‘satisfaction.’ A prehension is a pure drop of experience, a fooling of all that is and could be, Conerescence is the coming tagether af that which never has been and never will be again, (c.g. a dinner part or this academic conference or you reading this paper). It is novelty, when all potential characteristics (these are somewhat like Plato's Forms) join in an exact self-defining unity, in which some, mutually, positively select themselves and negatively exclude all others. That is to say, everything is what it is and not another thing. Satisfaction is the internal unity of fecling of that achieved moment of crestivity; it is the self-enjoyment of existence. ‘Objective immortality’ is the fact that everything has effects beyond its own endurance. What we (but not the Hopi) ordinarily recognize as ‘things,’ are more226 HH. EDWARD THOMPSON, IT like standing waves, an evolution of newly created pattems which have a striking continuous similarity. A galaxy i is a relatively slow or long event; a person is midrange, an electron jump is a quicky. ‘The universe is one live organism, which is creatively evolving. ‘God! is simply the name of the dynamic relatedness of all members of the reality community. Creativity is the fundamental principle, and god is the fandamental, temporal accident, ‘The world is made up of members of organic communities with sub-communities and sub-sub-sub-members. Space-time is the locus of all that is real, but it has three aspects, not the one, ‘simple location,’ of mechaniom. These aspecte arc: ‘separative,’ ‘prehensive,’ and ‘modal.’ This means, first, that events are separate in space-time — this is their individuality and their fragility. It means, second, that events are together in space-time — they are internally aware of (responsive to) every other unity that exists, much like Liebniz's monads, and are thus inherently connected to all. else. All things respond one to another, and especially to their local environments, under the same general laws (this euggests, incidentally, that electrons in the brain will behave differently than those in rocks). And it means, third, that each actual occasion has all of its particular quality of all the modalities — this is its own version of shape, colour, heanty, affection, and so on. All creatures have some degree of every feature, however dimly, and everything has feeling. Alright, that’s it. I wanted to give you some relatively complete version of the alternative model of reality which Whitehead thinks in moro adequate to the whole of our immediate experience, and less abstract than mechanistic materialism.' But before there is an indignant revolt at this claim, let me give you a poetic version of the very same model which is mmch shorter and less analytic. The essence of a successfiul safari — original meaning, ‘a day's journey' — is a sensitive response to one fundamental principle: the interdependence of every part of the whole, beautiful, pulsing world through which we travel .., phyzios, biology, and the activities of the mind, imagination and spirit belong to a single continuum. (House, 1993) Cannon balls and industry: As an historical footnote, I might note that the kind of knowledge that Galileo sought was the kind of knowledge that would be useful for artillery accuracy, being able tw put the ceamuuball close to an enemy target by changing the angle and having the balls of sufficient roundness and so on. If there had ‘been a different cultural context it is quite possible that we would have had different sorts of features studicd and cmphasized. Indocd, E.M. Adams argues this puint extensively in his brilliant defense of neo-humanism against contemporary materialism (1991). The rise of scientific (materialist) metaphysica was coinfluential with a shift, from the basio medieval quest for intemal understanding lading to a worthy life, to the modern quest for external knowledge as control of matter, leading to the satisfaction of (any) desire. Neither quest (nor its previous historic forms) are alone sufficient for human fulfilment; and the latter is philosophically dependent on the former. But I cannot elaborate this important issue any further here.THE FALLACY OF MISPLACED CONCRETENESS 227 The reality of colour, beauty, freedom, and dignity: Let’s go back to the very first example, about the physicist measuring the sunset and missing the beauty of the sunset. Many modem thinkers today, including some science teachers, will say; ‘But, since it cannot be measured, beauty is not real. What is real are the qualities that science finds when it measures the sunset.’ By contrast, ‘realists’ objected to the ‘idealism’ of Rishop Berkeley: ‘if a tree falls in the forest, is there a sound? Berkeley's view seemed to imply that such sounds would not be real since they require a subject in order to perceive them, absent in this case. To realists, this seemed shawrd (his anewer was that God saw everything). Sa what should we cay, if someone who was blind said that colours did not exist because you needed eyes to see them? What if someone who was not sensitive to wines (or to affection or dignity) claimed that there was no such thing as quatity? Would it not he just more plausible to say that the person who is blind or tasteless (or unemotional or moral) is unable to perceive that reality which people who have colour or wine sense (or emotional or a ynoral sensitivity) are able to perceive? The question is of a status in reality Da we give colours or wine quality (or emotional connection or dignity) reality status, or do ‘we not? This is what is at issue with the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. The Third Variation Methodological narrowness and dogmatism: If a narrow scientific analysis proceeds according to ito own terms and mentions only factors ‘a’ through ‘o,' the temptation will be there to say that any other factors ‘f, g, h,' and so on, are not real, simply on the grounds that they did not appear in the scientific analysis, Sitting here talking: Picture a group sitting and talking (or someone actually reading this printed article) There is light in the room, There is a certain quality of knowing he poison that one is wiking with, There is a ceruiu wuount of sound ia die back- ground, There is the feel of one's body. There is an excitement of exploring ideas. At this point, a physicist enters and says; ‘I wish to analyze the basic realities of this situation,' She then proveeds to bring out a tape measure and some audie equipment. ‘She measures the distance between the speaker and the hearer, calculates the volume at the source and the volume at the receiving end, and publishes the statistical results about clarity of the sound signal that is recived, This is supposcdly a truth about reality. But what is this study with regard to the situation that we're in, and that was studied? There is an enormous number of factors, concretely real aspects of the situation, that were totally ignored. 4 want what I want when I want it: To go back to the notions of control and manipulation, I said earlier that our modern worid-view is one in which we think that we can go to reality and interrogate it. Typically, to0, we have desires: J want to get from here to there. Furthermore, as a means to get what 1 want, 1 want the security of a dwory, which I can use about various kinds of situations, which is objective in the sense that it has been processed through the scientific method, and therefore it is more228 HH. EDWARD THOMPSON, IIT trustworthy than simply relying on individuals and their feelings or intuitions. Unfortunately, I may have uncritical desires, a too narrow range of interests, or even silly ar had desires. Educating rats: Let me now take a concrete example, a teaching situation. There are behaviourist thoorics, about how students carn, According to these theories, one van analyze any teaching situation into a certain number of factors. One can stay detached and observe from the outside, objectively, certain features, and predict and manipulate outcomes. Say that ono wants the studeats to, on average, make higher scores than they made under other circumstances. This is to be achieved by enacting certain behaviourial stimuli with certain kinds of controls and so on, just as one would do with rats. But this whole picture of education is one that all serious and experienced teachers know is ‘horsefrocky' (horsefrocky is a technical term used by some process philosophers to indicate falseness of a pernicious and obvious sort). The trouble is that real education ie not this sort of proogas, Think also of thio joke: Two behaviourists meet. The first says; ‘You're fine, how am I?’ Less funny is the old warning; ‘The scary thing about behaviourism is not thet it is true, it's that it could become true.’ Whitehead's view is that in a concrete teaching situation the participants, civilized, more-or-less mature, uniquely individual human beings, are capable of thinking on a fecling buse in ways that produc Icarning, and that thare is in cach situation a localness, an integrated organic connectedness, such that an experienced and gifted teacher can, through her feelings within and of the situation, do the various things to enhance learning. This is a very diffcrent picture than the bchaviourists' ‘stand outside; objectively measure, and then predict and control desired results.’ I am inclined to say that any teacher that prefers the behaviourist, objectivist approach cought, on that oecount, to be made to undergo ocrtain remedial oducation in torms of teaching. And not behaviourist training either, but perhaps being mentored by a gifted sympathetic teacher who knows how to use his feelings as part of the learning situation. What is really happening right here in this room? Does anybody doubt, in this audicnoe, that theyie hearing me? Arc you, dhe listen (or meade), nul a unique actual person existing with your own beliefs, feelings, concerns in this present occasion? Does the quality of my voice (or writing) not exist, whether it is irritating ty you or pleasing? The very way in which I ask you to understand this bas @ tonal quality (and even though reading does not have the interactive live quality of a discussion, there is still more than simply light striking your retinas). Some of us are sleepy; others, hungry. This is surcly a reality? It surely has some kind of effost on and importance in this situation that we are all in together. Are we to say if it does not have a physical measurement, or if the only current scientific measurement it has goes just to factors ‘a, b and o,' then that is all there is, and no other factors, no other ‘experiences, are relevant? | certainly hope not, Nor would I expect physicists to beTHE FALLACY OF MISPLACED CONCRETENESS 229 so silly about their own conferences or their own lives, of which research is only a part. Conclusion The fallacy of misplaced concreteness poses a significant challenge to our modern civilization and culture. Whitehead wants to say thal our concrete experience of real particular situations is not respected by scientific analyses that narrowly abstract from that situation and build pictures of reality based upon only certain restricted fields of experience. How call we avoid the FIMIC and do bener inquiry? The short answer is: Let our theorizing be responsible to ALL of our concrete experience, pay patient and direct aesthetic attention to its concrete qualities, and we will find that organismic rather Uhan mechanistic theories will emerge und fairly win the ongoing warram of experience. But the implications for our lives go also beyond inquiry. As Whitehead says: Also the assumption of the bare valuelessness of mere mauier led to a 1ack of reverence in the treatment of natural or artistic beauty .... This situation has dangers. It produces minds in a groove .... The whole is lost in one of its aspevts .... Wisdou is the fruit of a balanced development. It is dis balanced growth of individuality which it should be the aim of education to secure .... The type of generality, which above all is wanted, is the appreciation of the variety vf valus. Tino au ecolloliv prowl. The is suucthing letwoon dis givos specialized values of the mere practical man, and the thin specialized values of the mere scholar .... There is no substitute for the direct perception of the vonercte achicvement of a thing in its actuality. We want concrete fact with a high light thrown on what is relevant to its preciousness. What I mean is art and. aesthetic education ... We must foster the creative initiative towards the maintenanoc of objective valucs .... As s00n as you got towards the conerste, you cannot exclude action. Sensitiveness without impulse spells decadence, and impulse without sensitiveness spells brutality. (1925/1953, pp. 196-200) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. T would like to thank David Crossley, Eric Dayton, and Heather Wagg for constructive criticisms and friendly support that were of great assistance during the rewriting of this article. Tam especially indehted to Mark (red) Flynn, Rob (Fred) Regnier, and Howard (Fred) Woodhouse, members of the Saskatchewan Process Research Unit (SPRU) , for extensive discussion of these and related issues. I should pethaps explain that each member of the SPRU has taken the group working-name ‘Fred,’ so that our group may also be known as the “All Fred North Whitchead Group.'230 H. EDWARD THOMPSON, II NOTES 1. There is no space here to raise the question of whether Whitehead's own Jucluphysics wlsv Counts die FMC, or, at least, las too wucl sumuke wud uiiruLy concerning the real presence of ‘mind! at sub-animal levels of reality. REFERENCES Adams, E.M. (1991). The metaphysics of self and world. Philadelphia. Temple University Press. House, Adrian (1993). The great safari: The lives of George and Joy Adamson. Publisher unknown. Whitehead, A.N. (1925/1953). Science and the modern world. New York: The Free Press. Whitehead, A.N. (1929/1957). Process and reality. New York: The Free Press. Author's Address: Philosophy Department 520 Arts Building University of Saskatchewan. Sackatann, Saskatchewan, Canada STN SAS