Abstract

In what follows our purpose is to make clear the reasons which lie back of Whitehead's appeal to eternal objects in his explanation of the emergence of actual entities and to show that so long as one operates within his scheme of ideas no other consistent explanation is available. A thoroughgoing reconstruction of the scheme is necessary if this presupposition is to be eliminated. If the project is successful, it will be demonstrated that the theory of actual entities provides no basis for the explanation of the emergence of novel things, which is one of the major tenets of the organic philosophy. The argument will develop by way of an analysis of the theory of “physical relatedness.”