On the Notion of Processuality in Whitehead: Concrescence and Transition Correlated

This paper is devoted to the notion of time and its derivation from a more original notion of process, as it is developed by Whitehead. The importance of the notion of process is known by to have been a constant concern in Whitehead ’ s philosophical development from his earlier works in the fields of mathematics, logic and epistemology, passing through the philosophy of nature and reaching the metaphysical works. Time proves to be a question intimately correlated to process in Whitehead ’ s multi-faceted approach. His final achievements concerning this question show that process is seen as a more fundamental aspect than time in order to understand what exists. Process is further divided into concrescence and transition, and also contrasted to “ reality ” . The paper aims to discuss these notions and their mutual relevance. The scope is to provide a clue for understanding Whitehead ’ s elusive conception of cosmology in terms of creativity and passage. Physical time makes its appearance in the ‘ coordinate ’ analysis of the ‘ satisfaction ’ . The actual entity is the enjoyment of a certain quantum of physical time. But the genetic process is not the temporal succession: such a view is exactly what is denied by the epochal theory of time. Each phase in the genetic process presupposes the entire quantum, and so does each feeling in each phase.The subjective unity dominating the process forbids the division of that extensive quantum which originates with the primary phase of the subjective aim. The problem dominating the concrescence is the actualization of the quantum in solido. There is a element in the quantum as well as a temporal element. the is an extensive region.This region is the determinate basis which the concrescence presupposes. This governs the objectifications of the actual world which are possible for the novel concrescence. The coordinate divisibility of the satisfaction is the ‘ satisfaction ’ considered in its relationship to the divisibility of this region (Whitehead 1978, 283). Also this immediate future is immanent in the present with some degree of structural definition. The difficulty lies in the explanation of this immanence in terms of the subject-object structure of experience. In the present, the future occasions, as individual realities with their measure of absolute completeness, are non-ex-istent. Thus, the future must be immanent in the present in some different sense to the objective immortality of the individual occasions of the past. In the present there are no individual occasions belonging to the future. The present contains the utmost verge of such realized individuality. The whole doctrine of the future is to be understood in terms of the account of the process of self-completion of each individual actual occasion. This process can be shortly characterized as a passage from re-enaction to anticipation. The in- Obviously, to speak of experience does not entail presupposing a single separated of contribution for re-enaction in the primary phases of future occasions. The point to re-member is that the fact that each individual occasion is transcended by the creative urge, belongs to the essential constitution of each such occasion. It is not an accident which is irrelevant to the completed constitution of any such occasion (Whitehead 1967, 192 – 193). The past has objective existence in the present which lies in the future beyond itself. But the sense in which the future can be said to be immanent in occasions antecedent to itself, and the sense in which contemporary occasions are immanent in each other, are not so evi-dent in terms of the doctrine of the subject-object structure of experience. It will be simpler first to concentrate upon the relation of the future to the present. The most familiar habits of mankind witness to this fact. Legal contracts, social understandings of every type, am-bitions, anxieties, railway time-tables, are futile gestures of consciousness apart from the fact that the present bears in its own realized constitution relationships to a future beyond itself. Cut away the future, and the present collapses, emptied of its proper content. Immediate existence requires the insertion of the future in the crannies of the present (Whitehead 1967, 191). objective existence of the future in the present differs from the objective existence of the past in the present. The various particular occasions of the past are in existence, and are severally functioning as objects for prehension in the present. This individual objective existence of the actual occasions of the past, each functioning in each present occasion, constitutes the causal relationship which is efficient causation. But there are no actual occasions in the future, already constituted. Thus, there are no actual occasions in the future to exercise efficient causation in the present.What is the objective in the present is the necessity of a future of actual occasions, and the necessity that these future occasions conform to the conditions inherent in the essence of the present occasion. The future belongs to the essence of present fact, and has no actuality other than the actuality of present fact. But its particular relationships to present fact are already realized in the nature of present fact (Whitehead 1967, 194). prehension. This termination is the ‘ satisfaction ’ of the actual entity. Thus, the addition of another component alters this synthetic ‘ givenness ’ . Any additional component is therefore contrary to this integral ‘ givenness ’ of the original. This principle may be illustrated by our visual perception of a picture. The pattern of colors is ‘ given ’ for us. But an extra patch of red does not constitute a mere addition; it alters the whole balance. Thus, in an actual entity the balanced unity of the total ‘ givenness ’ excludes anything that is not given. This is the doctrine of the emergent unity of the superject. An actual entity is to be conceived both as a subject presiding over its own immediacy of becoming, and a superject which is the atomic creature exercising its function of objective immortality. It has become a ‘ being ’ ; and it belongs to the nature of every ‘ being ’ that it is a potential for every ‘ becoming ’ . [ … ] Returning to the correlation of ‘ givenness ’ and ‘ potentiality ’ , we see that ‘ givenness ’ re-fers to ‘ potentiality ’ , and ‘ potentiality ’ to ‘ givenness ’ ; also we see that the completion of ‘ givenness ’ in actual fact converts the ‘ not-given ’ for that fact into ‘ impossibility ’ for that fact. The individuality of an actual entity involves an exclusive limitation. This element of ‘ exclusive limitation ’ is the definiteness essential for the synthetic unity of an actual entity. This synthetic unity forbids the notion of mere addition to the included elements (Whitehead 1978, 44 – 45).

ject to the multiplicity of the world. From the point of view of Whitehead'sc onception of temporality,this means that time depends on the experiential activity of the subject, and can thereforeb ec haracterised as temporalisation. Thist emporalizing activity, however,isinits turn conditioned, since the subjecteffecting the temporalisation is in itself aproduct of temporalisation, and producesi tself exclusivelyasstructurallyaffected by time, which means it is not extra-temporal. The problem whether the actual entity be within or outside time has been discussed at length: my answer is that the actual entity is neither within nor without time, but is time, in the sense that it institutes time through the activity of temporalisation, but does not transcend this activity,b eing on the contraryi ts effect.This thesis cannot be clarified unless one deepens the nature of the temporal/temporalizing subjectint erms of emergence and finitude. In Whitehead's conception, the two aspects are inseparablyc onnected, and cannot be isolated except at the price of the loss of their intelligibility.
To speak of the emergence of as ubject within its own temporal process means to speak of the duplicityofdetermination of subjectivity,and, correlatively,oftemporality.The subjectis, accordingtoWhitehead, always subject/superject.I ti st he structural unity of its two opposite determinations: it is at once cause and effect of itself.¹ Whitehead showsthis notion to be intrinsically related to experience, in apassagewhich in its conciseness expresses the sense in which PR relates time, subject,a nd experience.Whitehead writes: The morep rimitive types of experience are concerned with sense-reception, and not with sense-perception. This statement will require some prolonged explanation. But the course of thought can be indicated by adoptingBergson'sadmirable phraseology, sense-reception is 'non-spatialized',a nd sense-perception is 'spatialized'.I ns ense-reception the sensa are the definiteness of emotion: they aree motionalf orms transmitted fromo ccasion to occasion (Whitehead 1978,113 -114).
As Whitehead himself remarks,t his thesis requires ap rolongede xplanation, which is what will be undertakenh ere. Notice thate very process possesses a dual structure,a ccordingt ow hich there are twoc omponents,o ne receptive and one reactive.T he process itself is the articulation of this dual structure. Now,the fact that each single process is dual raises the question of the relationship between the two modes.I ti sp ossible to sayt hat,g enerallys peaking,t his relationship is usuallyi nterpreted in terms of successive phases: each phase of  What Whitehead also says "to be causa sui".O nt his subject see Whitehead 1978,1 49 -51;220 -222. The meaningofthis expression is clarified in 222 as follows: "Self-realisation is the ultimatefact of facts.Anactuality is self-realising, and whatever is self-realisingisanactuality.An actual entity is at oncet he subject of self-realisation, and the superject which is self-realised". concrescencei sf ollowed by ap hase of transition, so it is possiblet or epresent the succession of actual entities in terms of an alternated succession of two distinct modes or segments, in this way: concrescence-transition-concrescencetransition, and so on. Recall, however,t hate ach actual entity constitutes itself through othera ctual entities. From the point of view of the process, what does this consideration imply? It implies, in line with Whitehead'srejection of the fallacy of simple location or presence, that these two faces of the process are not two totallyd ifferent and independent facts. The thesis Iw ant to demonstrate in this paper is thatconcrescenceand transition are indeed distinct,i .e., distinguished, but not separated and not independent.
Idonot intend to identify concrescenceand transition. Iwant to keep them distinguished. Thisdistinction is importantinorder to clarify the process of temporalisation. However,what Iintend to show is that concrescence and transition are two dual, reciprocal modes of processuality itself, and not two independent segmentso fal inears uccession of time. To show this interdependence between the two "phases" should allow me to demonstrate what type of cohesion does exist in the succession of actual entities which characterises the "history" of the totals ubject. In order to clarify my interpretative thesis, Iw ould like to start from the following text from Process and Reality,which has the advantage of puttingi nr elation the two modalities of the process in ac lear way: There aretwo species of process, macroscopic process, and microscopic process.The macroscopic process is the transition from attained actuality to actuality in attainment;w hile the microscopic process is the conversion of conditions which aremerely realintodeterminate actuality.The former process effects the transition from the 'actual' to the 'merelyreal'; and the latter process effects the growth from the real to the actual. The former process is efficient; the latter process is teleological. The future is merely real, without beinga ctual; whereas the past is an exus of actualities.The actualities arec onstituted by their real genetic phases.The present is the immediacyofteleological process whereby reality becomes actual. The former process providesthe conditions which reallygovern attainment; whereas the latter process provides the ends actuallyattained. The notion of 'organism' is combined with that of 'process' in atwofold manner.The community of actual things is an organism; but it is not as tatic organism. It is an incompletion in process of production. Thus the expansion of the universe in respect to actual thingsisthe first meaningof'process';and the universe in anys tageo fi ts expansion is the first meaningo f' organism'.I nt his sense, an organism is an exus. Secondly, each actual entity is itself onlyd escribable as an organic process.Itrepeats in microcosm what the universe is in macrocosm. It is aprocess proceeding from phase to phase, each phase beingthe realbasis from which its successorproceeds towards the completion of the thinginquestion. Each actual entity bears in its constitution the 'reasons' whyits conditions arewhatthey are. These 'reasons' arethe other actual entities objectified for it (Whitehead 1978,2 14).

On the Notion of Processuality in Whitehead
Let us try to bring the meaning of this quotation to light.The fundamental datum to be considered is the fact that each process of concrescencestarts from what it receives, that is to say, from what it inherits from other actual entities, which are called "objectified".Thismeans that the process of concrescenceisbasedonthe processoft ransition. In fact,transition is the modality which allows one actual entity to be efficacious for another.Obviously, this is reciprocal: onlybymeans of the new concrescencecan the potential efficacy of the objectified actual entities produce an ew actual entity.I ti so nlybecause an ew process re-enacts the past that the past can be efficaciousonthe present,that is, the past'sfuture. There is thus areciprocal relationship of determination. The transition produces what,in Whiteheadian terms,i sc alled the passagef rom the actual to the merelyr eal, while the concrescencep roducest he reciprocal effect,t he passagef rom the merelyr eal to the actual. Thus, concrescence and transition do not take place one after the other,asitwere, but together, and in acertain sense simultaneously.
The relationship between concrescencea nd transitioni sc onnected to that between asingle actual entity and the world, and is reciprocal. The thesis is explicitlys tatedb yW hitehead in the passageq uoteda bove.There is thus, at the level of temporality,aconfirmation of the dual and reciprocal model, which is at work on the level of subjectivity.Wec an, in this respect,r ecall the metaphor used by Merleau-Ponty in his late works:the process of expansion and contraction, systole and diastole. In this caset oo, the condition of being ar elationship between the single and the totality is more fundamental, for each process, than the one of succession. Clearlyt his analysis poses some problems for common sense. But the opposite position is grounded on the separation of the substances, and theirs patiotemporali ndividuation, which Whitehead rejects.
We must notice furthermore that,a ccordingt oW hitehead, the temporal "places" of the past,present,a nd future, are determined with respect to the experiential activity.Inother words, they do not have an absolute position and an autonomous subsistence. How can this interpretative thesis be corroborated?I t seems necessary to analyse all the aspectse ntailed in the concept of temporalisation. We must then,i nt he first place, render explicitt he structural characters of the concept of time progressively determined by Whitehead'sa nalysis.
2T he Structureo fT emporalization: the Criticism of the Abstract Notion of Time In the first place, it is necessary to give an overall account of the notion of time as process accordingtoWhitehead. AlreadyinTheConceptofNature,Whitehead declares that the general concept of time, at least the one proper to the natural sciences,isanabstract concept.His position becomes progressivelymore explicit and more detailedashis more speculativeworks appear.Whitehead finallyno longer wants to adopt the term "time" since it is conditioned by the comprehension proper to the materialist sciences he has been criticising in his epistemological works.Thiss tatement entails several different theses which must be distinguished: "true" time,thati s, the time from which the materialist conception of nature abstracts,² is characterised by its being extended and not punctiform, by its being asuccession, further determined as passage, and by its being undetermined, that is, not deterministicallyc onditioned, and finallyb yi ts being finite.
The criticism of the instantaneous concept of time has alreadyb een discussed in many works.Whitehead in anyc ase reiterates this criticism until the end of his scientific life.³ To the notion of time as succession of punctiform and reciprocallyu nrelated instants, Whitehead at first opposes the one based on time as extensiona nd duration. Successively,h ef urthere laborates this concept,byremarking that the concept of duration and the concept of extension do not express explicitlyenough what is the decisive aspect to be assigned to temporality:its passing.This implies the need to better clarify the processualcondition of time. The aspect which must be proven to be secondary⁴ is the extensionality of time.I tf ollows thati ti sn ot enough to substitutet he notion of instant with the notion of extended durationt oa dequatelya ccount for time: time must be differentlyq ualified. This revision also entails the need to explain whyeverydayexperience thinksofthe temporaldimensionsinterms of separated places. The mistake does not consist in conceiving this abstract time,but in its ontological absolutisation.⁵ But what,a ccording to Whitehead, is the time of common sense, in the light of the speculative investigation?  See Whitehead 1985a, 183: "Time is sheer succession of epochal durations".  See Whitehead 1968, 199: "There is afatal contradiction inherent in the Newtonian cosmology […]N ow assumingt his Newtonian doctrine, we ask-What becomes of velocity,a ta ni nstant? Againweask-What becomes of momentumataninstant?These notions areessentials for Newtonian physics, and yetthey arewithout anymeaningfor it".See also Whitehead 1968, 207: "It is nonsense to conceive of nature as astatic fact,evenfor an instant devoid of duration. Thereisno natureapart fromtransition, and thereisnotransition apart from temporal durations. This is the reasonw hy the notion of an instant of time, conceived as ap rimarys imple fact,i sn onsense".  Secondary does not mean inauthentic. According to Whitehead, on the contrary,s patialization and temporalisation are two aspectsofprocessuality.What becomes less relevantfor Whitehead is the need to oppose, in the wake of Bergson'sw orks, time and space.  See Whitehead 1968, 36 -37: "The notion of potentiality is fundamental for the understanding of existence, as soon as the notion of process is admitted. If the universe be interpreted in terms On the Notion of Processuality in Whitehead

3T he Reification of Time
In TheC onceptofNature,Whitehead shows that the scientific concepts of space and time are operativeabstractions, performed in connection to effective experience. Space and time are necessary tools for the cognitive,a nd before that existential, operations characterisingthe life of the subject.⁶ One could lead no normal life if one could not orientoneself according to afixed and objective system of coordinates.⁷ The constitution of an objectives tructure of space and of time obeys vital needs, and is effectuated alreadyinthe simplest of the existential activities. Language, and the symbolic systems, simplyp erfect this attitude, alreadyt raceable at the animal level of behaviour.
If we understand that the time and space of common sense are abstractive operations, not mirroring an immediatelyg iven reality,t hen we can trace their origin without falling into the error of ametaphysical hypostatisation. Whitehead very clearlye xplains this duplicityo ft ime (and space) in several passages of Process and Reality. He furthermore distinguishesthe genetic analysis of creativity,w hich deals with processuality,f rom the coordinate analysis,w hich deals with the logico-mathematical aspects of what is created. He writes, for example: of static actuality,t hen potentiality vanishes.E verythingi sj ust what it is. Succession is mere appearance, risingf romt he limitation of perception. But if we start with process as fundamental, then the actualities of the present arederivingtheir characters from the process,and arebestowing their characters upon the future.Immediacyisthe realisation of the potentialities of the past,and is the storehouse of the potentialities of the future. Hope and fear,joy and disillusion, obtain their meaningfromthe potentialities essential in the nature of things.Weare followinga trailinh ope, or arefleeingf romthe pursuit in fear.The potentialities in immediatefact constitutet he drivingf orce of process".  The same thesis is repeated in Whitehead 1978,87: "The 'objectifications' of the actual entities in the actual world, relative to ad efinitea ctual entity,c onstitutet he efficient causes out of which that actual entity arises;t he 'subjective aim' at 'satisfaction' constitutest he final cause, or lure,wherebyt herei sd eterminatec oncrescence; and that attained 'satisfaction' remains as an element in the content of creative purpose.Therei s, in this way, transcendenceo ft he creativity;and this transcendenceeffects determinateobjectificationsfor the renewal of the process in the concrescence of the actualities beyond that satisfied superject. Thus,anactual entity has at hreefold character: (i) it has the character 'given' for it by the past; (ii) it has the subjective character aimed at in its process of concrescence; (iii) it has the superjective character,which is the pragmatic value of its specific satisfaction qualifyingt he transcendent creativity".  See this passage fromW hitehead 1978,1 70, very similar to the quotation from Claudel to be found two times in VI: "Every statement about the geometrical relationships of physical bodies in the world is ultimatelyr eferablet oc ertain definiteh uman bodies as origins of reference. A traveller,who has lost his way, should not ask, Where am I? What he reallyw ants to know is, Wherea re the other places?H eh as goth is own body, but he has lost them".
Physical time makes its appearance in the 'coordinate' analysis of the 'satisfaction'.The actual entity is the enjoymentofacertain quantum of physical time. But the genetic process is not the temporal succession: such aview is exactlywhat is denied by the epochal theory of time. Each phase in the genetic process presupposes the entireq uantum,a nd so does each feelingineach phase. The subjective unity dominating the process forbids the division of that extensive quantum which originatesw ith the primary phase of the subjective aim. The problem dominating the concrescenceisthe actualization of the quantum in solido.
[…] There is as patial element in the quantum as wella satemporal element.Thus,the quantum is an extensive region. This region is the determinatebasis which the concrescencepresupposes.This basis governs the objectifications of the actual world which arepossible for the novel concrescence. The coordinate divisibility of the satisfaction is the 'satisfaction' consideredi ni ts relationship to the divisibility of this region (Whitehead 1978,2 83). From passages likethis it is possible to conclude that the mathematisation of reality serves pragmatic purposes. It is meaningful to ask what the measurable structure of reality is. It is not meaningful, however,t oa sk what the measure of as ingle process is. This question is exactlyr e-introducingt he metaphysical presuppositions that the whole Whiteheadian work tries to unmask and reject.⁸ The static and totallyunfolded structure which,inMcTaggart'sterms, is called B-Series, that is, the calendarial time of the dates, is what lends itself to measurements and objective evaluations. But this structure is derivative with respect to the processuality of the actual entities, as this passage, extracted from the fourth part of Process and Reality,s hows: Aduration is ac ompletel ocus of actual occasions in 'unison of becoming',orin'concrescent unison'.I tisthe old-fashioned 'present state of the world'.Inreference to agiven duration, D, the actual world is divided into three mutuallyexclusive loci. One of these loci is the duration Ditself. Another of these loci is composed of actual occasions which lie in the past of some members of D: this locus is the 'past of the duration D'.The remaininglocus is composed of actual occasions which lie in the future of some members of D: this locus is the 'futureo ft he duration D' (Whitehead 1978,3 20).
What immediatelyr esultsf rom this quotation is the fact that the present proper to the duration is devoid of dynamism. It is the present considered ex post,or, to use an expressiont ypical of Merleau-Ponty'sp hilosophy, it is the present seen from nowhere, with ap anoramic, kosmotheoretic gaze. Thes amec an be said for past and future. What past,p resent and future as extended lack, is their most intrinsic quality, their "sense of being".Whitehead expresses this difference by speaking of a processual time as atomic or epochal. He does not oppose the  Whitehead 1985a, 183: "The epochal duration is not realised via its successive divisible parts, but is given with its parts".
On the Notion of Processuality in Whitehead time of physics and the time of process metaphysics as two distinct substances, since on the contrary he sees ad erivation of the formerf rom the latter; but he wants to avoid reducingo ne to the other.⁹ It is thereforen ecessary to analyse closelythe wayinwhich Whitehead analyses the dimensions of time in what appears to be theirsense of being.I tisinfactpossible to show thatWhitehead, in his own way, has studied the problem in away which is original while still close to the phenomenological one.

4T ime and Experience
If one can saythatexperience, accordingtoWhitehead, cannot take place except temporally, and that it is temporallyc onditioned, now it is possible to evaluate the reciprocal statement.There is temporality insofar as there is experiential activity.The determination of the sense of being proper to the temporaldimensions is linked, accordingtoWhitehead, to this fact.Inparticular,Whitehead connects the articulation of the dimensions of time to the two perceptive modalities, Causal Efficacya nd Presentational Immediacy,w hich are thematised in Symbolism and in Process and Reality,a nd which constitutet he symbolic reference. As Whitehead writesi nSymbolism, Time is known to us as the succession of our acts of experience, and thencederivatively as the succession of events objectively perceivedinthose acts.But this succession is not pure succession; it is the derivationofstatefromstate,with the later stateexhibiting conformity to the antecedent.Timeintheconcrete is the conformation of statetostate, the later to the earlier;a nd the pures uccession is an abstraction from the irreversible relationship of settled past to derivative present (Whitehead 1985b, 35).
In order to bring to light Whitehead'sposition in all its complexity Imust at this point turn to ad etailed analysis of his position.

5T he Present
The process of concrescenceisthe place of the present.The present is not an abstract space among otherabstract spaces,inturn products of asegmentation ex-  Whitehead 1985a, 185: "Time is atomic (i. e., epochal),though whati st emporalized is divisible".Noticethe presenceofthe adjective form derivingfromthe substantive temporalisation in a book dating1 925.
ternal and extraneous to the flux of time and the becomingofexistence: the present is the place in which the subjectconstitutes itself. It is because the present is the locus of this activity that it is what it is. Whitehead clearlye xpresses this thoughti nModes of Thought: Actuality is the self-enjoyment of importance. But this self-enjoyment has the character of the self-enjoyment of the one self. The most explicit example of this is our realization of those other actualities,w hich we conceive as ourselvesi no ur recent past,f using their self-enjoymentw ith our immediatep resent (Whitehead 1968, 161).
It follows that the present is not apoint on astraight line but is characterised by its internal dialectical dynamic. Therefore, not onlyisthe present not an instantaneous point,not onlyisitnot simplyanextended but static duration:the present is not even al inearp assage, an atural event that would "take place" in order to happen. The present is insofar as it is ad ialectical dynamic proper to experience.¹⁰ The present is the place of the articulation of the temporal dimensions. It is the place of the very happening of the temporalizing experience. This amountst os aying,e choing Merleau-Ponty'sc haracterisation of space, that it is time that makes itself by itself, creates itself.Itisanexteriority which turns upon itself and hollows out an interiority.Thismeans, in Whiteheadian terms,that the present is the passagef rom the publicity of the world to the privacyoft he subject.Itisacyclic whirl, which rhythmicallywinds round itself to then undo itself once again. But what is properlyspeakingthe structure of this present?Itisnecessary to recur to the analysis offered in Adventures of Ideas in order to bring to the fore the meaning of Process and Reality. Here, in awonderful passage, Whitehead writes as follows If we keep ourselvestothis short-rangeintuition, assuredlythe futureisnot nothing. It lives actively in its antecedent world. Each moment of experience confesses itself to be at ransition between twow orlds,t he immediatep ast and the immediatef uture.This is the persistent delivery of common-sense. Also this immediatef uturei si mmanent in the present with some degree of structural definition. The difficulty lies in the explanationo ft his immanencei nt erms of the subject-object structureo fe xperience. In the present,t he future occasions,asindividual realities with their measureofa bsolute completeness, arenon-existent.Thus,the future must be immanentinthe present in some different sense to the objective immortality of the individual occasions of the past.I nt he present therea re no individual occasions belongingt ot he future. The present contains the utmost vergeo f such realized individuality.The whole doctrine of the future is to be understood in terms of the account of the process of self-completion of each individuala ctual occasion. This process can be shortlycharacterizedasapassage from re-enaction to anticipation.The in- Obviously, to speak of experienced oes not entail presupposingasingle separated subject.
On the Notion of Processuality in Whitehead termediatestage in this transition is constituted by the acquisition of novel content,which is the individualc ontribution of the immediates ubject for the re-shaping of its primary phase of re-enaction intoi ts final phase of anticipation.T his final phase is otherwise termed the 'satisfaction',since it marks the exhaustion of the creative urge for that individuality.This novel content is composed of positive conceptual feelings become integrated with the physical prehensions of antecedent occasions,a nd thus yield propositions concerning the past.T hese propositions area gain integrated and re-integrated with each other and with conceptual feelings,a nd yield other propositions.F inallyp ropositions emerge concerningt he constitution of the immediates ubject.I tb elongs to the essence of this subject that it passes into objective immortality.Thus,its own constitution involves that its own activity in self-formation passes into activity of other-formation. It is by reason of the constitution of the present subject that the future will embodyt he present subject and will re-enact its patterns of activity.B ut the future individual occasions aren on-existent.The sole immediateactuality is the constitution of the present subject which embodies its own necessity for objective immortality beyond its own immediacyo fs elf-formation. This objective immortality is astubborn fact for the future,involvingits pattern of perspective re-enaction. The final phase of anticipation is apropositional realization of the essence of the present-subject,inrespect to the necessities which it lays upon the future to embody it and to re-enact it so far as compatibility mayp ermit.Thus,the self-enjoymento fa no ccasion of experienceisinitiated by an enjoymentofthe past as alive in itself and is terminatedbyanenjoyment of itself as alive in the future.This is the account of the creative urge of the universe as it functions in each single individual occasion. In this sense, the futureis immanenti ne ach present occasion, with its particular relations to the present settled in various degrees of dominance.But no future individual occasion is in existence. The anticipatory propositions all concern the constitution of the present occasion and the necessities inherent in it.This constitution necessitates that therebeafuture, and necessitates aquota of contribution for re-enaction in the primaryp hases of future occasions.The point to remember is that the fact that each individual occasion is transcended by the creative urge, belongs to the essential constitution of each such occasion. It is not an accident which is irrelevant to the completed constitution of anys uch occasion (Whitehead 1967, 192-193). It has been necessary to fullyquote this passageatlength since it contains alot that needstobecarefullyconsidered. From the reading of these lines some considerations emerge: 1. that the present is the place or locuso fe xistence, and thereforet hat past and future exist onlyi nsofar as they are givent oap resent; 2. that, on the other hand,past and future are not nothing.Onthe contrary, they are dimensions of the present itself, and are so since the present is not eternity but passage, not unlimited but limited, that is, the present arises, passes, and dies, and this passagei sd ue to the fact that the present is the modality by which af inite being exists; the present,i no therw ords, is the mode of the temporallyf inite existenceo fasubject.
3. It follows that also past and future are, at once, relative and absolute terms.They are relative because what is future in relation to acertain actual entity will be past for another.They are absolute, however,because their position with respect to that determined actual entity is what it is and cannot be changed by the actual entity.This is preciselyw hat renders the past past and the future future: the past is past because its sense of being is thato fh aving happened; reciprocally, the future is characterised by its having not happened yet, and of going to happen (sooner or later). Fort his reason, the objectivityo ft he past is distinguishedbyWhitehead from thatofthe future. The past possesses an objectivity of its own, which is proper to what has effectively happened, whereast his is not proper to the future. What is proper to the futurei si ts imminence and its being an element of attraction for the present perspective:t he present is in fact never neutral, but always in tension toward af uture.
But this is not all. Past and future are not onlyt he elements in which the present articulates itself, but are such insofar as the present constitutes their connection. According to what Whitehead writes in this passage-in so doing summarising the whole meaningo ft he conception of actual entity proposed in Process and Reality-the present is configured as the passagef rom "re-enaction" to anticipation. We must exactlyu nderstand what sort of passage this is, that is, whether it is apure transition from apoint to another in apath, or whether it possesses av ery different nature.
Various considerations suggest that the second alternative is correct.I nt he first place,one must insist on the fact that the new process is what activates the passage. If the new process were not present,thatis, if the actual entity werenot characterised by its being an activity,therew ould be no creative advance. Here the Whiteheadian notion of causality is called into play, and it is necessary to discuss an aspect of it.I f, in fact,Whitehead oftenr ecurs to the notion of efficient causation,t his does not mean that the new process occurs onlyi nsofar as "generated" by means of "Causal Efficacy".I ti sr ather the contrary:C ausal Efficacy is the expression of the fact that the new process cannot take place unless in connection with its environment,into which the process finds itself, as it were, thrown,a lthough being a project,tou se the well-known Heideggerian expressions.This means that the new subjectc annot purelya nd simplyi nvent an ontological situation of its own, but simplyreacts to what it finds as alreadyconstituted.
But on the other hand, if the process werenot acting,werenot action, there would be no past either.The past,inother words, is the outcome of the process of experience. The past is thereforeg iven onlyi nsofar as it is constituted by the new present.The subjectcan either conform itself to the environment in which it finds its place, or it can react to and changeit. Either choice depends on the pre-sent subject, which thereforecannot be determinedonlyinrelation to the initial conditions in which it arises. In this sense, Whitehead is an intransigent indeterminist.
It is in this connection that the role of the future is displayed. The future does not exist in itself. Thef uture is the expression of the indeterminacyo ft he present.T he future is possibility,i ti st he ontological expression of the fact that the new process is not deterministicallyc onditioned by the past.I ft his were the case, therew ould properlyb en of uture, but onlyasheer repetition of what has alreadybeen, since the essence of the future is that of not being derivable from what precedes it.Amere, continuous and eternal repetition of the same is no future at all, because there is no change. It is not by chance thata completelyd eterministic world is aw orld in which the distinction between past and future is meaningless, since the direction of time (the so-called "arrow")i sr eversible. The futurei s, essentially, an anticipation of what has not been yet, and will not be exactlyasitwas anticipated. There could be no anticipationifthe future totallyconformed to its past.That the future is to conform to its past is always possible, but never necessary,since this possibility depends on the decision taken in the present process, which thereforei ntroduces an element of unpredictability and novelty.
The future, thus, plays ar ole, but onlyi nsofar as it is future-for-a-present, future givena sf uture to apresent.That is, as Whitehead underlines repeatedly, insofar as it is not something subsisting autonomously. The same can be said for the past,sothat there is adouble determination of the past: the past is givenas past onlyt oapresent,thati s, is not ap ast in itself,but is givent oapresent as past,i .e., it is irreversibly gone, past.The determination of past and present is thus clearlys hown: the past can be past onlyi nsofar as there is ap resent for which it represents the past; but this does not make the past present: it makes it onlyp resent as past.This double relationality of the past with respect to the present,w hich is the past'sf uture, and reciprocallyo ft he future, forces us to take acloser look at the wayinwhich Whitehead determines these two temporal dimensions, in order then to examine the question, at which Whitehead hints at the end of the passagea boveq uoted, as to what the creative push or urge is which transcends each single process of concrescence.

6P asta nd Future:N on-Linearity of Process
As amatter of fact,Whitehead explicitlydeclares that the present does not exist as pure irrelative datum, but onlyasdynamic articulation. The extension of aduration is thereforec learlyd etermined not in terms of simple, not further struc-tured, extensionality,b ut on the contraryi nt erms of an interconnection of the temporald imensions. This is what renders time something different from space. As far as the future is concerned, Whitehead writes: The past has objectivee xistencei nt he present which lies in the futureb eyond itself. But the sense in which the futurecan be said to be immanent in occasions antecedent to itself, and the sense in which contemporary occasions areimmanentineach other,are not so evident in terms of the doctrine of the subject-object structureofexperience. It will be simpler first to concentrate upon the relation of the future to the present.The most familiar habits of mankind witness to this fact.L egal contracts,s ocial understandingso fe very type, ambitions,a nxieties, railway time-tables, aref utile gestures of consciousness apart from the fact that the present bears in its own realized constitution relationships to afuturebeyond itself. Cuta waythe future, and the present collapses,emptied of its proper content. Immediateexistencerequiresthe insertionofthe futureinthe crannies of the present (Whitehead 1967, 191).
The presenceo ft he future in the present is evidentlyo fa ne xperiential nature, but not necessarilyc onscious.F or the moment however we must in the first place deepen the logico-ontological structure of the codetermination between temporald imensions, in order to support the thesis that the present is the place itself of this codetermination. We have said that it is necessary to avoid anyhypostatisation or reification of the present,any naturalistic comprehension of it: the present is not asegment of the temporal line, but is what it is since it is the tension towards the future and connection to the past.Therefore, the present is not aunivocal place, but receivesf rom this correlation with the other two dimensions its definition, to the same extent that, reciprocally, the other twod imensions are defined in relation to the present.Wethus obtain acomplex structure of mutual interdependencies, which also explains the relativity of the temporald eterminations: past and future are relative and perspectivalt erms, and the processuald ynamic is atrue activity of temporalisation and not the unfolding of something substantial. On the codetermination of the temporaldimensions Whitehead is explicit: The futureisimmanent in the present by reason of the fact that the present bears in its own essencethe relationships which it will have to the future.Itthereby includes in its essence the necessities to which the future must conform. The futurei st here in the present,a sa general fact belongingtothe natureofthings.I tisalso therewith such general determinations as it lies in the natureo ft he particular present to impose on the particular future which must succeed it.A ll this belongs to the essenceo ft he present,a nd constitutes the future,a st hus determined,a no bject for prehension in the subjective immediacyo f the present.Inthis wayeach present occasion prehends the general metaphysical character of the universe, and thereby it prehends its own shareinthat character.Thus,the future is to the present as an object for asubject.Ithas an objective existenceinthe present.But the On the Notion of Processuality in Whitehead objective existenceo ft he future in the present differs fromt he objective existenceo ft he past in the present.The various particular occasions of the past arei nexistence, and are severallyfunctioningasobjects for prehension in the present.This individualobjective existenceofthe actual occasions of the past,each functioningineach present occasion, constitutes the causal relationship which is efficientc ausation. But there aren oa ctual occasions in the future,a lreadyc onstituted. Thus,t here aren oa ctual occasions in the future to exerciseefficient causation in the present.What is the objective in the present is the necessity of af utureo fa ctual occasions,a nd the necessity that these futureo ccasions conform to the conditions inherent in the essenceo ft he present occasion. The futureb elongs to the essenceofpresent fact,and has no actuality other than the actuality of present fact. But its particular relationships to present fact arealreadyr ealized in the nature of present fact (Whitehead 1967, 194).
In this passageW hitehead states,o nt he one hand, the symmetric interconnection of past and future with respect to the present; and yeta lsot he diversity of the essentiald etermination of each dimension. Past and future, in other words, if on the one hand are dimensions givenonlyinsofarasthey are in relation to the present,o nt he other are differentlyg iven from one another.The past is, so to speak,t he dimension of the "no more",t he future of the "not yet".That which exists, exists onlyi nt he present mode. Onlyt he present is actively existent, that is, it possesses, to use Whitehead'sl exicon, "subjective immediacy".P ast and future are onlyobjectively; they cannot be considered in terms of subjective determinations,that is, they are not "actual" in the meaning Whitehead givesto this word. If therefore the present is the place of the codetermination of past and future, this complex relationship cannot be conceivedinlinear terms. As Whitehead here explicitlys ays, the future is imminent in the present.The same thing can be said, mutatis mutandis,for the past.¹¹ This means that the future is present as future. In other words, the future is not if by "being" one understands the being of the present.H owever,t he futurei s, the onlyw ay givent ot he future to be is that of being givenasfuture to apresent.Another aspect must be underlined: this mode of givenness of the future possesses the characteristic of being undetermined, while the one proper to the past is preciselyi ts being completely determined and irrevocable: pereunt et imputantur,a sW hitehead likes to say.
It would be impossible to saymore explicitlythat past and future depend on the experiential process and are not physical loci.Without it ever being explicitly said, Whitehead thus rejects the imageo ft ime in terms of as traight line. The imageo ft he line is misleading since it implies that past and future are stages  In what follows Iw ill constantlyi nsist on the future, but the readers hould always understand the possibilityt ot ranspose the argument to the past.Iwill speak about onlyone dimension for the sakeo fb revity of the analysis. of al inear path. In reality,t he future is not givenu nless to ap resent which in turn is such onlyi nsofar as it has ar elation with its own past.The immanence of the futureinthe present is the negation of the fact thatthe future is what the present is not.I fo ne defines the present in opposition to past and future, then these two dimensions lose their meaning.This, in anycase, does not imply, as a possibleinterpretation inspired by Levinas could suggest,that in thus conceiving of the future,itwould lose its most specific and intrinsic character:what makes it the irruption of unexpectednovelty.Onthe contrary,itisonlybyreason of the existenceo fabeing who is able to institute the articulation of the temporald imensions that the unexpected can takeplace. The conception of temporality expressed by Whitehead in his speculative works is thereforevery clearlyarticulated in terms of an ontology of experience. There is no becoming, which is the true form of time, unless insofara st here is an experiencing subject.The nature of this subject, however,i sn ot that proper to at ranscendental subjectivity,b ut on the contrary the one proper to as ubject emerging from its own experiential process, as ubjectwhich thereforen ot onlyisthe origin of temporality,but is at the same time its effect.I ti si nt his sense that we must understand the concept of becomingw hich grounds the whole metaphysics of process: These various aspects can be summed up in the statement that experience involves a becoming,that becoming means that something becomes,and that what becomes involves repetition transformed into novel immediacy. This statement directlyt raverses one main presupposition which Descartes and Hume agreei ns tatinge xplicitly. This presuppositioni s that of the individual independence of successive temporal occasions.
[ … ]T his presupposition of individual independence is what Ihaveelsewherecalled, the 'fallacyofsimple location'.
[ … ]T he doctrine of the individual independence of real facts is derivedf romt he notion that the subject-predicateform of statement conveys atruth which is metaphysically ultimate ( Whitehead 1978,136 -137).
The interdependence of the temporald imensions is the other sideo ft he reciprocal relationality among actual entities. This consideration vindicates the thesis expressed at the beginning of this paper,a ccordingt ow hich concrescencea nd transition are not two separatedf orms of process, but are correlative to one another.This, in turn, should allow me to clarify the ontological condition envisaged by Whitehead for the "totals ubject".I no rder to support in ac onclusive wayt his thesis it is necessary,a tt his point,t os tudyt he concrete mode in which the present articulatesi nitself the other temporald imensions, from the standpoint of the experiential act.W hitehead, in the passagea boveq uoted, states that the single actual entities are not separated bodies, standinginsuccession. There is therefore areciprocal presenceofevery actual entity in the others. Let us now consider the question from the point of view of temporality.

7C oncrescencea nd Transition Reciprocally Connected
As we have seen, Whitehead distinguishes concrescencea nd transition in the waya bove considered. In some passages of Process and Reality he speaks of two types of process.¹² But these two types are distinguishedinsofar as they represent the two modalities by which the process is constituted. They are in fact substantiallyi dentified with efficient and final causation, in turn reinterpreted by Whitehead in terms of perceptive experience. The model which Whitehead elaborates is thus the following:t he new process of concrescence receives (in the active sense of this term) the determinations of what it must become from the world in which it arises. Therefore, thatw hich, from the standpoint of the actual entities which constitutet he givenw orld of the new subject, represents ap rocess of transition, i. e., efficient causation, becomes ap rocess of concrescence, i. e., final causation, for the new process. Whether the process is atransition or ac oncrescence, it is am atter of perspective. Thus, the relationality between actual entitiesisshown both in its modality and in its essentialasymmetry.Weshould not forget, in fact,thatthe process of concrescenceisintrinsicallyundetermined,¹³ so that there is always onlyone direction for the process. It is indeed amatter of perspective,but the metaphysical generalisation must take into account every perspective.T herefore, that which appears,t oa na ctual entity in phase of concrescence, as at ype of process, appears as yetanother type from the standpoint of the already 'concrete' actual entities (whichobviously is possibleonlythrough an ex post facto analysis). In this wayw ec an also illustrate the intrinsic solidarity of the world, which according to Whitehead plays such an important role for the comprehension of reality.¹⁴ Solidarity does not mean harmonic community,but an incessant process of separation and communication. ForW hitehead it is clear that what usuallyi sc on- See for example Whitehead 1978,210: "[T]hereare two kinds of fluency.One kind is the concrescence which, in Locke'sl anguage, is 'the reali nternal constitution of ap articular existent'. The other kind is the transition from particular existent to particular existent.T his transition, againi nL ocke'sl anguage, is the 'perpetuallyp erishing' which is one aspect of the notion of time; and in another aspect the transition is the origination of the present in conformity with the 'power' of the past.
[ … ]C oncrescence moves towards its final cause, which is its subjective aim; transition is the vehicle of the efficientc ause, which is the immortal past".  See Whitehead 1954,242: "Time requiresincompleteness.Each occasion is temporal because it is incomplete. Nor is therea ny system of occasions which is complete".  See Whitehead 1978,167: "The universe is at oncethe multiplicity of resverae and the solidarity of res verae".Ont he topics ee Nobo 1986. sidered as an individual, is in fact a dividual,amanifold community of internal subjects which are not necessarilya ll harmonicallyr elated to each other.¹⁵ It is possible, in this light,tofurther clarify the relationship between subject and superject: the subjecti sr epresented by the process of concrescencew hich effects the transposition from the publicity of the world, understood as the intercorporeal interrelation of actual entities, to the privacyofasubjective synthesis; but this activity is also the process of formation of the superject as the 'objectivation' of the very same process of concrescencebyother subjectivities. Not that the concrescencef irst takes place and then givesr ise to transition: to think in these terms means to see concrescencea nd transition as two distinct segments on al ine, whereast he distinction drawnb yW hitehead is to be understood in terms of the different perspective from which the process is considered, and thereforea ccordingt ot he different sense of beingc haracterisingt he two modes. In fact there is no concrescencew ithout transition and vice versa. The two processes are in ar elation of codeterminationw hich can also, in ac ertain sense, be understood through the biological-systemic concept of feedback. The temporality of this process is not linear,¹⁶ but is characterised by continuous anticipations and retro-actions. Past and future are present in the present,intheir own way, as we have seen.¹⁷ Whitehead has tried to express this thesis with concepts which werestill partiallyconditioned by the tradition he wants to abandon (reason whyh ec oined so manyn eologisms), and yeth eh as statedi nasufficientlyclear wayw hat he wanted to say. Forexample, we possess in the following quotation asummary of the complex themewhose elements we are disentangling: The various primary data and the concrescent feelings do not form am ere multiplicity. Their synthesis in the final unity of one actual entity is another fact of 'givenness'.The actual entity terminates its becominginone complex feelinginvolvingacompletely determinate bond with every itemi nt he universe, the bond beinge ither ap ositive or an egative  This is why, according to Whitehead, therei saneed for as uperior principle of harmony, which he also calls the principle of limitation, and which in his Religion in the Making is historicallyc onsideredi ni ts various avatars. Ic annot enteri ntot his question, which exceedsb yf ar my capacities.Nonetheless it seems clear to me that the major element of disagreement between Whitehead and Merleau-Ponty residesp reciselyi nt he fact that the former sees the necessity of postulatingatranscendent element of order and harmony, while the latter would rather explain order and harmonya ss elf-generating within process.  Whitehead 1954,2 46: "Supersession is not ac ontinuous process of becoming. If we try to combine the notions of supersession and continuity we are at onceentangled in avicious infinite regress".  See Whitehead 1978,2 13 where Whitehead talks about the mutual interferenceb etween phases of the process.

On the Notion of Processuality in Whitehead
prehension. This termination is the 'satisfaction' of the actual entity.Thus,the addition of another component alters this synthetic 'givenness'.Any additional component is therefore contrary to this integral 'givenness' of the original. This principle maybeillustrated by our visual perception of apicture. The pattern of colors is 'given' for us. But an extra patch of red does not constitute amere addition; it alters the whole balance. Thus,inanactual entity the balanced unity of the total 'givenness' excludes anythingt hat is not given. This is the doctrine of the emergent unity of the superject. An actual entity is to be conceivedboth as as ubject presiding over its own immediacyo fb ecoming,a nd as uperjectw hich is the atomic creature exercisingi ts function of objective immortality.I th as become a 'being'; and it belongs to the natureo fe very 'being' that it is ap otential for every 'becoming'.
[…]Returningtothe correlation of 'givenness' and 'potentiality',wesee that 'givenness' refers to 'potentiality',a nd 'potentiality' to 'givenness';a lso we see that the completion of 'givenness' in actual fact converts the 'not-given' for that fact into 'impossibility' for that fact.T he individuality of an actual entity involves an exclusive limitation. This element of 'exclusive limitation' is the definiteness essential for the syntheticunity of an actual entity.T his synthetic unity forbids the notion of mere addition to the included elements (Whitehead 1978,44-45).
It is thus possible to summarisew hat has been seen so far by statingt hatt he overall processuality of reality must be distinguishedi nto two interconnected modes, which express the solidarity between subjects and their reciprocal intercommunication, but at the samet ime their progressive distinction from one another.E ach single processp roduces as ynthetic perspective of the totality in which the process is arising,a nd this totality in its turn receivesashape from the process of concrescencew hich emergesf rom it.E ach single experiential act is temporallyl imited, and its process givesr ise to af urther iteration of the overall processuality but does not amount to ahigher synthesis. Thisprocessuality is anonymousa nd yetc ontains in itself the germs of ac onstant striving to overcome the anonymity.T he question which must be posed with respect to this latter consideration is the following:why does this happen?Why the tension towards the overcoming of this anonymity?Inorder to do so we must finally analyse what Whitehead writes with respect to what is the normalconcept of subjectivity of common sense. Humanlife rarelygrasps itself in its continuous processuality and its plurality.Usually, each subjectperceivesitself,inthe first place, as an individual. What is this 'individual' within the perspective of the metaphysics of process?

8S uccession and Temporality
It is helpful to recall here thatthe subjectWhitehead talks about is an incarnated subject,¹⁸ anon-un-extended corporeity,which in turn is not to be seen in terms of inert matter,but in terms of subjective body. Corporeity manifests itself immediatelyintemporalterms;itcould be said that corporeity is intrinsically marked by temporality: Further,o ur experiences of our various bodilyp arts arep rimarilyp erceptions of them as reasons for 'projected' sensa: the hand is the reason for the projected touch-sensum, the eye is the reason for the projected sight-sensum. Our bodilye xperience is primarilya ne xperienceofthe dependenceofpresentational immediacyupon causal efficacy. Hume'sdoctrine inverts this relationship by makingcausal efficacy, as an experience, dependent upon presentationalimmediacy. This doctrine, whatever be its merits,isnot based upon anyappeal to experience ( Whitehead 1978,1 76).
The bodilys ubjecti sasubject because it is ap erceiving body. By inverting the relation of cause and effect instituted by Empiricism, by reason of its paradoxical intellectualism,¹⁹ the philosophyo fp rocess shows in what sense corporeity means in the first place that bodilye xperience possesses as tructure of its own, irreducible to the primacy of consciousness, which it is the task of philos- The notion of dipolarity,used by Whitehead to characterise the wayinwhich the subject perceives, is preciselym eant to express this perspective.I nstead of opposingm ind and matter, which is the duality of substances Whitehead so often reproaches Descartes with, Whitehead says that mind and matter aret obes een together,orrather,that mind and matter are to be reconceivedi nt erms of the inner dipolarity characterising each single actual entity as a "dropo f experience".E ach drop of experiencei st herefore intrinsicallyo ne, although dipolar,t hat is, dual. There is no room in this work to attempt acomparison between Merleau-Ponty and Whitehead on this subject, but Ih ope to show in another placethat the notion of dimension worked out by Merleau-Ponty in VI (according to which each fact shows its dimensionality and each dimension retains an element of facticity) can help to understand in what sense experienceis, in Whitehead'sp erspective,o ne (i. e., not divided into two substantial modes) and dual.  See for example Whitehead 1978,1 41: "Hume and Locke, with the over-intellectualist bias prevalent amongp hilosophers,a ssume that emotional feelings aren ecessarilyd erivative from sensations.This is conspicuouslynot the case; the correlation between such feelings and sensations is on the whole as econdary effect.E motionsc onspicuouslyb rush aside sensations and fasten upon the 'particular' objects to which-in Locke'sphrase-certain 'ideas' are 'determined'. The confinement of our prehension of other actual entities to the mediation of privatesensations is purem yth. The converse doctrine is nearer the truth: the morep rimitive mode of objectification is via emotional tone, and onlyinexceptional organisms does objectification, via sensation, supervene with anye ffectiveness".
On the Notion of Processuality in Whitehead ophyt oa cknowledge in order to straighten an upside-down picture of experience. Thus, subjectivity is synonymousw ith temporality and affectivity.Whitehead writes: The 'causal feeling' according to that [Hume's] doctrine arises fromthe long association of well-markedp resentationso fs ensa, one precedent to the other.I tw ould seem therefore that inhibitions of sensa, giveni np resentational immediacy, should be accompanied by acorrespondingabsenceof'causal feeling';for the explanationofhow there is 'causal feeling' presupposes the well-marked familiar sensa, in presentationali mmediacy. Unfortunately,t he contrary is the case. An inhibition of familiar sensa is very aptt ol eave us a prey to vaguet errors respecting ac ircumambient world of causal operations.I nt he dark therea re vaguep resences, doubtfullyfeared; in the silence, the irresistible causal efficacy of naturep resses itself upon us; in the vagueness of the low hum of insects in an August woodland, the inflow intoo urselveso ff eelings from envelopingn atureo verwhelms us;i n the dim consciousness of half-sleep, the presentations of sense fade away,a nd we arel eft with the vaguefeelingofinfluences fromvague things around us.Itisquiteuntrue that the feelings of various types of influencesa re dependent upon the familiarity of well-marked sensa in immediatep resentment. Every wayo fo mittingt he sensa still leavesu sap rey tovague feelings of influence.Such feelings,divorced from immediatesensa, arepleasant, or unpleasant, accordingtothe mood; but they arealways vagueastospatial and temporal definition, though their explicit dominance in experiencemay be heightenedinthe absence of sensa (Whitehead 1978,1 76).
From the standpoint of the problem that we are consideringinthis paper,that is, the temporal side, it is particularlyi mportant to investigate the relationship between affectivity and temporality.I ti si nf act from this perspective that we can hope to bring to the fore the meaningofW hitehead'sc onception of the succession of actual entities seen as the origin of the enduring subjectivity. We have seen abovet hat the structure of the single experiential process has two faces.T his structure does not depend on some decision, but it appears through description. In other words, the solidarity between actual entities is not an ethical but ontological structure (although it bears ethical meanings). This explains the meaning of Whitehead'sconcept of succession.The succession of actual entities as such is given, it is the structure proper to the wayi nwhich the subjects manifest themselves. But in itself, it does not grant that the subject emerging in each single processc an maintain itself and thus givesr ise to as tructured subjectivity.I n other words, successioni sanecessary but not as ufficient condition in order for at rues ubject to be given; on the contrary, in itself the temporals uccession is more am atter of dispersion and loss than of maintenance and evolution.

9M utualS ensitivity
The fundamental element to be investigated is what Whitehead calls mutual sensitivity between actual entities. Once again, it must be recalled that the structural definitiono fa ctual entity is the fact of its being the multiplicity of the world as giveninperspective: "it willbepresupposed that all entities or factors in the universe are essentiallyr elevant to each other'se xistence" (Whitehead 1954,2 48). The connection between actual entities is thus equivalent to theirontologicalessence. To speak of an actual entity in isolationi sanonsense, and this makes clear how the concept of actual entity cannot be understood in terms of atoms of reality except in ametaphorical sense. An actual entity thus reflects the communitarian structure of which it is part.A ss uch, however,t his consideration does not implya ny particulart ype of privileged order.Whitehead insists very clearlyo nt his aspect in the following passage: The general common function exhibited by anygroup of actual occasions is that of mutual immanence. In Platonic language, this is the function of belongingt oacommon Receptacle. If the group be considered merely in respect to this basic property of mutual immanence,h owever otherwise lackingi nc ommonr elevance,then-conceiveda se xemplifying this general connectedness-the group is termed aN exus. Thus,t he term Nexusd oes not presuppose anys pecial type of order,n or does it presuppose anyo rder at all pervading its members other than the general metaphysical obligation of mutual immanence. But, in fact,the teleologyofthe Universe, with its aim at intensity and variety,produces epochs with various types of order dominating subordinaten exus interwoven with each other.A nexusc an spread itself both spatiallya nd temporally. In other words,i tc an include sets of occasions which arec ontemporary with each other,a nd it can include sets which are relatively past and future ( Whitehead 1967, 201-202). Thus, each actual entity structurallyc onnects itself to other actual entities, nor could it be otherwise, since, as Whitehead underlines in this passage, this is an ontological character of the actual entity and not something an actual entity, more or less consciously, decides to be. The structures to which the connections between actual entities give rise are of several kinds and different complexity. Their unique common trait is their originating at emporallyextended structure: Anyset of actual occasions areunitedbythe mutual immanence of occasions,each in the other.Tothe extent that they areunited they mutuallyconstraineach other.Evidentlythis mutual immanence and constraint of apair of occasions is not in general as ymmetric relation. For, apart fromcontemporaries,one occasion will be in the futureofthe other.Thus, the earlier will be immanent in the later according to the mode of efficient causality,a nd the later in the earlier according to the mode of anticipation,asexplained above. Anyset of On the Notion of Processuality in Whitehead occasions,c onceiveda st hus combined into au nity,w ill be termedanexus (Whitehead 1967, 197). This is the general structural datum, upon which the differentiation between different types of society supervenes. The dominant general characteristic of societies is that they do not have ap re-established temporalo rder.W hitehead is here describing the intersubjective intercorporeal community in terms of the absence of the particular order which is proper to conscious experience.What can be said, in order to conclude, is that Whitehead explicitlydeclares that therei s no temporal order intrinsically proper to the societies in general. Moreprecisely, Whitehead excludes the presenceofthe linear form of temporality proper to normal,i .e., conscious,h uman experience.I ti st hen possiblet oa ssume that the emergence of an enduringsubjectivity through the structuration of the actual entities might be connected to the emergenceo falinear type of temporality.