The Next Development of Mankind

Lancelot Whyte

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351478328
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Filosofia
• Subtopic: Storia e teoria della filosofia

This searching examination of human development provides new perspectives on the moral, political, scientific, emotional, and intellectual divisions of our time. A physicist by profession, Whyte looked beyond the boundaries of specialization for creative ways to approach the basic problem facing modern Western civilization: Why are we so competent technically and yet unable to order our own affairs, socially and personally? He takes the reader with him on a journey that is nothing less than a new interpretation of the general development of human consciousness.Whyte's thesis is that the current stage of human development makes not only necessary, but inevitable, constructing a ""unitary method of thought"" to overcome the dualism of the modern Western mind. He argues that the deepest troubles of Western civilization are due, in large part, to excessive reliance on the ancient Greek postulates of permanence and invariance as an ordered form of thought resulting in an extreme, mechanistic anti-humanism. What culminated in two world wars, Whyte argued, is a European dissociation, or ""lesion."" This dissociation represents an achievement in terms of rational mastery of the natural and human worlds, unique social dynamism and differentiation, and the flowering of individuality. But the price was high: disordering of thought, emotion, and will; conflict between our deliberate and spontaneous, conscious, and unconscious energies; unstable polarization between a delusive unchanging ideal world and the reality of human transience and limitation. Whyte chooses nine thinkers to illustrate this historical and evolutionary movement, including Heraclitus, Marx, and Freud, and the resulting rignettes are a synthesis of knowledge that suggest, as well, a reorientation of thought, feeling, and action for the future.Lewis Mumford wrote of The Next Development of Mankind, ""The book has intense and immediate value both for the practical person and for the theoretic thinker."" Sixty years a

1

Introduction

Thought is born of failure. Only when action fails to satisfy human needs is there ground for thought. To devote attention to any problem is to confess a lack of adjustment which we must stop to consider. And the greater the failure the more searching is the kind of thought which is necessary.

At no previous period in human history has there been such widespread examination of the nature of man and his present situation. This is partly because the race has become more self-conscious than ever before, more aware of its own failures, and partly because it faces problems which are unprecedented both in gravity and extent. The blunt fact is that the species must now think harder and better than ever before if civilization is to be saved from progressive decline. The situation calls for a unique effort of courageous, realistic, and imaginative thought. What is necessary, as we shall see, is better thought about nature as a whole, and in particular about human beings and the kind of society they require.

The entire human race now for the first time faces a single collective challenge. During the next few decades it must decide what kind of man and community is to survive on this planet. In the past, regional civilizations have come and gone, but now we are all involved together and share a common future.

This does not imply a uniform standardization of human life throughout the globe in the coming years. It means simply that without some universally acceptable ideas about nature and man there can be no stable world order. The world is now one; we are entering a period of universalism. From now on only universal ideas can be effective. The great world religions and ideologies of the past have sought universality but failed to achieve it. Communism fails because it offers too narrow a view of man, and Christianity, at least as known up to now, does not meet the needs of countless millions in Asia and elsewhere. Today the only hope of social order lies in the establishment of a valid universalism, a doctrine true to the nature of homo sapiens and, so, acceptable to all peoples.

Such a universal doctrine can only emerge from the broadening of science. We are in a scientific age, and science alone has the technique to discover, and the authority to present, a view of nature and man which can be accepted by men and women everywhere. Science has been prejudiced by its departmentalism and excessive attention to the inanimate realm, but its unique authority remains. The next step is for science to become so truly scientific, so comprehensive and humane that instead of damaging man it can teach him how to live by showing him the truth about nature and himself.

Or to express it another way: the present condition of man demands the formulation of a universal method of thought at once true to nature (so that the structure of all natural processes can be understood) and appropriate to present-day human nature (so that men and women everywhere can find a common ground in using it). This is much to ask, but it seems that nothing less will do. The establishment of such a method of thought would be no more remarkable, in relation to present knowledge, than Isaac Newton's System of the Universe was in relation to the knowledge of his time.

Great advances can be made only if many are ready to dare much and to fall by the wayside if necessary. Even in failure, the fun is in the daring as much as in the achievement. This is particularly true for the scientific mind, since science advances mainly by its ability to prove certain assumptions wrong and to cast them aside. This book is an experiment in thought based on certain clear assumptions. Be it proved a failure, that too may be useful.

The principal assumption is that only what is here called a unitary system of thought can satisfy the contemporary mind, reflect the true structure of nature, and show man how to think. The term “unitary” is used for a system of thought which:

(1) Emphasizes process, development, and transformation. This is a perpetually changing universe, and conceptions of unchanging permanence must play no part in the basic formulations of the system.

(2) Is capable, at least potentially, of bringing all facts into relation with one another. This implies that it recognizes no absolute dualism, such as mind/body, or good/evil. These and similar dualities must be interpreted as referring to pairs of aspects of one underlying phenomenon: the process of the universe in all its forms.

(3) Recognizes at the start a universal formative process in nature, a process in which regular spatial forms (symmetrical patterns) are developed and transformed. Nature is not a chaos of particles, but a process which consists in the development and transformation of patterns (such as are evident in the structure of molecules, crystals, tissues, organs, and in organisms and their behavior patterns). If there were no patterns in the world, the mind could make no sense of it

If these assumptions seem arbitrary, they can be accepted provisionally as the basis of an intellectual experiment. The pages which follow apply the unitary method to the interpretation of the present historical situation and to suggesting a possible way forward. In fact, the argument suggests that care of the greatest needs today is precisely the development and application of a unitary method of thought in all fields from physics and biology to sociology and social and political thought.

This would be a preposterous suggestion if unitary thought were wholly new. But the reverse is the case. Unitary thought is nothing but one step in the further clarification of ideas which have been emerging in Western thought, and all in science, for a very long time.

For Plato, only the permanent is real. The contrary view, that change is real, is represented in Western thought by a long line of thinkers who have emphasized process, from Heraclitus in ancient times to Vico, Schopenhauer, Hegel, Marx, Spencer, and Nietzsche, and to Bergson and Whitehead in this century. These thinkers have discussed many forms of process, historical and personal, but none of them has made clear the essential character of change, at least not with the degree of precision attempted (whether successfully or not) by unitary thought. The unitary method is an attempt to carry forward and clarify the great tradition represented by these names, by making a clear assumption regarding the character of change, i.e., the general form of all processes.

In another, more specific, sense the unitary method is the continuance of an old outlook. For in its attempt to transcend all absolute dualisms the unitary method follows the lead of the great monistic thinkers, and particularly that of Spinoza and Goethe, for whom man and his thought were part of universal nature. Many religions have proclaimed the unity of God and all his works. The attitude reappears within the scientific context of unitary thought as the attempt to interpret all natural phenomena as parts of one pattern, or more precisely, as expressions of one universal form of process. When dualistic terms have to be used, this must be so because we have not yet recognized the single underlying phenomenon of which the dual terms represent pairs of aspects. In its monistic emphasis, unitary thought is anything but new.

Finally, in its postulation of a formative process, i.e., a process in which regular patterns are developed, the unitary method is the culmination of a tendency which is evident in much of the scientific thought of the last forty years in physics, biology, psychology, and sociology. It appears that the utility of “atomistic” ideas may be provisionally exhausted, and that as a result science is being led to concentrate more on the study of pattern and symmetry, and on the emergence of new patterns. In many fields the crucial task of scientific inquiry is now to identify the structure of each phenomenon, i.e., the changing pattern of relationships (which determines its character). The unitary method seeks to ease this task by pointing to a formative process, a tendency towards the clarification of form and pattern, in every phenomenon.

Thus, in all these respects, unitary thought is a development of well-known ideas. Its novelty lies only in the emphasis on a universal formative process present in every phenomenon, and underlying all dualisms. Matter, life, and mind are ultimately to be interpreted as different aspects of this underlying process. Moreover, it is suggested that only by developing and perfecting such a method of thought can man properly understand either nature or his own historical situation, and so overcome present confusions.

There is no drama to compare with the attempt of the human race to understand its destiny, to understand external nature and human nature. This work is an attempt to advance that supreme adventure by one minute step. If its main theme is valid, and the unitary method is indeed timely, then the next generations may experience the resolution of some of the harsh conflicts which frustrate human lives today. If it is wrong, then its failure may contribute to human enlightenment. The reader will judge for himself which result appears more probable. The years to come will decide.

2

Development

A unitary method of thought is indispensable to the interpretation of the history, of the West. The pervasive dualisms which distort the thought of Western man are an element in his general condition, which therefore must be diagnosed in a language which does not take these dualisms for granted. No interpretation of Western man in traditional terms can bring the truth to light, any more than the color-blind can know their own deficiency. A language is needed that does not beg all the questions on which the Western mind has long been made up. This language must express a form of reasoning based on unitary premises. A new and more general concept of man, capable of throwing light on the peculiarities of Western man, only can spring from a new concept of nature.

The intellectual system introduced in this chapter may be regarded as a special development of the English language, a general method of thought, a philosophy, or the anticipation a new kind of law of nature. The languages which contemporary Western communities have inherited carry implicit assumptions regarding the general form of nature, and one of the main tasks of unitary thought is to bring these out and to show where they are invalid. This demonstration would be of small importance if it were an arbitrary or isolated intellectual analysis. If dualistic thought were still appropriate, the formulation of unitary thought would achieve little. But if the further development of man can be guided only by unitary thought, then one of those rare moments has arrived when an intellectual system may appear to have the power to influence men's habits. For the change from dualistic to unitary thought can be accepted only by a community which is already in course of a corresponding but more general transformation.

Unitary thought claims to offer a way of thinking which, when developed, will facilitate correct inference about everything. If the method is applied with understanding and without prejudice it will eventually lead to correct inference.

Moreover if nature has the general form postulated in unitary thought, then certain conclusions follow at once regarding the human species, the history of man and the state of contemporary man. Unitary thought is a guide to correct thought because it organizes knowledge in conformity with the forms of nature. Knowledge is already vast, and more than ample for the solution of many pressing problems. Unitary thought provides that minor but all-important re-orientation which eliminates the prejudice that has hitherto obscured our vision of the facts. A slight change of position, and the interrelations of everything are transformed so that a simple order is revealed.

My purpose here is to apply that re-orientation to the interpretation of certain aspects of the history of Europe and the West. I must therefore develop the language of unitary thought before coming to grips with the main task. All readers may not welcome so radical an approach, and a more superficial interpretation may be obtained by passing directly to chapter 2 or chapter 4. On the other hand anyone who wishes to convince himself of the self-consistency of unitary thought can use the Appendix as a supplement to the present chapter. There he will find a glossary of the primary concepts of unitary thought arranged in logical sequence.

We are now to look below the traditional frame of thought. An ancient prejudice has been discarded and nature guides the forms of our thought so that her own forms may be seen as they are. There is no finality in the development of thought, but here is the vision appropriate to our desperate need. We open our minds to a new vista of forms. Regions that have seemed to be separated by a metaphysical abyss are now rediscovered in their true unity. The complete view of nature revealed by these symbols must wait. First we must understand ourselves and our fall from organic harmony and undivided thought.

Here an old tradition has developed into a new form, more universal and, though unitary, more generous to diversity. The old tradition had control of the reader's mind during the many years of his immaturity; it may have left him with some of the conflicts and confusions that arise from its prejudiced and dualistic approach. If he gives as many hours to the restoring influence of unitary thought, I believe that those difficulties will begin to disappear. None of us can escape the desire for unity; a unitary mode of thought can facilitate its development.

It is for the sake of this emancipation that man's deep preference for the static must be overcome. Heraclitus, Goethe, Hegel, and Marx have shown the way, but the world they saw was not ours. Each age must meet its challenge alone. The old gods are dead, and men like those that created them are no longer to be found. But decay has renewed the soil and we now enter on fresh ground, the world of unitary man.

Outline of Unitary Thought

Change is universal. Permanent elements may appear to challenge it, but they have no lasting substance. Yet change is not arbitrary. The future unfolds continuously out of the present. Earlier and later states do not confront each other as the senseless juxtaposition of one chaos beside another, but are linked by similarities which pervade change. This meaningful order underlying change is realized as a continuity in the sequence of change. In so far as change reveals this continuity and is not arbitrary, it is called process.∗

Moreover this continuity is universal and constitutes the unifying order, which can be recognized throughout the diversity of all particular changes. This comprehensive unity is called nature. Nature is continuity in change, and unity in diversity. But nature can only be recognized in particular processes, and the characteristic of any particular process by which its continuity is recognized is called form. Form is the recognizable continuity of any process. In the limiting case when change vanishes, only approached towards the absolute zero of temperature, the form of the process becomes the perfect symmetry of a static pattern. Some forms may appear to be static, but they none the less partake in the processes of the whole. A process is fully identified when its form is recognized. The interpretation of human history, for example, consists in the identification of the continuity, or form, of the process, either in general outline or in detail.

Any process which displays one general form of continuity is called unitary, whereas a process which appears to display two incompatible forms is called dualistic. “Unitary” means of one general form, and “dualistic” of two mutually exclusive forms.

A unitary system of thought is a universal system based on a single concept of the form of process, and is the form of thought which is now appropriate. Unitary thought is not a completed organization of established fact. It is the continuing activity of recognizing one universal form within the diversity of particular processes.

But a unitary system of thought was not possible during the first phase of the systematization of thought. We shall see that man was then bound to seek continuity in the form not of process but of permanence, and that in doing so he separated himself as subject from the rest of nature as object and so divided the continuity of process into two incompatible forms: conscious purpose and material necessity. The source of this dualism did not lie in any general characteristic of nature, but in the temporary conditions which caused man to seek a static permanence, both in his individual life and in the words used to express his thought. We shall see that these conditions played a special role in the development, dominance, and final disintegration of European man. Moreover it is the passing of these conditions which now makes it possible to recognize the unitary form lying behind the dualism of purpose and necessity.

But man can no longer maintain his separation as subject from the objective nature which is now...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction to the Transaction Edition
• Chapter 1. Introduction
• Chapter 2. Development
• Chapter 3. The Characteristics of Man
• Chapter 4. European Man
• Chapter 5. The European Tradition
• Chapter 6. Europe after 1600
• Chapter 7. The Twentieth Century
• Chapter 8. Nine Thinkers I
• Chapter 9. Nine Thinkers II
• Chapter 10. Unitary Man
• Chapter 11. The World Trend
• Postscript
• Appendix: Glossary of Unitary Thought
• Index