Being A Sociologist and Becoming A Whiteheadian

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Being a Sociologist and Becoming a Whiteheadian : Toward a Concrescent Methodology

Michael Halewood and Mike Michael Theory Culture Society 2008 25: 31 DOI: 10.1177/0263276408091981 The online version of this article can be found at: http://tcs.sagepub.com/content/25/4/31
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Being a Sociologist and Becoming a Whiteheadian

Toward a Concrescent Methodology
Michael Halewood and Mike Michael
Abstract This article is an attempt to operationalize A.N. Whiteheads ontological approach within sociology. Whitehead offers lessons and clues to a way of re-envisioning sociological practice so that it captures something of the nature of a social that is at once real and constructed, material and cultural, and processual and actual. In the course of the article, the terms operationalize and sociology will themselves be transformed, not least because the range of objects and relations of study will far outstrip those common to sociology; further, the term operationalize would seem to retain the notion of a stable sociologist-subject translating precepts into methods. So, the article will follow Whiteheads shift in emphasis toward an understanding of much more relational, heterogeneous and emergent entities which in turn will require new methodological approaches. In staking out these claims, we follow in an intellectual lineage in which Whiteheads presence has been profound but generally oblique. For it is clear that, while Whitehead has informed various writing, little attempt has been made to draw out, more or less systematically, some of the general methodological tactics that would allow us to practise a Whiteheadian sociology. Key words methodology
ontology
practice
HIS ARTICLE is an attempt, albeit a tentative one, to operationalize, for sociology, A.N. Whiteheads ontology. Of course, in the process both the terms operationalize and sociology become transformed,
Theory, Culture & Society 2008 (SAGE, Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, and Singapore), Vol. 25(4): 3156 DOI: 10.1177/0263276408091981
32 Theory, Culture & Society 25(4)
not least because the range of objects and relations of study will far outstrip those common to sociology, and to operationalize seems to retain the notion of a stable sociologist-subject translating precepts into methods, whereas Whitehead shifts the emphasis toward altogether more relational, heterogeneous and emergent entities. In spite of these provisos, Whitehead offers lessons and clues to a way of re-envisioning sociological practice so that it captures something of the nature of a social that is at once real and constructed, material and cultural, and processual and actual. In staking out these claims, we follow in an intellectual lineage in which Whiteheads presence has been profound but generally oblique. While Whitehead has informed various writing Barry (2002), Deleuze (1993, 1994), Haraway (1997, 2000), Harvey (1996), Latour (1999b, 2004), Michael (2000), Prigogine and Stengers (1984) little attempt has been made to draw out, more or less systematically, some of the general methodological tactics that would allow us to practise a Whiteheadian sociology. Perhaps most directly signicant for social theory is the long-term and continuing inuence of Whitehead on Haraway and Latour. One of the most sustained and productive outcomes of the inuence on Haraway is to be found in her discussion of genes and gene fetishism (Haraway, 1997: 142 and 1418 passim). Halewood (2005) provides a fuller account of this but, for the moment, it is worth noting that Whitehead and Haraway both attempt to provide accounts which side-step the need to bifurcate nature. For Whitehead, the aim is to avoid dividing the world into that which is known (external nature) and that which knows (human subjects), and rather to conceptualize and describe nature (in terms of all existence) without recourse to such dualisms. Haraway adopts specic aspects of this critique to circumvent or disrupt bifurcations such as the supposed opposition of disciplines (science vs humanities, for example) and binary conceptions of detached, gendered subject positions. In this sense, both Whitehead and Haraway attempt to develop reformulated conceptions of the social where it is heterogeneity that comes to the fore, where perspective and relativity signal more objectivity and not less. These themes will be taken up later in this article. It is the attempt to recongure the social which is characteristic of one main aspect of the inuence of Whitehead on Latour. Latour advances a strategy which aims to avoid predicating the social as the guarantor of the success of social theory. In doing so, he emphasizes the need to analyse not only social relations, practices, forms, etc. Reality is not populated solely either by relations between human individuals or by concrete social structures within which the epi-phenomena of human social activity occurs (Latour, 1999b: 123). Rather, he makes the apparently simple point that humans live in a world of objects (Latour, 1993a: 1425). These objects are not supplemental to human life or an understanding of it. To separate these into two realms (that of the social scientist and that of the proper natural scientist) is both to confuse and over-simplify the complexity of existence (Latour, 1993a: 515). Or, as Whitehead would put it, to bifurcate nature.
Halewood & Michael Being a Sociologist, Becoming a Whiteheadian 33
However, as Latour recognizes, such claims are more far-reaching than they may seem and will involve a return to questions of ontology. This, in turn, as Latour points out, will also involve a reconsideration of what ontology or being entails:
Who has forgotten being? No one, no one ever has, otherwise Nature would be truly available as a pure stock. Look around you: scientic objects are circulating simultaneously as subjects, objects and discourse. Networks are full of Being. As for machines, they are laden with subjects and collectives. (Latour: 1993a: 66)
It is important to note that Latour uses the work of Whitehead to support and develop his arguments (for example Latour, 1999b: 141; 153, 305, 306; 2004). Such references point to the important theoretical realignment which Latour is advocating but do not provide an exhaustive account or describe the full implications or indeed possibilities offered by the work of Whitehead. That is to say it is worth returning to Whitehead in order to clarify the analytic practices of writers such as Haraway and Latour. However, more importantly, Whiteheads texts provide a more sustained, more systematic account of the theoretical and practical exigencies demanded by attempts to think past any bifurcation of nature (see Stengers piece in this issue) and to account for the relation between process, becoming and what he terms stubborn fact (Whitehead, 1978: xiii and passim). Whereas Latour attempts to resolve such tensions through the narratives of success (concrescence, network durability) and betrayal (prehension/network breakdown) and Haraway utilizes textual techniques and tactics such as contradiction-laden metaphors (e.g. cyborg, oncomouse), this article will attempt to outline some of the complexity and density of Whiteheads concepts in order to suggest how they might offer social theory an opportunity to develop robust theoretical and practical tools to both describe and analyse the contemporary world. In what follows, we sketch out the main features of Whiteheads metaphysics and introduce some of his key concepts. In the second half of the article, we draw out a number of methodological tactics that suggest themselves in light of Whiteheads core concerns. The Lure of Whitehead Through his development of an ontology which tries to evade positing the separate existence of an objective external world from a distinct realm of thinking or conceiving subjects, Whitehead develops a novel conception of the status of nature. For him, nature simply refers to all existence, and that which comprises all existence is the coming to be and passing away of what he terms actual entities. A fuller description of these will follow shortly, but for the moment it should be noted that he develops a position wherein philosophical, cultural and social analyses no longer have to be seen as competing with science, nor as a distinct eld of inquiry limited merely to
analyses of the human or social realm. By transforming nature into a dynamic realm where subjects and objects (humans and things) are in a continual process of inter-relation, Whitehead opens up important avenues in terms of the relationships between science and society. Whitehead also provides an important resource for contemporary debates around matter/materiality, ontology, and subjectivity (see Barad, 1998; Fraser, 2002; Kerin, 1999; Kirby, 1997, 1999; Sandford, 1999). Ultimately, Whitehead could enable the development of a strong theoretical and practical position which moves beyond positing the social as traditionally conceived as the basis of social theory. Instead, following Whitehead, it is possible to envisage all existence (nature) as inherently social, in that all items of existence are resultants of a process of construction. The remainder of this article will take the opportunity to outline Whiteheads ontological position in more detail and then to explain quite how such concepts may be deployed by sociological research and researchers. Concreteness and Atomicity: Actual Entities Perhaps the clearest clues as to the main elements of Whiteheads philosophy are to be found in the title of his major work, Process and Reality (Whitehead, 1978). That which he is attempting to explain is how reality, or the stubborn fact (Whitehead, 1978: xiv and passim) that presents itself in the universe, can be consistently theorized within a theory of the universe as dynamic. Whitehead states that: the history of philosophy . . . tends to ignore the uency, and to analyse the world in terms of static categories (Whitehead, 1978: 209). He sees this tendency as an inimitable part of the history of Western philosophy and modern science, resulting in the traditional and dominant position which has falsely rendered the universe into a class of discrete Newtonian objects. Yet Whitehead also argues against those who focus upon the ows and mobility of the world and solely address becoming, as well as those, such as Spinoza, who prioritize innite substance as the real condition of the universe out of which appear its modications. In both accounts, that which is stressed is the almost universal nature of becoming, at the expense of the ability to account for immediate items of matter. Whitehead asserts that it is easy to describe the world simply in terms of motion, ux, innity or becoming. What is more difcult is to develop an account of the facticity of the world without recourse to some kind of philosophical or scientic materialism. He seeks to achieve this through the adoption of the term actual entity which he denes in the following terms:
It is fundamental to the metaphysical doctrine of the philosophy of organism [Whiteheads term for his own philosophical approach], that the notion of an actual entity as the unchanging subject of change is completely abandoned. An actual entity is at once the subject experiencing and the superject of its experiences. It is subject-superject and neither half of this description can for a moment be lost sight of. (Whitehead, 1978: 29)
So, Whiteheads solution to positing the world in terms of either objects or subjects (or objects and subjects) is to make the experience of subjects primary. However, this is only half the story. To leave his theory at this point might leave Whitehead open to the charge of idealism. Hence, Whitehead introduces a new and crucial term, that of superject. The bringing together of diverse experiences into a novel unit is the process of becoming a subject (which Whitehead refers to as its concrescence [Whitehead, 1978: 412]). There is no subjectivity prior to this combining. There is no ongoing mind or identity which lurks behind or sustains a continuing individuality. Instead, on each occasion of a novel combining of diverse elements there is the creation of a superject. A superject comes into existence as a result of the process of concrescence which is not inuenced by some kind of pre-existing agent. As its etymology suggests, the term superject refers to the dynamic character of existence and to a going beyond simple conceptions of the past, present and future. It is the past hurling itself into a new transcendent fact. It is the ying dart . . . hurled beyond the bounds of the world (Whitehead, 1967: 177). Being is constituted through being launched from the past into the future. This is the being of becoming. So, how an actual entity becomes constitutes what that actual entity is. . . . Its being is constituted by its becoming. This is the principle of process (Whitehead, 1978: 23; emphasis in original). All things, all items of physicality or materiality, are subjects (in terms of constituting a superject). But each such item, each such subject, is a novel creation. So, in Whiteheads ontology, the terms object and subject lose their usual senses as becoming is given priority subject and object are relative terms (Whitehead, 1967: 176). That is to say, each actual entity only exists for as long as it is becoming. In this sense it is a subject. When it has become it perishes. This does not entail that it somehow vanishes out of the universe. Instead, it becomes a potential item of data for the creation of new entities. In this sense it is an object. This reinforces Whiteheads claim that he is able to describe both the primacy of becoming and the facticity of existence and to develop a non-essentialist account of nature. So, the process of existence is not some kind of undulating, undifferentiated ow or ux. Whitehead manages to maintain both becoming and differentiation by insisting that each becoming unfolds in a different manner, incorporates different elements from every other becoming. In terms of analysis, Whiteheads conception of existence is always focused on the how of becoming. For how an actual entity becomes creates what that entity is. In order to explain this, Whitehead introduces the notion of prehensions: the rst analysis of an actual entity, into its most concrete elements, discloses it to be a concrescence of prehensions, which have originated in the process of becoming. All further analysis is an analysis of prehensions (Whitehead, 1978: 23). Prehensions thereby enable Whitehead to account for differentiated becomings within a wider system of process and to retain a grasp on the concrete, on the physicality of the world.
Whiteheads theory of actual entities is designed to account for the reality of stubborn fact within a universe which is characterized by continual process. As such, it is an abstract theory of the conditions of existence. Clearly, actual entities do not comprise the physical world as encountered. It is therefore necessary for Whitehead to relate this high abstraction to the contemporary world. So far it has been seen how Whitehead grants subjectivity to all items of materiality insofar as they constitute superjects. This is not immediately a description of human subjectivity (though ultimately the same process of the reception of the external world and how it is received as constituting the moments of human existence will also apply). Hence, before proceeding, it should be pointed out that there is some discrepancy amongst Whitehead scholars as to how far it is possible to use the term actual entities to describe that which is commonly held to be the enduring objects of the contemporary world, for example rocks, plants, planets, dogs, sweets, cheeseboards. Technically, Whitehead refers to such things solely as societies (see Whitehead, 1978: 8992), yet at times he refers to such things in terms of a nexus (e.g. Whitehead, 1978: 63). Elsewhere, he also uses the term actual occasions to refer to larger items of endurance:
In the actual world we discern four grades of actual occasions, grades which are not to be sharply distinguished from each other. First . . . there are the actual occasions in so-called empty space; secondly, there are the actual occasions which are the moments in the life histories of enduring non-living objects . . .; thirdly, there are the actual occasions which are the moments in the life-histories of enduring living objects; fourthly, there are the actual occasions which are moments in the life-histories of enduring objects with conscious knowledge. (Whitehead, 1978: 177)
In the latter stages of this article we will, at points, adopt this nal term actual occasions to refer to larger scale entities (though, at points, we will also just refer to entities). For not only is the term actual occasion suggestive of both the enduring yet transient character of the entities that we discuss but, as Stengers points out in her article in this collection, Whitehead adopts the term actual occasion precisely to invite us to think differently about the manner of existence. That is to say, we have retained Whiteheads provocative terminology (actual occasions, actual entities, eternal objects) aware that, on a strictly technical reading of Process and Reality, at points we should, perhaps, have deployed other (more cumbersome) phrases such as societies of actual occasions or penumbra of eternal objects (Whitehead, 1978: 185). The importance of any return to Whitehead does not lie in simply learning his philosophy, adopting his terminology, and applying it to a set of research problems. Instead, the demand is to rethink the conceptual and practical procedures and problems that we have inherited and dwell within. Or, as Stengers puts it:

The point is not to wonder about the legitimacy of Whiteheads speculative denition of what truly exists, as if Process and Reality unfolded some kind of ultimate perspective. A perspective is certainly produced, but it cannot be separated from an experience of disclosure; and this experience does not concern actual entities as such, but the very possibility of changing the problem, to escape the oppositions our modern denitions induce. (2007: 45)
Process Prehensions Prehensions act as Whiteheads mode of describing the inter-relationship between actual entities which does not predicate some form of subtending subject. Instead the subject (superject) is constructed and constructs itself through the combining of specic yet diverse prehensions: There are an indenite number of prehensions, overlapping, subdividing, and supplementary to each other (Whitehead, 1978: 235). For Whitehead, that which is prehended is not inert matter; instead, prehensions are the feeling of another entity. These feelings are not inert data, waiting out there to be felt. These feelings make up the concrescence of each entity, in its act of experience: Feelings are vectors; for they feel what is there and transform it into what is here (Whitehead, 1978: 87). It is in this most literal sense that life is robbery (p. 105). So Whitehead argues that there is a ow of feeling (p. 237). Prehensions are the basis for the inter-relation of actual entities and can be thought of as constituting some kind of perceptive inter-relation: a simple feeling is the most primitive type of an act of perception, devoid of consciousness (p. 236). However, it must be remembered that Whiteheads thoughts on perception are likely to differ greatly from those of other philosophers. Consequently, his notion of perception is not one which includes any notion of representation, for representative perception can never, within its own metaphysical doctrines, produce the title deeds to guarantee the validity of the representation of fact by idea (Whitehead, 1978: 54). This is because the very separation of that which is represented (the object) from that to which it is represented (the subject) will always rely on some form of materialism or idealism or will invoke one of a range of such trenchant philosophical dualisms. (See Halewood, 2005, for a fuller discussion of Whiteheads critique of the subject/object distinction, its various guises and its inuence on science and philosophy.) Subjects do not perceive objects. Rather, subjects (superjects) are formed through such prehensions, or through the perceptions of a green leaf (for example). Thus, Whitehead differentiates between moments in the passage of prehensions from subject to subject in which there are no concrete facts which are merely public, or merely private (Whitehead, 1978: 290). The separation of private and public into two distinct, spatial realms hinges upon the delimitation of space as prior to the instantiation of entities. Instead, Whitehead sees entities as instantiating space; the privacy and publicity of prehensions are moments in an ongoing process. The public,
for Whitehead, is what he terms the extensive continuum (see Whitehead, 1978: 6182); this comprises that group of completed actual entities from which a novel actual entity may arise. The process of combining a certain number of prehensions into a unit is the creation of a new subject, and it is this becoming which is private. But this privacy is only a moment, and this moment is that which constitutes its subjectivity. Once this moment is over it becomes public and is now a possible datum for novel actual entities. Prehensions have public careers, but they are born privately (Whitehead, 1978: 290). There is, therefore, no solid interiority to the subject as usually dened, for once subjectivity is achieved it becomes a public fact. All origination is private. But what has been thus originated, publicly pervades the world (Whitehead, 1978: 310). Whiteheads account of prehensions is an attempt to describe the becoming, passing away and endurance of actual entities and to account for the materiality of such subjects. And this is not some innocent, abstract metaphysical process. The very constitution of subjectivity (and objectivity) is embroiled in power, for Whitehead argues that the problem of perception and the problem of power are one and the same, at least so far as perception is reduced to mere prehension of actual entities (Whitehead, 1978: 58). Whitehead would, perhaps, envisage the role of social theory to inquire after the machinations of power within the reception and repetition of prehensions in our world, for although Whitehead does not develop a fully edged theory of power, it is clear that the notion is integral to his understanding of the coming to be and endurance of all existence. Indeed, insofar as power is a necessary aspect of existence, so is a proper understanding of the operations of power necessary for any analysis of existence. Whitehead puts it thus: the notion of power is . . . the principle that the reasons for things are always to be found in the composite nature of denite actual entities (Whitehead, 1978: 19). So the correct analysis of actual occasions into their component parts is not simply a deconstruction in the sense of a dissipation or an explaining away. Rather, it is a detailed account of both the conditions which prevail and the novelty that is entailed in any becoming. The philosophy of organism holds that, in order to understand power, we must have a correct notion of how each individual actual entity contributes to the datum from which its successors arise and to which they must conform (Whitehead, 1978: 56, emphasis in original). So, as we hope we have stressed throughout this article, one of the great strengths of Whiteheads work, and one of the direct contributions it can make to social theory today, is to be found in a dual insistence. On the one hand, there is the need for a rigorous analysis of that which combines to instantiate enduring objects (or subjects) and the manner in which combinations appear, noting that such analysis will always lay bare the operations of power. Yet, at the same time, it should be remembered that such analysis is no mere accounting or counting of items but a description of the way, the manner, in which such combinations occur; an integral part of this will be a recognition of the role of novelty, or lack thereof.
However, some care should be taken when addressing Whiteheads concept of power. There may be a temptation to read back into his work a straightforward justication of more contemporary framings of power, such as those of Foucault or Latour, for example. While it is clearly possible to see certain similarities, it would be a mistake to simply transfer Whiteheads thoughts on power directly into the social realm. His understanding of power is inherently philosophical and cosmological. And, faithful to his general outlook, power must always be understood as relational. He cites Locke1 to make his point: re has a power to melt gold . . . and gold has a power to be melted. . . . Power thus considered is twofold; viz. as able to make, or able to receive, any change . . . power includes in it some kind of relation (Whitehead, 1978: 578). Thus, for Whitehead, power is integral to the process of concrescence but it manifests itself in both formative and teleological dimensions. Hence, there will be a complexity involved in the manner in which power is implicated in any actual occasion and this will therefore demand that the analyst of such occasions pays due attention to this complexity, to both the active and passive dimensions of power. The consequences and possibilities that Whiteheads work offer in terms of methodology will be taken up in more detail later in this article. Heterogeneity Prehensions and Relativity and Duration Whitehead, as has been seen, seeks to balance the concreteness of actual entities with the dynamic or processual character of existence. One main way that he accomplishes this is through his theory of prehensions. It is these which enable him to balance the passing on and the physicality of the process of existence. In order to strengthen and clarify this position, Whitehead turns to his notion of relativity.
The principle of universal relativity directly traverses Aristotles dictum, A substance is not present in a subject. On the contrary, according to this principle an actual entity is present in other actual entities. . . . The philosophy of organism is mainly devoted to the task of making clear the notion of being present in another entity. (Whitehead, 1978: 50)
Hence Whitehead introduces the notion of heterogeneity into his philosophical scheme. This is because each item of existence, each superject, is the combination of elements, of prehensions that were previously diverse, into a novel unity, through the process of concrescence. Such heterogeneity is, once again, no mere metaphor or simple description of social construction. The coming to be of all items of matter involves genuine construction. Nature is a construction but this is not a simple explaining away so beloved of some sociologists of science: Philosophy destroys its usefulness when it indulges in brilliant feats of explaining away (Whitehead, 1978: 17). This is a call to engage in a new form or investigation which recognizes the utterly constructed and inter-related aspects of all existence and the necessary embroiling of what is commonly
thought of as objects and subjects. Hence, Whitehead is able to offer a forceful account of heterogeneity which needs to be developed by social theory. But this heterogeneity is not limited to being within actual entities. Through the principle of relativity, Whitehead enables heterogeneity between actual entities: They differ among themselves (Whitehead, 1978: 18). And one way in which this occurs is through Whiteheads deployment of his principle of relativity with respect to time, space and duration. The classical theory of time envisages a linear progression in which time proceeds uniformly. In such a conception two things were contemporary if they inhabited the same segment of time and space. Colloquially speaking and jumping to the human level, two students could be referred to as contemporaries if they attended the same school at the same time. That is to say, they inhabited the same time and place and this spatio-temporal locale was simply a segment of the larger spatio-temporal realm of the universe considered as that ultimate vessel which is occupied by all objects. On such accounts time is the measure by which such objects are said to co-exist or endure. Whitehead rejects this concept in an example of his sporadic uses of the ndings of modern science to further his argument
Curiously enough, even at this early stage of metaphysical discussion, the inuence of the relativity theory of modern physics is important. According to the classical uniquely serial view of time, two contemporary actual entities dene the same actual world. According to the modern view no two actual entities dene the same actual world. (Whitehead, 1978: 656)
So although the theory of relativity might only be observable in cases such as the perihelion of mercury, and the positions of the stars in the neighbourhood of the sun (Whitehead, 1964: 169), this does not mean that there is not a myriad of time-space systems which are normally ignored. This adoption of relativity is of vital importance, as it allows for the concrete existence of actualities which do not rely on a common locus for their denition. That which unites all entities is the manner in which they come to be. This does not comprise an enduring essence or characteristic as that which informs the nature of that entity. Each entity is dened anew on each occasion. Heterogeneity is rife. Thus the two school contemporaries are not constantly contemporary on the relativistic account. Rather, at some times and points they are and at other times and points they are not. This entails that Whiteheads theory allows for the description of an entity as inhabiting differing spatial and temporal systems concurrently. Another way of approaching this question is not to start with the actual entity but with a collection of actual entities in terms of what Whitehead calls a duration. A duration is a complete locus of actual occasions in unison of becoming, or in concrescent unison. It is the old-fashioned present state of the world (Whitehead, 1978: 320).
However, Whiteheads notion of duration or unison of becoming is not completely synonymous with the classical notion of duration or present state of the world. On such a view there would be one duration at one given time and all contemporaries would inhabit that duration. Against this position, Whitehead argues that contemporary physics has shown how there are many durations . . . in fact, an innite number (Whitehead, 1978: 320). If this were not the case then extensiveness would consist of an individual, at plane lying inert. Whitehead is opposing the classical scientic notion wherein there is a continuous transmission of energy which somehow exhibits itself as individual items of matter. For Whitehead, the notion of continuous transmission in science must be replaced by the notion of immediate transmission through a route of successive quanta of extensiveness (Whitehead, 1978: 307). So existence is replete with actuality, and pulsates time and space. And such actuality is to be conceived of as some kind of quanta which although atomistic are not to be conated with atoms. Instead, Whitehead wants to argue that the ultimate metaphysical truth is atomism. . . . But atomism does not exclude complexity and universal relativity. Each atom is a system of all things (Whitehead, 1978: 356) as long as it is remembered that such actuality is to be conceived of as some kind of quanta which, although atomistic, are not to be conated with atoms. The importance of Whiteheads stance, in maintaining that there is a link between the actuality of existence and relativity so that Each atom is a system of all things, will be taken up in the following section. Mundaneness It has been seen how, through his principle of relativity, Whitehead disagrees with Aristotles position that A substance is not present in a subject. Instead, he argues that one thing must partake of other things to be constituted as individual. Individuality presupposes commonality. He thus posits an inter-relation of individuality and generality without which neither can exist nor survive. In doing so he puts a fascinating twist on the rather tired old macro vs micro debate. For Whitehead, both are distinct moments of process. The initial fact is macrocosmic, in the sense of having relevance to all occasions; the nal fact is microcosmic, in the sense of being peculiar to that occasion (Whitehead, 1978: 478). That is, the world exhibits itself in a general manner in which all past becomings are inter-related. This constitutes the public realm. But those novel entities which arise out of, and in relation to, such publicity, in their becoming are microcosmic. They are not disconnected from the public, in that they are a concrescence of specic elements of the public. But they are private in the sense that they are comprised of distinct and specic prehensions. The micro and the macro are thus distinct and related. Whitehead thereby suggests that if theorists can identify genuine moments of concrescence (remembering that each atom is a system of all things), then it will be possible to draw out, from an analysis of that which contributed to this process, the wider implications and resonances of such apparently
minor or mundane instances of existence. For, as Deleuze says: Good macroscopic form always depends on microscopic processes (Deleuze, 1993: 88). Creativity Whitehead further explains the manner in which such actual entities are inter-related, and the link between individuality, process and becoming, through one of his most important terms, that of creativity: Creativity is the universal of universals characterizing ultimate matter of fact (Whitehead, 1978: 21). For the fundamental inescapable fact is the creativity in virtue of which there can be no many things which are not subordinated in a concrete unity (p. 211). Hence, creativity operates as that which explains the process through which diverse prehensions become one thing. It also indicates Whiteheads insistence that such a process is not accomplished only by humans but as an integral aspect of the becoming of all moments of facticity. It is in this sense that Whitehead uses the term creativity to describe the activity which characterizes the coming to be of any thing which exists. Creativity is an important aspect of Whiteheads attempts to describe a universe in process; it operates as the link between the completed actual entities which act as data for the concrescences or experiences which constitute novel subjects. And, as has been seen, this will involve some notion of relativity. At this stage, creativity explains the process, the movement from the potentiality provided by completed actual entities (which have nished their becoming) for the arising of new superjects. Thus, the actual world is always a relative term, and refers to that basis of presupposed actual occasions which is a datum for the novel concrescence (Whitehead, 1978: 211). Or: viewed in abstraction objects are passive, but viewed in conjunction they carry the creativity which drives the world (Whitehead, 1967: 179). This might seem to suggest that creativity thereby occupies the role of a supplementary category which either subtends or rises above actual instances of existence. However, Whitehead avoids this reading by making a distinction between absolute and real potentiality:
Thus we have always to consider two meanings of potentiality: (a) the general potentiality, which is the bundle of possibilities, mutually consistent or alternative . . . and (b) the real potentiality, which is conditioned by the data provided by the actual world. (Whitehead, 1978: 65)
General potentiality refers to the philosophical aspect; it is that which functions as an abstract condition which provides a metaphysical positioning and consistency to Whiteheads argument. Real potentiality refers to Whiteheads insistence that creativity is only to be found through and in those occasions of becoming which populate the world. Such creativity is not some kind of free-oating spirit or energy to be tapped into by blessed
or gifted individuals. Whitehead insists that creativity is in no way to be limited to human activity or consciousness, and that a wider understanding of creativity, based on the relativity of the potential and the actual, must be recognized. How the past perishes is how the future becomes (Whitehead, 1967: 238). This leads to a further point, namely, that it would seem that, by denition, creativity is a good thing, something to be celebrated; that creation is always to be celebrated. While it is the case that in Whiteheads text there is a certain degree of afrmation of creativity, this does not entail that there is a conceptual celebration of all that is created.
A new actuality may appear in the wrong society, amid which its claims to efcacy act mainly as inhibitions. Then a weary task is set for the creative function, by an epoch of new creations to remove the inhibition. Insistence on birth at the wrong season is the trick of evil. In other words, the novel fact may throw back, inhibit, delay. (Whitehead, 1978: 223)
So it should be noted that Whiteheads concept of creativity is a crucial one for this philosophy. Its main role is, perhaps, to develop an account of the process and potentiality of the world which avoids resorting to xed conceptions of subjects and objects. As such it might enable methodologies to be developed which recognize heterogeneity, relativity, concreteness, process, becoming and mundanity. For, as Whitehead makes clear, such terms imply each other and cannot be taken in isolation:
to arrive at the philosophic generalization . . . an apparent redundancy of terms is required. The words correct each other. We require together, creativity, concrescence, prehension, feeling, subjective form, data, actuality, becoming, process. (Whitehead, 1967: 237)
In the following sections, we will begin to outline a series of what we shall call methodological tactics which translate Whiteheads metaphysics into something approaching a practicable methodology.2 In light of the fact that the preceding sections have provided only an incomplete sketch, it will be necessary to supplement our outline with additional concepts as we proceed. In particular, we will have cause to draw on Whiteheads notions of eternal objects and harmony. Three Methodological Tactics In developing our methodological tactics, there are, broadly speaking, two crucial Whiteheadian processual moments that seem obvious focal points around which to orient method. These are the moment of completion of an actual occasion, and the simultaneous moment at which that completed actual occasion becomes available for prehension in subsequent conscrescences. Put crudely, we can analyse what goes into an entity or occasion, and what an entity or occasion can go into. In seeking to illustrate our
suggested tactics, we will seek out examples of Whiteheadian practice in existing work, most notably that of Haraway and Latour. In contrast to these analytic tactics, there are also more involved or synthetic moments where investigation turns to adventure (to borrow from Whitehead) and the creative incorporates the activities of the researcher far more dramatically. Here we pursue, and indeed concoct or synthesize, entities and occasions, or societies and propositions strange creatures in order to explore (and test) durations and becomings that would otherwise remain obscure to us. These are the tales that might perhaps be told about particular actualities (Whitehead, 1978: 256). As we shall see, the particular sorts of creatures that are pursued in the world are pursued by particular sorts of creatures. Before we develop these points, we need to set in place a seeming proviso. Though Whiteheadian analysis can engage any size of entity or occasion, that is, any size of society (up to and including the present cosmic epoch), we shall, for ease of explication, concentrate on rather small (one might say microsociological where this is thoroughgoingly heterogeneous) mundane occasions and entities made up of a relatively few prehensions. Having noted this, as we have documented, for Whitehead, actual occasions of all sizes incorporate the world, just as the world is constituted through actual occasions: the one and the many are inextricable.3 To focus on the small, however seemingly trivial, is thus to entertain the profound.4 This is why this proviso is seeming. As noted above, Whiteheads metaphysics assumes that actual occasions and entities are constituted in the process of concrescence of prehensions and that at the moment the actual occasion is satisfactorily concresced (or privately completed) it becomes a potential prehension for future becomings in that is, publicly available for the concrescence of subsequent entities or occasions. The former process points to the antecedents of an actual occasion; the latter to its consequents.5 This suggests two focal points of analysis. Co-ordinate Analysis First, there is the analysis of what an actual occasion is made from: here there is a pursuit of what is prehended in the actualization of an actual occasion. This can be likened to the form of deconstruction (in the broadest sense), though it is a resolutely heterogeneous form. Here, the analyst takes a particular entity or occasion and unravels the prehensions out of which it is concresced. Whiteheads own terminology is co-ordinate division or coordinate analysis: Co-ordinate division is concerned with an actual occasion in its character of a concrete object (Whitehead, 1978: 292). This process is not necessarily straightforward because, as we have seen, the range of prehensions is potentially innite. This points to a possible shortcoming, one which is often levelled at approaches such as actor-network theory. Where does one stop the analysis? What does one include and what does one ignore (e.g. Button, 1993)? One response to this is to admit that
such decisions are simply a matter of taste (Callon and Law, 1995). However, in the context of Whiteheads metaphysics this problem dissolves if such questions or problems are properly divided into two parts. First, a distinction must be made between what Whitehead refers to as formal and objective existence (Whitehead, 1978: 21920). Formal existence refers to the becoming of an actual entity; it is that moment of the combination of a limited number of prehensions with reference to specic eternal objects (an explanation of this term is given below). It is the experience of this combining which constitutes the being of its becoming. However, once it has become it gains objective existence. It is no longer a living item but is a part of the settled world which then offers itself as an aspect of the data from which new entities or occasions may arise. In this sense, once it has become, once a limited number of prehensions have been combined into a unity, it is a question of empirical investigation to unravel, count or describe the matter and manner of that specic event or occasion. In this sense: An actual occasion is analysable (Whitehead, 1978: 211). As such, the investigator or researcher is not in a position simply to choose which prehensions are relevant as these have already been decided and given (in actuality). However, this then begs the question as to whether all theorists (including social ones) are reduced to mere bean counters or listers of consequences. Again the answer is no, if the second element of Whiteheads position is taken into account. For, with Whitehead, the analyst is no longer regarded as an observer, or perhaps more accurately, an auditor, of the variety of prehensions, but the partial product of these and other prehensions. This follows from Whiteheads insistence upon the integration of interpretation into all moments of existence or experience. That is to say, for Whitehead, interpretation is not some kind of epi-phenomenal activity, distinct from the data which are being interpreted; interpretation does not proceed from, or rely upon, human consciousness or language. In fact, interpretation is an integral element of the coming to be of all entities or occasions. Experience is interpretation, is experimentation (as Stengers argues in this issue): there are no brute, self-contained matters of fact, capable of being understood apart from interpretation as an element in a system (Whitehead, 1978: 1415). Perhaps the ultimate demand that Whitehead brings to bear on all researchers is to recognize these twin aspects: the objective existence of actuality within a wider eld of potentiality and the need to produce a grounded, rigorous process of interpretation thereof. For, as he says: all occasions proclaim themselves as actualities within the ux of a solid world, demanding a unity of interpretation (Whitehead, 1978: 15). In light of these remarks, let us briey consider the example of Haraways (1997) guration of the oncomouse (a mouse that has been genetically altered to grow cancers). Here is an entity in which, much like her cyborg, the mythic, textual, political, organic and economic dimensions implode. That is, they collapse into each other in a knot of extraordinary density that constitutes the objects themselves (Haraway, 1994: 63).
Moreover, the heterogeneity of this concrescence is a matter in which, from the perspective of a pure or purifying sociology (Latour, 1993a), is deeply contradictory. Myerson (2000) has examined this dimension of Haraways oncomouse. For Haraway, we live in an epoch of the mixed: the oncomouse is mixed in a multitude of ways it is both biology and culture, commercial and academic, it is full of uncertainties and certainties. Such mixings, such hybridities, are an index of creativity, just as they are a mark of exploitation. For Haraway, then, such hybrid entities as the oncomouse are profoundly ambiguous. They are at once a product of natures creativity that is teased out by human creativity, and objects through which we come to understand nature. On this score, we cannot separate ourselves from these hybrid entities we are entwined with them in complex and ambiguous ways. This applies no less to the social scientic analyst, of course. They trace the multiple and seemingly contradictory prehensions that make up an entity such as the oncomouse as it itself comes to be prehended within the process of completion of the actual occasion representing the oncomouse social scientically. This is simply another way of acknowledging the brute fact that such analysis is situated in Haraways terms (1991), though it additionally allows us to point to a way that the object of study also contributes to the situation. On this score, we cannot separate ourselves from these hybrid entities we are entwined with them in complex and ambiguous ways. As Myerson frames it, we can acknowledge our kinship with these new possibilities, either as victims or as heroes (Myerson, 2000: 73). Indeed, this notion of kinship seems particularly viable in shifting away from the (epistemological) concern with analytic choice to the (ontological) interest in the process of emergence. Not only does it neatly capture a sense of the heterogeneity of relations (at once material and semiotic), but it also hints at the creativity of such analysis. We shall return to this below. Obviously enough, this form of co-ordinate analysis also extends to less exotic actual occasions. Michael (2004) examines the making of social data by counterfactually analysing an actual occasion a disastrous interview in which, seemingly, no data were generated. He shows how a variety of heterogeneous entities and occasions (the respondents cat and pit bull terrier, the respondents insistence on not talking about the topic of the interview) that would normally have been disciplined entered into and disrupted the interview. As such he draws attention to the range of the prehensions (in this case pets and a particular persona of the respondent Burger King manager-in-waiting) that would normally have been disciplined in order to complete the actual occasion of a research interview about lay understandings of ionizing radiation and the entities of social scientic data. However, he also goes on to identify a number of other actual occasions that were completed by virtue of these prehensions of the animals and the respondents Burger King manager-in-waiting persona. Thus, he suggests that what from his perspective as an interviewer was the non-completion of that actual occasion (the social scientic interview) constituted a different
actual occasion, namely the society made up of the relations between the respondent and her companion animals (we shall return to this below when we look at a more synthetic form of Whiteheadian analysis) and the entity Burger King Corporation. Note that this very society serves as a prehension in the making of Michael-the-interviewer-and-analyst. In sum, this co-ordinate analysis allows us to draw attention to those prehensions and, importantly, the patterning of those prehensions that make up an ostensible actual occasion here, the oncomouse and the (disastrous) social science interview that would otherwise go undetected. We mention patterning in order to evoke the idea of harmony (see below) that Whitehead uses to describe the creative advance of the world. In other words, the analytic process here in articulating that is, prehending these novel patterns with their harmonies (which, as we shall see, are themselves emergent) is part of the creative in Whiteheads sense (which, as we have noted, does not mean they are necessarily good). Poly-ingression In comparison to co-ordinate analysis with its unravelling of (some of the heterogeneous) prehensions from which an actual occasion is made, there is the pursuit of an actual occasion, once it has undergone its transition and as it becomes prehended into consequent actual occasions. Again, a formalistic parallel can be drawn with semiotic analysis, this time with the analysis of an actual occasions polysemy, but where signication becomes a pluralistic and heterogeneous process of prehension. Now, let us recall Whiteheads distinction between real and general potentialities. The former refers to the way that actual occasions resource subsequent actual occasions. In following Whiteheads injunction to retain a resolute focus upon the concrete, we must follow how this resourcing takes place. It is certainly possible to follow actual entities as they are prehended into subsequent occasions. Here, we are interested in the way that such entities express their real potential in their prehension in subsequent actual occasions: how such and such a specic artefact was prehended in such and such an actual occasion. For example, we can pursue how a piece of Velcro is prehended in an actual occasion of fastening a reserve parachute which subsequently fails to open. However, we are often interested in how an actual entity, by virtue of its real potentiality, can become a common prehension along trajectories, sequences, or arborizations of actual occasions. That is to say, we are interested in something like the heterogeneous polysemy of entities where we take the meaning of the entity in the non-linguistic sense of order building (following Akrich and Latour, 1992).6 In other words, we are interested in how an entity features in subsequent multiple orderings (or actual occasions). Thus, Velcro is, as we shall see below, also a principle of easy-fastening that attaches to various entities (which might or might not include material bits of Velcro). As such, how are we to understand Velcros multiplicity and the roles it plays in constituting subsequent actual entities?
Here, we must change registers and examine such actual entities in terms of their partial composition out of what Whitehead would call eternal objects. Eternal objects are, perhaps, one of the most difcult or, at least, most misunderstood of Whiteheads terms. As has been seen, Whitehead is insistent that all existence is suffused with creativity. It is in this way that Whitehead manages to invigorate his conceptual scheme; if he simply provided an account of the becoming of superjects, actual entities or actual occasions, he could be accused of the kind of monistic scientic materialism that he is at pains to avoid. The notion of creativity thereby points up the importance of potentiality within Whiteheads work. Eternal objects therefore have the crucial role of explaining how such potentiality comes to partake in the actualization of all actual entities. In one sense an eternal object is a pure potential in that it describes the innite potentiality characterized by the universal category of creativity. At the same time, eternal objects are equally important in accounting for how each actual entity is actualized, how it becomes one denite entity, as opposed to any other. The eternal objects are the pure potentials of the universe; and the actual entities differ in their realization of potentials (Whitehead, 1978: 149). As discussed earlier, we are never faced with unbounded, innite potentiality a distinction must be made between general and real potentiality. Our world exhibits real as opposed to general potentiality; things could have been different, things will be different, but there is not an unlimited range of potentiality constantly on offer. For example: The bus is red. Out of the range of potentiality it has incorporated redness as one way in which it expresses its deniteness as precisely that bus. It could have been yellow but it is not. Eternal objects simply express both how potentiality is actualized and how such actualization of potentiality provides each instance of existence with its own, specic deniteness, and that such potentiality is not exhausted by its instantiation in any particular moment of existence. Eternal objects only gain real existence insofar as they ingress or partake of an actual entity. They do not comprise an abstract realm which exists somewhere out there in the ether awaiting those occasions when they deign to manifest themselves in materiality or actuality. They are not instances of some kind of superior realm of universal spirit or abstract forms. As such, they cannot be named or pointed at. They are only apparent insofar as they express actualized potentiality within an actual entity. However, without actually calling them eternal objects, Whitehead does often use the notion of colours to help explicate his argument: You cannot know what is red by merely thinking of redness. You can only nd red things by adventuring amid physical experiences in this actual world (Whitehead, 1978: 256). In doing so, Whitehead shifts from the abstract discussion of individual eternal objects as part of his metaphysical apparatus to the manner in which eternal objects operate both as complex and relational: sense-data are eternal objects playing a complex relational role; they connect the actual
entities of the past with the actual entities of the contemporary world, and thereby effect objectications of the contemporary things and of the past things (Whitehead, 1978: 62). Eternal objects thereby exhibit both potentiality and deniteness and do so precisely by remaining within Whiteheads principle of relativity. The manner in which such potentiality ingresses or partakes of contemporary actuality is an important concern for social theory. It will, we suggest, enable new connections, descriptions, and accounts of the facticity of hybridity and those potentials which inhere or are denied in our world. It is thus eternal objects in their complex, relational role, rather than their rather abstract role as the pure potentials of Whiteheads metaphysics, that are of interest here. As such, we would like to adopt the term polyingression to capture this aspect of Whiteheads theory. Although he does not use this term himself, it is evident that Whitehead does envisage the ingression of relational eternal objects in real potentiality in such a manner: a sense-datum has ingression into experience by reason of its forming the what of a very complex multiple integration of prehensions within that occasion (Whitehead, 1978: 64). To study the poly-ingression of an eternal object is thus to trace its prehension into a variety of actual occasions. As a methodological tactic, this process entails a number of sensibilities. First, it suggests that the researcher is clear as to what the purpose of such a survey is. As with the exploration of polysemy, a key reason for such a survey is to catalogue difference as it is manifested in the prehension of the complex range of eternal objects. And again, as with the exploration of polysemy, such polyingression serves to undercut any monopoly of ingression (i.e. to problematize the idea that an eternal object always does the same things). At the same time, eternal objects have something stable about them and this too needs to be accounted for. Let us briey consider the work of Mol and Law (1994, 2004), which can be recruited to illustrate this aspect of Whiteheadian analysis. An entity such as anaemia is, for Mol and Law, both uid and xed. As they say: if we are dealing with anaemia over and over again, something that keeps on differing but also stays the same, then this is because it transforms itself from one arrangement into another without discontinuity (Mol and Law, 1994: 664). Similarly, when they consider how hypoglycaemia is done and the hypoglycaemic body enacted, difference again emerges across a variety of sites, as hypoglycaemia concresces with a series of other entities (e.g. food, blood glucose measuring kits), but also with the many other activities that hypoglycaemic bodies perform. While anaemia moves across different occasions the laboratory, the hospital, the home it is prehended into those actual occasions in varying ways. At the same time it retains a certain stability. In this study of poly-ingression, we thus focus on the interplay of the eternal objects and actual entities as expressions of real potentiality. Let us reconsider the example of Velcro. Velcro can be seen to be beyond occasions it is, as the Velcro website puts it, designed and
engineered for all ages and motor skill levels (http://www.velcro.com/ industrial/touchseal.html). It is also elevated to a principle, or icon, of unproblematic fastening and unfastening. However, this refers, in a sense, to what be might termed Velcro-ness that is to say the potentiality of a novel mode of fastening and unfastening. Yet such Velcro-ness does not exist in a separate realm; it is only ever encountered in those specic and particular instances where it is instantiated (shoes, bags, nappies, etc.). In other words, we can consider it a complex eternal object that can be said to enter into a broad variety of actual occasions. Thus it is used to describe potential nanotechnological innovations so-called nano-velcro using carbon nanotubes; on the other hand, it is used to describe social bonds and networks (wherein contacts accumulate by virtue of a social stickiness likened to that of Velcro http://socialsoftware.weblogsinc.com/entry/ 5326667344598756/). Velcro is problematized by tracing its ingression into a variety of actual occasions in which its practical and epistemic status is questioned. For example, in one religious piece, the principle of convenience and ease embodied in Velcro is critically juxtaposed against the little toils in everyday life. Accordingly, such ease disables us from learning how to learn: hard work, facing and overcoming problems these are good principles through which we become better persons (http://www. backtogod.net/sermons/sermon_deail.cfm?ID=36060 03/06/04). As a practical technology, Velcro is again problematized in a number of ways as it enters into actual occasions such as childcare (Velcro causing chafng on babies that wear particular sorts of nappies), cyclocross (Velcro loosens when exposed to mud and wet), transport (Velcro used inappropriately, because not strong enough, to fasten seat cushions to seat frames on buses), parachuting (Velcro stiffens and becomes difcult to unfasten on reserve parachutes). Notice that here we at once trace the actual objects of Velcro (that is, bits of Velcro) as they are prehended in actual occasions and the eternal object of Velcro (as a principle of unproblematic fastening). On the one hand, we trace the multiple potentialities of Velcro in its instantiation in an actual object; on the other, we read off its cogency as a complex eternal object through its presence in actual occasions. The problematizations we detect in relation to the actual occasions of Velcro are problematizations precisely because of the presence of Velcro as a principle of unproblematic fastening and unfastening. Such problematizations are of course no less evident in the case of anaemia and hypoglycaemia. For Mol and Law, the elevation of these conditions to something like eternal objects is highly problematic when their interplay with other entities such as labs, homes, work, etc. is neglected. In sum, this form of Whiteheadian analysis pursues the interplay of actual entities and eternal objects within actual occasions in order to trace where an actual entity might go that is, be prehended in light of its potentiality. Within academic narrative practice, this pursuit is the occasion for a particular form of critique that exposes the multiplicity of meanings
(meant heterogeneously) for eternal objects in order to undercut any monopolization, simplication or reduction of such meanings. Here, in the actual occasion of academic practice, completion or satisfaction is reached when sufcient examples are collected to establish the multiplicity manifested in the poly-ingression of eternal objects and their interplay with actual entities. Put formally, harmony is reached in the concrescence of such disparate actual occasions in which Velcro or anaemia features within the actual occasion of an academic narrative. In all this, the creative lies in exposing the multiplicitous novelty that emerges in the interplay of such entities and eternal objects. Synthetic Propositions The preceding two forms of analysis co-ordinate analysis and polyingression are, as we have noted, not completely novel: we nd their formal echoes in semiotics, after all. In what follows, however, we will consider another Whiteheadian methodological tactic that departs somewhat more from mainstream practice. This tactic can be introduced by posing the question: what can count as an entity or occasion? The preceding forms of analysis unpick or follow particular ostensible actual occasions: oncomice, Velcro, anaemia and social data that form part of our everyday universe, even as they are problematized. Yet, arguably, our world is populated by rather more obscure entities, and we move through rather less obvious actual occasions. What we normally perceive as entities or occasions is thus enabled by the prehension of other occasions or, rather, feelings we have acquired in our trajectories through, and concrescence of, actual occasions that themselves need excavation. Let us illustrate. As is well known, Latour (1993a) argues that, in contrast to premodern cultures, modernity has been fundamentally concerned to keep separate nature and culture, the human and nonhuman. Instead, we need, according to Latour, to sensitize ourselves to heterogeneous mixtures the hybrids that make up our world. For example, Latour (1993b) posits the hybrid of the gun-person. For Latour, contrary to the views that it is guns that kill and it is people that kill, it is the citizen-gun. Rather than ascribing essences to the gun and the citizen each being either good, or bad, or neutral what Latour aims to do is show how the new hybrid entails new associations, new goals, new translations and so on. As one enters into an association with a gun, both citizen and gun become different. As Latour puts it:
The dual mistake of the materialists and of the sociologists is to start with essences, either those of subjects or those of objects. . . . Either you give too much to the gun or too much to the gun-holder. Neither the subject, nor the object, nor their goals are xed for ever. We have to shift our attention to this unknown X, this hybrid which can truly be said to act. (1993b: 6)
So, here, what should be policed are not the gun or the person not subject or object alone but the combination, the hybrid. What should count as
actual occasions and entities are such hybrids such novel (from the perspective of the modern, realized through the concrete actual occasions of modern everyday life) admixtures. Similarly, in Michaels (2004) analysis of the making of social data (see above), he derives a number of such hybrids (or what he call co(a)gents). Thus, he traces the way that the disastrous interview actually works as an actual occasion to reinforce a particular hybrid entity the concrescence of interviewee, her dog and her cat, which he calls the pitpercat (= pit (bull terrier) + per(son) + cat). Now, the point of such concocted entities is that in being open to them we are enabled to engage with processes of emergence to which we would normally be indifferent. They are propositions, in Latours (2004) terms, through which we experimentally interrogate the make-up of the world. The term propositions is one that Latour borrows from Whitehead. The closest that Whitehead himself comes to a denition of a proposition is to refer to it as a hybrid between pure potentialities and actualities (1978: 1856). On this account, reality is hybrid a mix of physicality and potentiality. Hybridity is not merely a metaphor or a social or cultural construction. It is the best descriptor of real existence. It is in this sense that propositions are concoctions and that it is, perhaps, possible for researchers to subject such concoctions to the analytic tactics of coordinate analysis and poly-ingression. Concoctions such as the couch potato can be explored in terms of their multiple prehension (of a range of complex eternal objects) in a range of actual occasions, and the hudogledog (= hu(man) + dogle(ad) + dog) can be analysed in terms of the rhythm and pattern of its concrescence (Michael, 2000). In other words, this is also a matter of empirical inquiry: For, as Whitehead says, it is thus an empirical question to decide . . . whether the distinction between a coordinate division and a true actual entity is or is not relevant (Whitehead, 1978: 285). However, we have yet to address directly our question: what can count as an entity or occasion? The citizen gun, the pitpercat these are hybrids composed of what we might call proximal everyday entities: they are both close to each other and close to our normal perceptions (that is, routine actual occasions). So, what can legitimately go with what in an actual occasion? That is to say, what can go with what to make an occasion actual? As pointed out earlier, this question should not ease us out of ontology into epistemology. These concoctions let us say, for example, an admixture of anaemia, cats and guns are better seen as creatures in the sense of the creative movement into novelty. As we noted above, such novelty is not of itself good. The prehensions that compose the novel entity or inhabit a proposition, prehensions that include academic practice, must possess a certain harmony in order to attain goodness, to allow future movement into novelty (rather than serve as barriers against novelty). As with all else, save creativity, in Whitehead, such harmony is itself contingent and relational. We are not referring to a traditional aesthetic sense of harmony. Indeed, that kind of harmony impedes novelty, especially in academia.
Following Whitehead, we would seek to set up a tension between harmony and novelty: Harmony is this combination of width and narrowness (Whitehead, 1978: 111). The right chaos, and the right vagueness, are jointly required for any effective harmony (Whitehead, 1978: 112). In light of this, harmony is a complex eternal object that articulates interplays with our novel actual objects in the same way that we described for Velcro and anaemia. Harmony is thus not a matter of epistemology, but of ontology emergent in relation to the actual occasion of academic culture as it is mediated in, through and by the researcher as they prehend, and are prehended by, their novel actual occasions. Concluding Remarks In this article we have attempted to outline some of the most important aspects of Whiteheads ontological position and to point to its importance for contemporary theory. We have also attempted to show the direct relevance of Whiteheads metaphysics to sociological research practice. In particular, we have sketched three broad methodological tactics derived from Whiteheads perspective: co-ordinate analysis, poly-ingression, and synthetic propositions. As bets a Whiteheadian analytic, we do not aim to raise these to principles or injunctions: our tactics are best regarded as emergent in their instantiation within the actual occasions of research practice. Moreover, it has not been our aim to launch some attack on existing sociological practice: we have, as much as possible, tried to eschew critique. Rather, we have simply endeavoured to unravel the Whiteheadian underpinnings of existing practices. That is to say, we have sought to recover the Whiteheadian eternal objects instantiated in the actual occasions of a number of existing research practices. We are also acutely aware that our illustration of such tactics has come from one particular eld that is associated with sociology, namely, science and technology studies. This is not unexpected given Whiteheads inuence on this eld, not least with regard to its concern to move beyond the great bifurcation of the natural and the social (or what Latour, 1993b, has called the modern constitution). A perhaps more difcult exercise would be to reimagine through a Whiteheadian lens such typical social scientic concepts as cosmopolitanism or globalization or McDonaldization. At the very least, for a Whiteheadian there would be a focus on actual occasions whose coordinate analysis would take in the ingression of those eternal objects associated with such concepts as cosmopolitanism or globalization or McDonaldization. On this score, then, the present article stands as an invitation to embark on, to echo Whitehead, an adventure in ideas.
Notes 1. The quote is from Lockes An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Bk II, Chp. XXI, Sect. 1). 2. We use the term tactics because of the sense of responsiveness and emergence that it connotes, not least on the part of the researcher.

3. This is a point long noted, and often reiterated in actor network style arguments. See, for example, Callon and Latour (1981) and Callon and Law (1995). 4. Again, this is hardly an original point nowadays for some, this is a foundational point in the sociology of everyday life. See, for example, Highmore (2002). 5. This terminology should not be read as necessarily indicative of linear time. Just as an actual entity has the form of a subject, but is not necessarily subject-ive in the usual sense, so the processuality of actual occasions has a linear termporal form but is not necessarily in time. For an excellent discussion of this point see Rose (1992). Of course, this terminology also does not necessarily signify causality, especially in the Humean sense. 6. For Akrich and Latour (1992) semiotics is: The study of how meaning is built, (where) the word meaning is taken in its original nontextual and nonlinguistic interpretation: how a privileged trajectory is built, out of an indenite number of possibilities; in that sense, semiotics is the study of order building or path building and may be applied to settings, machines, bodies and programming languages as well as texts (p. 259). References Akrich, M. and B. Latour (1992) A Summary of a Convenient Vocabulary for the Semiotics of Human and Nonhuman Assemblies, in W.E. Bijker and J. Law (eds) Shaping Technology/Building Society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Barad, K. (1998) Getting Real: Technoscientic Practices and the Materialization of Reality, in differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 10(2): 87128. Barry, A. (2002) The Anti-political Economy, Economy and Society 31(2): 26884. Button, G. (1993) The Curious Case of the Vanishing Technology, in G. Button (ed.) Technology in Working Order: Studies in Work, Interaction and Technology. London: Routledge. Callon, M. and B. Latour (1981) Unscrewing the Big Leviathan, in K.D. KnorrCetina and M. Mulkay (eds) Advances in Social Theory and Methodology. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Callon, M. and J. Law (1995) Agency and the Hybrid Collectif, The South Atlantic Quarterly 94: 481507. Deleuze, G. (1993) The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque. London: Athlone Press. Deleuze, G. (1994) Difference and Repetition. London: Athlone Press. Fraser, M. (2002) What Is the Matter of Feminist Criticism?, Economy and Society 31(4): 60625. Halewood, M. (2005) A.N. Whitehead, Information and Social Theory, Theory, Culture & Society 22(6): 7394. Haraway, D. (1991) Simians, Cyborgs and Nature. London: Free Association Books. Haraway, D. (1994) A Game of Cats Cradle: Science Studies, Feminist Theory, Cultural Studies, Congurations 2: 5971. Haraway, D. (1997) Modest_Witness@Second_Millenium.FemaleMan_Meets_Onco Mouse: Feminism and Technoscience. London: Routledge. Haraway, D. (2000) How Like a Leaf. London: Routledge.

Harvey, D. (1996) Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference. Oxford: Blackwell. Highmore, B. (2002) Everyday Life and Cultural Theory. London: Routledge. Kerin, J. (1999) The Matter at Hand: Butler, Ontology and the Natural Sciences, Australian Feminist Studies 14(29): 91104. Kirby, V. (1997) Telling Flesh: The Substance of the Corporeal. London: Routledge. Kirby, V. (1999) Human Nature, Australian Feminist Studies 14(29): 1929. Latour, B. (1993a) We Have Never Been Modern. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Latour, B. (1993b) On Technical Mediation: The Messenger Lectures on the Evolution of Civilization, Cornell University, Institute of Economic Research, Working Papers Series. Latour, B. (1999a) On Recalling ANT, in J. Law and J. Hassard (eds) Actor Network and After. Oxford and Keele: Blackwell and the Sociological Review. Latour, B. (1999b) Pandoras Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Latour, B. (2004) Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Michael, M. (2000) Reconnecting Culture, Technology and Nature: From Society to Heterogeneity. London: Routledge. Michael, M. (2004) On Making Data Social: Heterogeneity in Sociological Practice, Qualitative Research 4(1): 523. Mol, A. and J. Law (1994) Regions, Networks and Fluids: Anaemia and Social Topology, Social Studies of Science 24: 64171. Mol, A. and J. Law (2004) Embodied Action, Enacted Bodies: The Example of Hypoglycaemia, Body & Society 10(23): 4362. Myerson, G. (2000) Donna Haraway and GM Foods. London: Icon. Prigogine, I. and I. Stengers (1984) Order out of Chaos: Mans New Dialogue with Nature. London: Heinemann. Rose, P. (2002) On Whitehead. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning. Sandford, S. (1999) Contingent Ontologies: Sex, Gender and Woman in Simone de Beauvoir and Judith Butler, Radical Philosophy September/October: 1829. Stengers, I. (2007) Whiteheads Account of the Sixth Day, Congurations 13(1): 3555. Whitehead, A.N. (1964 [1920]) The Concept of Nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Whitehead, A.N. (1967 [1933]) Adventures of Ideas. New York: Free Press. Whitehead, A.N. (1978 [1929]) Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology. (Gifford Lectures of 19278; corrected edition eds D. Grifn and D. Sherburne). New York: The Free Press.
Michael Halewood is a lecturer in sociology at the University of Essex, UK, where he is a member of the Centre for Theoretical Studies. His main areas of interest are the work of A.N. Whitehead, philosophy and social
theory and the materiality of subjectivity. His recent publications include A.N. Whitehead, Information and Social Theory, Theory, Culture & Society 22(6) and On Whitehead and Deleuze The Process of Materiality, Congurations 13(1). Mike Michael is Professor of Sociology of Science and Technology, and Director of the Centre for the Study of Invention and Social Process at the Sociology Department, Goldsmiths, University of London. His main areas of research include public understanding of science, the relation between everyday life and mundane technology, and biotechnological and biomedical innovation and culture. He is currently developing an interest in the interactions between design and social science disciplines. Recent publications include Technoscience and Everyday Life (Open University Press, 2006) and (with Lynda Birke and Arnie Arluke) The Sacrice: How Scientic Experiments Transform Animals and People (Purdue University Press, 2007).

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