Do Prehensions Presuppose Experience?
Fords denial of panpsychism to the Lowell Lectures has been challenged again, more recently, this time by Leemon McHenry. McHenrys particular concern is to show that with regard to the concept of prehension “the crucial idea of the perspective of the individual experience seems to be with Whitehead from the very outset of his excursion into metaphysics” (WPSP 1). McHenry is correct in emphasizing the central importance of the idea of prehension in Whiteheads philosophy. He rightly notes that it is an idea that most contemporary philosophies ignore, reject, or have not understood. He may also be correct that “the very concept of prehension makes little sense without viewing Whiteheads events as centers of experience actively selecting from their environments” (WPSP 11). Nevertheless, these judgments do not establish that Whitehead appreciated the necessity of subjective experience for the occurrence of prehensions at the time he gave the Lowell Lectures or even when he completed Science
