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p It was noted above that Whitehead connects the problem of the symbolic transmission of emotions in art with aesthetic aspects, i.e. with beauty. The latter he analyses within the framework of his general theory of value, or the good.

p Whitehead’s theory of value is inconsistent and self-contradictory, which in its turn leads to its receiving contradictory responses from different authors. Thus, some commentators (V. Lowe), argue that his axiology is a variant of the theory of “interest”, others (D. Sherburne) maintain that he regards this theory as inadequate. In his axiology, as throughout his philosophy, Whitehead tried to overcome the extremes of subjectivism and “naive realism”, the dualism of subject and object, of “the World of Fact" and “the World of Value" by taking the path of Platonic objective idealism (11, 276). On the one hand, values function in his philosophy 113 as value ideals. They are a timeless coordination of the infinitude of possibility for realization, in no way conditioned by “transitory” circumstances and in the last analysis have divine nature. On the other hand, value, according to his conception, loses its significance in isolation from its relation to the world of fact, requiring, for the completion of its concrete reality, embodiment in “actual essences”. It is as a result of the coming into being, “realization”, “unification” of an actual essence that a value is in fact formed as the immanent reality of a phenomenon (7, 694-96). The process of “realization”, the embodiment of value ideals in the world of facts is necessarily connected with activity, but this activity does not have to be human and acquires a “cosmic” character. Value is therefore transformed into “cosmic variables".

p In order somehow to explain the process of transformation of “divine” values into the immanent principle of real things, Whitehead has no choice but to turn for help to God. The idealist (of neo-Kantian persuasion) W. Urban, criticizing another idealist-Whitehead-remarks acerbicly about one of the English philosopher’s statements: “I understand the words, but I get no sense.” This remark could also apply with full justification to Whitehead’s attempt to explain the transition from the world of values to that of facts. The objective idealistic theory of values of Whitehead the neorealist acquired a mystical, irrational shade of cosmic theologism, as did his philosophy as a whole.

p Certain bourgeois authors (H. B. Dunkel, M. Bense et al.) credit Whitehead with having connected the theory of values with the concept of “pattern”, or “structure”, correctly stated the problem and given indications towards its resolution, with having “laid a firm foundation”, etc. As we will indicate below, this evaluation does not square with the facts.

p In Whitehead’s opinion the penetration of pattern into phenomena and the constancy and modification of these patterns are necessary conditions for the realization of value ideals in actual essences (6). The analysis of values becomes the analysis of patterns in the English philosopher’s axiology, and as a criterion of value he uses good patterning (or 114 structuring), which makes possible the unification of harmony, intensiveness and liveliness. A good pattern: a) is not too simplified, has a sufficient number of elements which combine in a non-routine fashion and consequently arouse interest; b) does not consist of more components than can be united in a unit; c) has elements which agree with one another, which can contrast, but not conflict, meaning that the variety is not greater than the unity; d) contains harmony between its parts and its whole. Mathematics, or to be more precise mathematical (or symbolic) logic, is the most powerful technique for the analysis of patterns and their relations. It will, in the distant future, become the basis of aesthetics, and then of ethics and theology (9, 99).

p The sort of systems approach to values employed by Whitehead is nothing original. Whitehead postulates without proof the view that good should be patterned, and gives “too general a characteristics of ‘pattern’" (16). This shortcoming led to his failure to draw a sufficiently clear distinction between the various types of value, and to declare which he regards as the highest value-truth (logic), beauty (aesthetics), or good (morality).  [114•1 

p Be this as it may, beauty is at any rate one of the three main values in the English philosopher’s axiology. With regard to beauty Whitehead definitely adopts a Platonic stance, asserting that objects are beautiful when they embody the ideal of Beauty, an ideal possibility, an eternal object (4, 324). Beauty has a “cosmic” character. It embraces everything and exists even when no organism perceives it. A flower in some isolated glade of a primeval forest, may possess a subtle beauty, although it will never be perceived by any living being, as no one even knows of its existence (5, 164). Thus, working from the basis of objective idealism 115 Whitehead comes to axiological objectivism (“realism”) in his explanation of aesthetic value. Postulating a number of different forms of beauty in nature Whitehead also shares the viewpoint of aesthetic pluralism.

p Beauty is defined by Whitehead as “the internal conformation of the various items of experience with each other, for the production of maximum effectiveness" (4, 341). The internal conformation of items of experience can be of two types: when mutual interference is lacking (“minor beauty”) and when, in addition to this, there is harmony of “patterned contrasts" (“major beauty”). It is obvious that in the context of such an understanding of beauty the term “beauty” is to all intents and purposes being used as a synonym of value in general. Whitehead talks of intellectual, sensory (or aesthetic) and moral beauty in accordance with this use of the word. When he talks about the realization of value in the process of “unification”, self-realization of actual essence Whitehead turns for his model to aesthetic experience. An act of aesthetic experience functions for him as the paradigm of his theory of actual essence. In this connection it is easy to understand his declaration that “the most fruitful ... starting point is that section of value-theory which we term aesthetics" (9, 129). It is clearly this aspect of Whitehead’s philosophy which served as the main argument in defence of the claim that beauty is the highest form of good.  [115•1 

p Beauty, according to Whitehead, as an inalienable feature of art. Art, he argues, has a dual purpose: truth and beauty. “The perfection of art has only one end, which is Truthful Beauty" (4, 344). The canons of art express in specialized form the general requirements of aesthetic experience and in pride of place the requirement for pattern. Whitehead illustrates this thesis with a description of Ohartres Cathedral, with the dependence of beauty on the regularity of geometrical form in Greek sculpture etc. The harmony of “patterned 116 contrasts" (or “major beauty”) in art does not exclude a certain “discord” (“chaos”), “imperfection”, “vagueness”. Otherwise, argues Whitehead, art is threatened by “anaesthesia”, or “tameness” (4, 339). To support this he adduces facts from the history of the art of various cultures-of Greece, Byzantium, and China. Pattern is not enough, argues Whitehead, to explain in full the beauty of art. For example, not only geometrical form, but also colour is of importance to a picture. As can be seen from this statement, Whitehead had an extremely narrow understanding of “pattern” in art, inasmuch as he excludes the possibility of a “patterned” consideration of all the components in art, including colour.

p As noted above, Whitehead states the purpose of art to be truthful beauty. He argues that truth is of immense significance for the attainment of beauty.

p Truth and beauty embrace, according to Whitehead, the values of art. As far as good (or evil) are concerned, these values have to do with Reality and not Appearance, i.e. with qualities which do not enter the sphere of art. Proceeding from this Whitehead proposes the extremely doubtful view that “ Goodness must be denied a place among the aims of art”, that works of art are “analogous to an unseasonable joke, namely, good in its place, but out of place a positive evil" (4, 345).

Whitehead’s treatment of the question of the functions of art in society, and of its role in the formation of values proceeded to a considerable extent from his characteristics of the values of art. In doing so he does not deny that beauty in art also has a positive influence on the formation of moral values. In its capacity as the harmony of patterned contrasts “ major beauty" in art introduces order into human behaviour too, exercising a disciplinary influence. Whitehead was well aware that art’s performance of its functions in the formation of values is impossible in unfavourable social circumstances. Furthermore, he shows that “under our present industrial system . .. freedom is being lost. This loss means the fading from human life of values infinitely precious to it”. However, as the English Marxist philosopher H. Frankel correctly remarks, Whitehead rarely drew any conclusions from this. 117 According to his metaphysics, which see the root causes of qualitative change not in matter but in God, his conception of man was such that it precluded revolutionary change (See 17).

p Expressing his opinion of Whitehead’s philosophical work, A. S. Bogomolov calls him “one of the leading representatives of 20th-century objective idealism”, who “tried to answer the very important questions posed by the development of science in the 20th century" (11, 253, 291). It is precisely this which explains the increasing influence of and interest in his philosophy in the last few years. Monographs are published on Whitehead, his views are discussed in journals and at symposia, and two collections of articles were published in 1961 to mark the centenary of his birth. This extensive literature includes books and articles which comment on Whitehead’s aesthetic ideas. These ideas exert considerable influence on modern western aesthetics (21), and in particular on the semantic philosophy of art. This influence can be most clearly felt in S. Langer’s theory of art (26). She names Whitehead as her teacher and dedicates her well-known book Philosophy in a New Key to him. Whitehead was extremely influential in the formation of Max Sense’s “new aesthetics" (see Max Sense. Aesthetica. Einfiihrung in die neu Aesthetik. BadenBaden, 1965, S. 284-90). Bense particularly highly rates Whitehead’s theory of realization, believing -that no one else had so deep an understanding or gave so clear an expression to “realization” in its metaphysical and cosmological aspect. Inasmuch as “realization” is connected for Whitehead with choice (from the available possibilities) Bense sees a kinship between this concept and the concept of information (and correspondingly between the theory of “realization” and information theory), and also between the process of “ individualization" connected with realization and “aesthetic information”. Moreover, he regards the theory of information and communication as a universal theory of “realization”. As noted above, Bense was one of those bourgeois authors who 118 highly estimated Whitehead’s attempt to introduce the concept of pattern into the theory of values. In his opinion, for Whitehead this concept corresponds to the concept of “ structure" in Bense’s own informational aesthetics. Bense points to the connection between the concepts of “pattern” and “ value" in Whitehead’s philosophy to explain how the Whiteheadian cosmology comes to have an aesthetic as well as metaphysical aspect. In this connection he names Whitehead •as one of the influences (alongside Peirce and Morris) on the emergence of his own cosmological aesthetics.

p Our critical analysis of Whitehead’s aesthetics suggests that his idealist philosophy can be used to substantiate the theory and practice of modernism. The connection between Whitehead’s philosophical and aesthetic ideas and the formalism and modernism of bourgeois art is not easy to establish because of the highly abstract and intricate nature of Whitehead’s own conception. But there is such a connection, if not direct, then at one remove. Whitehead made his contribution to the general philosophical and aesthetic atmosphere of idealism with its sustenance of various forms of modernistic aesthetics and practices. For example, his book Science and the Modern World had an enormous effect on the leading theoretician of modernism, Herbert Read, who called the book the most significant (of books at the crux of science and philosophy) since Descartes’ Discours de la methode. This book, in Read’s opinion, makes necessary a new interpretation -not only of science and philosophy, but also of religion, and of art.

p Let us now see what in Whitehead’s philosophy could serve as the theoretical basis for modernism. M. Bense, who has himself made considerable efforts in this field, argues that nothing could fit so well as Whitehead’s theory of cognition and theory of perception on the one hand, and Kandinsky’s theory of painting and aesthetics on the other. He sees a connection between Whitehead’s category of “ realization" in the sphere of aesthetics and the analyses of Expressionism, Tachisme, and automatic writing. Many commentators, when noting the influence on the emergence of abstractionism exercised by the notions of modern physics, also 119 mention Whitehead in this connection. Thus, the Polish aesthetician W. Tatarkiewicz writes in his article “Abstract Art and Philosophy" that, alongside the influence of modern physics on abstractionism we should also note the influence of Whitehead’s ideas, as it was he who made the step forward from physics and philosophy to aesthetics and attempted to connect the abstractions of physical science with the principles of aesthetic experience. The American professor of art history Irving L. Zupnick draws a parallel between Whitehead’s philosophy and Mondrian’s abstract painting in his article “Philosophical Parallels to Abstract Art".

Thus, the idealistic philosophy of Whitehead the neo-realist, which, as we have seen, is an unsuitable basis for a scientific theory of art, provides fertile soil for the justification of the theory and practice of modernism.