In higher organisms (like people), these two modes of perception combine into what Whitehead terms "symbolic reference", which links appearance with causation in a process that is so automatic that both people and animals have difficulty refraining from it. By way of illustration, Whitehead uses the example of a person's encounter with a chair. An ordinary person looks up, sees a coloured shape, and immediately infers that it is a chair. However, an artist, Whitehead supposes, "might not have jumped to the notion of a chair", but instead "might have stopped at the mere contemplation of a beautiful colour and a beautiful shape."Alfred North Whitehead, Symbolism: Its Meaning and Effect (New York: Fordham University Press, 1985), 3. This is not the normal human reaction; most people place objects in categories by habit and instinct, without even thinking about it. Moreover, animals do the same thing. Using the same example, Whitehead points out that a dog "would have acted immediately on the hypothesis of a chair and would have jumped onto it by way of using it as such."Alfred North Whitehead, Symbolism: Its Meaning and Effect (New York: Fordham University Press, 1985), 4. In this way, symbolic reference is a fusion of pure sense perceptions on the one hand and causal relations on the other, and it is in fact the causal relationships that dominate the more basic mentality (as the dog illustrates), while it is the sense perceptions which indicate a higher grade mentality (as the artist illustrates).Alfred North Whitehead, Symbolism: Its Meaning and Effect (New York: Fordham University Press, 1985), 49.
In higher organisms (like people), these two modes of perception combine into what Whitehead terms "symbolic reference", which links appearance with causation in a process that is so automatic that both people and animals have difficulty refraining from it. By way of illustration, Whitehead uses the example of a person's encounter with a chair. An ordinary person looks up, sees a coloured shape, and immediately infers that it is a chair. However, an artist, Whitehead supposes, "might not have jumped to the notion of a chair", but instead "might have stopped at the mere contemplation of a beautiful colour and a beautiful shape."Alfred North Whitehead, Symbolism: Its Meaning and Effect (New York: Fordham University Press, 1985), 3. This is not the normal human reaction; most people place objects in categories by habit and instinct, without even thinking about it. Moreover, animals do the same thing. Using the same example, Whitehead points out that a dog "would have acted immediately on the hypothesis of a chair and would have jumped onto it by way of using it as such."Alfred North Whitehead, Symbolism: Its Meaning and Effect (New York: Fordham University Press, 1985), 4. In this way, symbolic reference is a fusion of pure sense perceptions on the one hand and causal relations on the other, and it is in fact the causal relationships that dominate the more basic mentality (as the dog illustrates), while it is the sense perceptions which indicate a higher grade mentality (as the artist illustrates).Alfred North Whitehead, Symbolism: Its Meaning and Effect (New York: Fordham University Press, 1985), 49.