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Science and the Modern World

Alfred North Whitehead

3.97 · Rating details · 478 ratings · 35 reviews

Alfred North Whitehead's SCIENCE AND THE MODERN WORLD, originally published in 1925, redefines the concept of modern science. Presaging by more than half a century most of today's cutting-edge thought on the cultural ramifications of science and technology, Whitehead demands that readers understand and celebrate the contemporary, historical, and cultural context of scienti ...more

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Paperback, 224 pages

Published August 1st 1997 by Free Press (first published 1926)

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Dec 03, 2016 Manny rated it liked it

Shelves: science, linguistics-and-philosophy

Mad geniuses occur more often in comic books than in real life, and it's always interesting to come across one. The clearest example I know is Fred Hoyle, who for a few years was considered one of the world's great scientists; during the 1950s, I understand that his name, at least in his native Britain, was synonymous with unconventional brilliance. Then everything fell apart. He resigned his prestigious Cambridge chair and began to write more and more eccentric books: infeasible defences of his Mad geniuses occur more often in comic books than in real life, and it's always interesting to come across one. The clearest example I know is Fred Hoyle, who for a few years was considered one of the world's great scientists; during the 1950s, I understand that his name, at least in his native Britain, was synonymous with unconventional brilliance. Then everything fell apart. He resigned his prestigious Cambridge chair and began to write more and more eccentric books: infeasible defences of his beloved Steady State theory, anti-evolutionary tracts, near-Velikovskian explanations of the role of comets in human history. But even at his maddest, Hoyle is always fun to read. As the old joke has it, he may be crazy, but he's never stupid.

After finishing Science and the Modern World, it's hard not to feel that Alfred North Whitehead is another example. There's no doubt about the genius part. Quite apart from being the co-author of Principia Mathematica, the nec plus ultra of famous books that no one has ever read, his dazzling mind is in evidence pretty much from page one. He just seems to know everything, and draws the most extraordinary connections. Why did the scientific world-view only arise in Europe? I had never before seen the argument that it can be traced back to the great Greek tragedians and their interpretation of an ineluctable Fate, but Whitehead makes it startlingly convincing. He gives a brisk tour of the development of thought across the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and continues to astound. Here's someone who's equally at home with Thomist theology and the aesthetics of Langrange's equations, and happy to compare them. Needless to say, he's read everything in the original. In case you're in any doubt, he inserts little Greek and Latin phrases every now and then with a disarming naturalness.

Until I was halfway through, I was scratching my head and wondering why the book wasn't better known; but it then becomes brutally apparent that all is not well. Whitehead has already offered some cogent objections to materialism, and I was wondering what he was going to suggest instead. The answer turns out to be a weird metaphysics which is never properly explained, and is, to be blunt, unreadable. Looking around, I see an account of Whitehead's Gifford Lectures, where only a dozen people turned up after the first installment (a normal audience was several hundred). It is easy to understand his audience's disappointment. The prose in the metaphysical sections is not quite like anything I have seen before. It's a little bit like symbolic logic, but there are no symbols, only words. It's a little bit like Kant, but Kant makes sense if you read him carefully, and this doesn't. It's almost physically painful to get through. I know there are people who think highly of it, and it's claimed to be the foundation of "process philosophy", which has a considerable following. Well, I'm curious to hear from people who understand process philosophy and can defend it.

So why am I so sure that I'm not just missing the point? Perhaps I am, but I bought the book mostly because of the title and the fact that it contained chapters headed "Relativity" and "Quantum Mechanics". I was curious to know what this famous philosopher, writing in 1925, would have to say about those subjects. Had he in some way influenced their development? I'm afraid the answer is no. The two chapters are anodyne and utterly lacking in insight; they consist of superficial popular explanations and hooks to the eccentric metaphysics. When you compare them with the genuinely brilliant papers that Heisenberg, Schrödinger, Weyl and their colleagues were just about to publish, the contrast could not be greater. Weyl, in particular, was philosophically sophisticated: his Philosophy of Mathematics and Natural Science is in some ways the book this one would like to be.

I don't want to scare you off. Whitehead's book is more often than not well-written, and it's quite difficult to put down if you enjoy this kind of thing; I read it in three days. He's a likeable person. But I do wonder what happened to him, and how other scientists and philosophers of the time reacted, and what the route was that transformed this bizarre nonsense into something that's now supposed to be a quasi-respectable subject. I must look around some more. Maybe there's a good biography? ...more

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Jan 15, 2017 Jay Green rated it liked it

Shelves: on-the-shelves-already

Found this a bit frustrating in the end. Other reviewers have commented on the convoluted language, which I didn't find a problem early on in the text, but toward the end it becomes more and more of a problem. I had gained the impression that there are some very interesting ideas in Whitehead's philosophy, and I bought this book in the hope that it might prepare me for Process and Reality, but now I find it difficult to determine whether the ideas are as impressive or as interesting as I initial ...more

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Mar 13, 2014 Daniel rated it it was amazing

This was a perspective-altering book. Whitehead gives a brief outline of the development of the philosophy behind scientific thought in the 17th century and subsequently critiques the limitations of this system of thought. He then posits and develops a philosophical system that is, as he puts it, "founded upon the ultimate concept of organism."

Each chapter in this book corresponds to a lecture (a fact which astounds me, as I can't imagine the kind of preparation that goes into a talk on these su ...more

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Aug 03, 2011 John Hodge rated it it was amazing

This is one of the most important writings of the twentieth century. I first read it for a college course in the 1960’s (and for that I thank my teacher, Dr. Peter Caws), and I have returned to it many times since. Yes, it is difficult to comprehend this profound book in one reading, but it is well worth the effort.

The book conceptualizes the way of thinking that led to and supported the development of modern science. It proceeds to show not only the value but also the limitations of that way o ...more

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Mar 23, 2016 Roberto Rigolin F Lopes rated it it was amazing

We are somewhere in the 1920's, Whitehead starts assuming that we did our homework; meaning that we know a great deal about Bacon, Harvey, Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, Pascal, Huygens, Boyle, Newton, Locke, Spinoza and Leibniz. My homework wasn't finished, but I kept going anyway. Then he goes about knitting together the evolution of science through the 18th and 19th centuries. He lost me a bit in two chapters, but finished strong with a sober view of social progress. ...more

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Sep 10, 2014 Joshua rated it it was amazing

The most exciting work of intellectual history I've read in a long time, but it took me years to be prepared for it. Read it in concert with Process and Reality: the two books illuminate and interfuse with each other. ...more

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Feb 27, 2013 Eric rated it it was amazing

The last chapter is exceptional. It was worth plowing through the first 12 chapters, just to glimpse Whiteheads vision in chapter 13. Aims of education, associations, the dangers of the Gospels of Force and Uniformity, potential fallacies of Adam Smith and the Professional man, physical wandering, spiritual adventures, passionate feeling, aesthetic experience are all addressed. "Wisdom is the fruit of a balanced life".
I'm not completely satisfied with his ideas of adaption. I'm a fan of conside ...more

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Jun 01, 2015 Aaron Noll rated it did not like it

I realize that the ideas in this book are extremely important. But Whitehead's obscure writing makes me want to stop reading philosophy forever. I was a philosophy major in college, but maybe I've changed over the years. When I now encounter page after page of obscure metaphysics, I think about the meaning of life in terms of why anyone would want to spend significant portions of their life thinking and reading about such things. There are many instances in which I can read a two-page spread in ...more

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Oct 13, 2009 Allison rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction-history, non-fiction-comp-religion

Just as relevant and interesting today as it was when first published in 1925. A must for all students of historiography, theology, or philosphy! Accessible, clear and articulate! Loved it! Again!

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Apr 25, 2020 Matt rated it it was amazing

Time and time again, it is clear that mathematical thinking and philosophical thinking are compliments to one another. Both dealing in abstract principles and both attempting to discipline thought to discover and work within immutable principles. The anecdotal story of Plato inscribing “Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here” above his Academy is telling of how classical thought respected this intermarriage. Likewise, Alfred North Whitehead, a trained mathematician, demonstrates the value of Time and time again, it is clear that mathematical thinking and philosophical thinking are compliments to one another. Both dealing in abstract principles and both attempting to discipline thought to discover and work within immutable principles. The anecdotal story of Plato inscribing “Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here” above his Academy is telling of how classical thought respected this intermarriage. Likewise, Alfred North Whitehead, a trained mathematician, demonstrates the value of this principle in the collected lectures found in Science and the Modern World.

Whitehead views Plato and Pythagoras as founders of Western thought. Both mathematicians and both setting a framework upon which subsequent generations expanded upon. It is unfortunate that Artistotle, the son of a doctor, became so influential for centuries. In some ways, for Whitehead, Aristotle’s methods corrupted a more pure means of building thought:

The practical counsel to be derived from Pythagoras, is to measure, and thus to express quality in terms of numerically determined quantity. But the biological sciences, then and till our own time, have been overwhelmingly classificatory. Accordingly, Aristotle by his Logic throws the emphasis on classification. The popularity of Aristotelian Logic retarded the advance of the physical science throughout the Middle Ages. If only the schoolmen had measured instead of classifying, how much they might have learnt!
Classification is a halfway house between the immediate concreteness of the individual thing and the complete abstraction of mathematical notions. Pg. 28

What follows is Whitehead’s summary of the revitalization of Western thought after the Middle Ages. With the rise of mathematics once again in the 16th century, we get a Cliffs’ Notes version of the great thinkers in the Western canon. From such thinkers, there comes the more focused analysis on the perceived duality between mind and matter, the nature of enduring objects and the challenge to permanence itself.

True to his algebraist background, and the sciences of his day including relativism and quantum mechanics, Whitehead sees the relationship between things as the key to unlocking understanding instead of trying to search for first principles of the thing itself. Not only in nature, but in thought:

It should be the task of the philosophical schools of this century to bring together the two streams into an expression of the world-picture derived from science, and thereby end the divorce of science from the affirmations of our aesthetic and ethical experiences.

Despite his brilliant summation of Western thought, it is difficult to see where Whitehead pushes that thought forward in these lectures. His last few lectures touch on the longstanding metaphysical dilemmas encountered in the millennia before. He, ironically, returns to Aristotle, this time as the greatest metaphysician due to his general insight and influence, and uses Aristotelian Logic to render itself impotent in determining a rationale for the existence of God. He discusses how religion is more a psychological quest for adventure rather than an extension of metaphysical analysis. Finally he pushes that quest for adventure into a call for intellectual wandering. To avoid the traps that come with specialization and pick the fruit of all trees that you may pass.

Whitehead disposes of the old questions with sincerity and care, but he still disposes them. His lectures call for a push to the new rather than another razing and rebuilding of the old.
...more

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Feb 27, 2011 Bob Nichols rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Whitehead begins this book by describing the problems with rationalism and materialism. The first two chapters seem clear enough. Rationalism, with its origns in Greek thought and mathematics and its merger with religion (Christianity), increasingly removed itself from science. The materialist perspective in its turn dug itself into a hole by viewing reality only in terms of atomism, abstraction and determinism. Whitehead's task in this book is to propose an alternative theory that takes the bes Whitehead begins this book by describing the problems with rationalism and materialism. The first two chapters seem clear enough. Rationalism, with its origns in Greek thought and mathematics and its merger with religion (Christianity), increasingly removed itself from science. The materialist perspective in its turn dug itself into a hole by viewing reality only in terms of atomism, abstraction and determinism. Whitehead's task in this book is to propose an alternative theory that takes the best from both worlds in what he calls his theory of the organism.

Unfortunately, Whitehead's writing in this book becomes increasingly difficult to understand and this presents a challenge in putting together a coherent picture of his alternative perspective. The first hint of what that might be is given in his preface where he writes that the intellect "builds cathedrals before workmen have moved a stone." With this comment, he states that "the spiritual precedes the material" and displays the rationalist flag. Later, he gives Berkeley credit for emphasizing that things are, as a reflection of god's unity, brought together and unified by mind. This type of insight is the basis for Whitehead's "prehensive" theory of mind where material reality is intertwined in space and time even if it is not "contemporaneous." In this way, Whitehead points his theory in the direction of universal wholeness and the lack of an organic theory of the whole is, he believes, the chief defect of 18th century science.

Whitehead then draws certain conclusions from the world of science and quantum theory in particular. Electrons don't move in a continuous, successive pattern, but leap from one orbit to another. At the heart of matter, Whitehead believes, there is a "discontinuous existence in space." This movement at the quantum level he characterizes as vibration, or some sort of expression of energy, not as hard units of matter moving across space. In fact, Whitehead says that this understanding of quantum reality gets "rid" of matter and opens the field "for the introduction of some new doctrine of organism which may take the place of the materialism" where, since the 17th century, "science has saddled philosophy." Another problem with that scientific worldview is what Whitehead calls "misplaced concreteness" where, in its emphasis on abstracting parts from the whole, we skew our understanding of reality because abstractions remove things. The problem here is that molecules don't operate in isolation but as part of a whole that guides or directs the workings of the parts. This insight now moves Whitehead's theory back to the concept of "prehensive" unity, where any "part," from molecule to the self, is dependent in some sense on the larger universe.

In this spirit, Whitehead pulls together rationalism and materialism into his organic theory whereby association, not seperateness and competition, becomes reality's signature. This association (mutual cooperation) is "exhibited in the simplest physical entities, such as the association between electrons and positive nuclei, and in the whole realm of animate nature." In this way, the physical world is seen as organic and the organic world is seen as physical. For Whitehead, the association of species in ecosystems express this mutuality best, to which he provides an additional component whereby the whole provides for both permanance (identity) and change, with change (movement, transformation) being understood as necessary for permanance to continue over time. This, as the essence of adaptation in evolutionary theory, illustrates the creativity (e.g., the evolutionary past expresses itself in the present, and the present expresses itself in the future) as well as the prehensive concept that many have come to associate as Whitehead's primary thought. The human mind is the highest point (to date?) of the evolutionary process (e.g., man's "wandering" enables him to "ascend the scale of being") and mind enables humans to see the universal unity that Berkeley and Whitehead articulated.

Whitehead affirmatively quotes Bacon that (physical) "bodies have perception in the sense that they pick up signals from other bodies and 'embrace what is agreeable and reject what is not.'" While Whitehead says that Bacon in this statement provides a "more sophisticated treatment than passive matter acted upon externally by other matter," he does not point out that this physical dynamic applies to the animate world as well and is another way the organic and inorganic world have something fundamental in common. In emphasing association and unity, Whitehead overextends his argument by dismissing the role of competition and opposing forces in his version of reality. With his reference to "the Gospel of Force," Whitehead's negative view is clear. But when he says, as an example, that "lions and tigers are not...successful species because they rely on a force that "bars cooperation," he moves into a dead end. With adaptation and survval as the criteria for evolutionary success, it's not clear why Whitehead would make such a statement about these animals other than "force" is at odds with his theory. "Force," he says, "is incapable with social life." That statement makes sense only if his vision is that of the peaceable kingdom. Pack animal predators are highly social within their group despite the havoc they create on their prey. Force is an inconvenient truth for Whitehead. Unfortunately for his theory, "unity" can be achieved by species or humans overpowering and dominating the other (e.g., wolves,as cooperative and associative beings, survive by killing prey; tyrants survive by eliminating opposition). Whitehead does not want to go in this direction, even though forces of opposition are equal in stature in the cosmic playing field to the forces of association. This is why, to use the Bacon observation, bodies embrace what is agreeable and reject what is not.

At the top of Whitehead's theory lies some version of God who (or that) somehow allows for eternal forms to come into place as existent bodies. This accounts for their "permanent" identity (manifestation of eternal form) yet allows for their transformation and creativity over time. Until he gets to this point, Whitehead's theory has many appealing features. Here, however, he leaps into the mystical sphere in making a connection (through "ingression") between cosmic permanence and earthly change. This is unfortunate as his theory goes silent on the potential for a materilistic explanation for the origin and maintenance of life and, importantly, for some thoughtful speculation as to what constitutes the permanent life force (Bergson?) that "oversees" change and, thereby, allows life to adapt over time. ...more

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Mar 22, 2019 Alvaro de Menard rated it did not like it

You know how physicists constantly get emails from people who claim to have a perpetual motion machine, or mathematicians from people who have a proof that 1+1!=2? That's basically what this is, except the crank is a preeminent philosopher, and the email is a series of lectures at Harvard.

The book is mostly just a bunch of pseudo-profound newagey bullshit:

The actual world is a manifold of prehensions; and a 'prehension' is a 'prehensive occasion'; and a prehensive occasion is the most concrete f

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May 05, 2009 Jon Stout rated it it was ok

Shelves: philosophy

After having glossed over this book years ago, I returned to see if I could understand what I missed. I was disappointed in my youthful expectations.

Alfred North Whitehead argues against the atomic materialism that gave rise to Newtonian physics, in favor of a philosophy of organism which he thinks is more compatible with evolution and quantum physics. But he does it in very general terms which, although they make sense, are not hard enough or specific enough to be of use scientifically, it see ...more

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Mar 29, 2012 David Haines rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This book is compiled from a series of lectures that Dr. Whitehead gave. Whether or not one agrees with his conclusions they are necessary reading for understanding the history of scientific developement and the relationships between science and philosophy, and between science and religion. Whitehead proclaims the death of strict materialistic philosophy of nature as a foundation for science and gives what he calls an organic theory as a possible replacement. His development of his new theory is ...more

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Jun 21, 2021 Jack rated it liked it

In Science and the Modern World, Whitehead thrives when talking about other people's ideas and falls flat when discussing his own. If you were to read, and I do recommend you do, do yourself a favor and skip any chapter or part of a chapter in which Whitehead goes into detail of his own metaphysical philosophy. It may or may not be nonsense (thought certainly I found it to be the former), but it was either way written very poorly.

The series of lectures does an excellent job describing some of t In Science and the Modern World, Whitehead thrives when talking about other people's ideas and falls flat when discussing his own. If you were to read, and I do recommend you do, do yourself a favor and skip any chapter or part of a chapter in which Whitehead goes into detail of his own metaphysical philosophy. It may or may not be nonsense (thought certainly I found it to be the former), but it was either way written very poorly.

The series of lectures does an excellent job describing some of the major moments of Western philosophy and science and explaining their significance to an audience already deaf to their impact. At its best, Science and the Modern World allows the ever-more-modern reader to appreciate the effects of scientific advances on our philosophy which we have largely taken for granted. It was interesting, for example, to read from Whitehead the issue of relativity from a time period where Einstein's theory was not yet fully accepted. It is very beneficial to understand why a problem arose in the first place - for this will allow us to think more critically about the solution, especially as it becomes more and more taken for granted. Whitehead does a marvelous job explaining the issues and solutions modern science addresses and he contributes a number of memorable lines to really hit home their significance.

However, there are at least two chapters of complete nonsense that almost ruin the book. In a flurry of "intelligence", Whitehead will try to convince you that everything in the Universe is presupposed, that everything is merely what it is in relation to other things, and that God is some factor "limiting" the potentiality of any one of infinite events. His objective is to rid us of the materialist standpoint that focuses on the individual known being, and instead have us look at the whole process. This is not a bad idea at all, but Whitehead unfortunately does not put forward a sturdy theory for doing so and all but confounds his audience as it becomes more and more clear he does not really know what he is advocating for either.

All in all 3/5. Some very worth-reading chapters and some very worth-tearing-out-of-the-book chapters.
...more

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Jul 26, 2021 Fatcatwatch rated it it was amazing

Whitehead was a genius polymath, he realized the metaphysical ramifications of relativity and quantum mechanics very very early... That the most fundamental basis of reality is not substance or material but Process. A fact that ongoing atom-smashing at CERN and Quantum Field Theory nearly 100 years later seems to ratify. We live in a universe of beauty and creative process that somehow builds upon previously achieved levels of complexity, and to which all events across all scales contribute. The ...more

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Jun 09, 2020 Matt rated it really liked it

Shelves: science-and-history

Science and the Modern World, organized as a series of lectures given at Harvard in the 1920s, is a book in which Alfred North Whitehead provides a modest history of science, mathematics, and philosophy by surveying their intellectual developments.

Beginning his survey with the Middle Ages, Whitehead adeptly points out that modern science would not have been born in the 17C if not for Scholasticism. Medieval thinkers were intellectual and rational; they simply didn’t apply their reasoning to obse Science and the Modern World, organized as a series of lectures given at Harvard in the 1920s, is a book in which Alfred North Whitehead provides a modest history of science, mathematics, and philosophy by surveying their intellectual developments.

Beginning his survey with the Middle Ages, Whitehead adeptly points out that modern science would not have been born in the 17C if not for Scholasticism. Medieval thinkers were intellectual and rational; they simply didn’t apply their reasoning to observed facts and instead applied Aristotle’s philosophies and techniques to Christianity. Indeed, perhaps the most significant characteristic of Scholastic thought acting as progenitor to scientific method is the view of a causal nature; “every detailed occurrence can be correlated with antecedents in a perfectly definite manner”.

With this foundation, the book reviews certain intellectual achievements, with special topics like relativity; quantum theory; Romanticism; the relationship between science, philosophy, and religion; and God as well as particular concentrations on intellectual thought in the 17C, 18C, and the 19C. But this book isn’t just an historical survey coupled with Whitehead’s process philosophy. Rather, this survey is presented through the lens of his philosophy, in which he constructs a sweeping, occasionally nonlinear narrative between the methods and discoveries of science and his interpretation of the characteristics of the universe via his doctrine of organism. Specifically, its aim is to present an alternative to scientific materialism and expose its long-lasting damage to both scientific and philosophic thought.

Readers unfamiliar with Whitehead should expect to find themselves lost by his occasionally ambiguous writing and unfamiliar terminology. Contrary to the claims by some reviewers, Whitehead slowly introduces the reader to his philosophy at the outset – as early as Chapter 2 – where he mentions two fundamental “units” of process philosophy: occasion and occurrence. In the middle of this chapter, Whitehead presents us with his views on the historical development of mathematics, focusing explicitly on abstraction and analysis. In later chapters, he’ll return to abstraction and concentrate on unity with respect to events and concrete experience, which are fundamentally Whiteheadean. Readers may feel misled by the title, and rightly so, but make no mistake: Whitehead interweaves history, science, and metaphysics from beginning to end.

In addition to its cobbled-together language, there are other shortcomings, mostly minor. For example, Whitehead attributes the modern concept of atomicity to Dalton, but that honor belongs to Gassendi, and a list of references to outside sources would benefit (Whitehead addresses this absence in the preface). Nevertheless, these shortcomings do little to detract from his refreshing interpretation of mathematics, including its relationship (or lack thereof) to logic and its parallelism to language, as well as his then-novel observations of scientific advances between scholarship and technology. These interpretations and observations, crucial to understanding his genius, inform his worldview; Whitehead’s concern and interest in mathematics apply to his interests in external reality by way of physics, which is the foundation for his metaphysics. Readers may find similarities between Whitehead’s “organic philosophy” with Husserl and Weyl, with an almost irresistible urge to compare process philosophy with the latter’s agens theory.

This book, though far from perfect, is a great introduction to Whitehead’s thought in the 1920s, which he began formulating around or after Principia Mathematica. However, in addition to ambiguities in syntax, Whitehead’s account of modern physics may confuse unfamiliar readers; hence, such readers will benefit from skipping chapters on quantum theory (which is a recap of pre-1920 discoveries in atomic physics and how our understanding of the atomic world may fit into his organic theory of mechanism) and relativity, which, as outlined in his Principle of Relativity, is mathematically robust and at one point served as a viable alternative to Einstein’s, but which recent experiments have disproved (Gibbons and Will [2006]). His theory of relativity is an attempt to reconcile conflicting ideas surrounding absolutism, relativism, and infinity, among others.

Despite Whitehead's theory of relativity having been put to rest, his conceptual understanding of spacetime -- that it is an abstraction that “cannot in reality be considered as a self-subsistent entity” -- mirrors views by some mathematical physicists today (chiefly Rovelli).

The aforementioned shortcomings do little to take away from his philosophical process, which is as interesting and robust as ever and which is growing in research circles. The bottom line is this: do not read Science and the Modern World for an historical account of intellectual thought and progress through the ages. Although the book fulfills this preconception to some degree, it serves primarily as an introduction to Whitehead’s thought as it is shaped by his views on mathematics, philosophy, and physics. ...more

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Jul 21, 2021 Bob G rated it liked it

Shelves: top100

While I am sure this was an important work, I felt it tiresome at times. My main objection was his introduction of new terms without definition. I can remember several cases where he summarized something using three terms he had not used, and therefore not defined, before.

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Oct 05, 2021 Jay Fish added it

Difficult yet rewarding. Excellent history and philosophy of science becoming ecological science based upon events as processes and not substances and not upon enduring substances with only external relations obeying fixed and eternal laws.

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Feb 14, 2020 нєνєℓ ¢ανα rated it liked it

Obscure but original, plenty of ideas and insights, yet there is something in the making that jeopardizes the entire venue. Dare to read it if you want to taste the scientific enterprise.

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Sep 20, 2020 Richard Corral rated it it was amazing

Best place to start with Whiteheads books

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Jul 30, 2021 Carlos Salinas rated it really liked it

I don't think I understood most of his ideas as I went through this one but further reading may help me along a re-reading ...more

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Aug 23, 2021 Meghan Elizabeth added it

Will blow your mind...

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Nov 07, 2021 Ramona Fisher rated it liked it

This book is part of the Great Books of the Western World ten year reading project. "It is in literature that the concrete outlook of humanity receives its expression" ...more

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Jan 01, 2022 Will Dempsey rated it liked it

Shelves: to-re-read, philosophy

Should have read this before Process and Reality. Intend to reread both.

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Aug 11, 2013 Dad rated it it was amazing

Absolutely brilliant. This book challenges one's thoughts and tears one away from the simple status quo. I need to re-read some of it as it needs a lot of concentration and each time I lay it down for too long I need to refresh my reading. I believe all scientists today should read this since they are showing signs of departing from a true sense of the scientific method, thereby adopting positions as fact which are truly incapable of absolute proof. ...more

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Feb 17, 2009 Alisha G marked it as to-read

I think the argument of the text if fascinating--he investigates the presuppositions that underlie science. (For instance, in order to have science, one must first suppose there is order in the universe.) I just need to find some uninterrupted time to focus on it.

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Aug 29, 2012 Brent Ranalli rated it it was amazing

Shelves: science-studies, philosophy

This the book I was reading when I made the decision to study history of science. I shared that fact with Owen Gingerich, the distinguished historian of astronomy, when he interviewed me at the time of the switch in majors, and he mentioned that it had been a formative influence on him as well.

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Mar 13, 2013 Paul rated it really liked it

Interesting book. I liked the chapters "Religion and Science" and "Requisites for Social Progress". Whitehead provides an incisive critique of philosophical and scientific materialism. I wasn't a fan of the middle chapters of the book, where I believe his message lost some of its clarity. ...more

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May 12, 2009 Phillip Ross rated it liked it

My undergraduate degree in philosophy focused on Whitehead. This was prior to my own conversion. While I now am quite critical of Whitehead, I acknowledge him as an import modern thinker.

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About Alfred North Whitehead

Alfred North Whitehead

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Alfred North Whitehead, OM FRS (15 February 1861 – 30 December 1947) was an English mathematician and philosopher. He is best known as the defining figure of the philosophical school known as process philosophy, which today has found application to a wide variety of disciplines, including ecology, theology, education, physics, biology, economics, and psychology, among other areas.

In his early care Alfred North Whitehead, OM FRS (15 February 1861 – 30 December 1947) was an English mathematician and philosopher. He is best known as the defining figure of the philosophical school known as process philosophy, which today has found application to a wide variety of disciplines, including ecology, theology, education, physics, biology, economics, and psychology, among other areas.

In his early career Whitehead wrote primarily on mathematics, logic, and physics. His most notable work in these fields is the three-volume Principia Mathematica (1910–13), which he co-wrote with former student Bertrand Russell. Principia Mathematica is considered one of the twentieth century's most important works in mathematical logic, and placed 23rd in a list of the top 100 English-language nonfiction books of the twentieth century by Modern Library.

Beginning in the late 1910s and early 1920s, Whitehead gradually turned his attention from mathematics to philosophy of science, and finally to metaphysics. He developed a comprehensive metaphysical system which radically departed from most of western philosophy. Whitehead argued that reality was fundamentally constructed by events rather than substances, and that these events cannot be defined apart from their relations to other events, thus rejecting the theory of independently existing substances. Today Whitehead's philosophical works – particularly Process and Reality – are regarded as the foundational texts of process philosophy.

Whitehead's process philosophy argues that "there is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have consequences for the world around us." For this reason, one of the most promising applications of Whitehead's thought in recent years has been in the area of ecological civilization and environmental ethics pioneered by John B. Cobb, Jr.

Isabelle Stengers wrote that "Whiteheadians are recruited among both philosophers and theologians, and the palette has been enriched by practitioners from the most diverse horizons, from ecology to feminism, practices that unite political struggle and spirituality with the sciences of education." Indeed, in recent decades attention to Whitehead's work has become more widespread, with interest extending to intellectuals in Europe and China, and coming from such diverse fields as ecology, physics, biology, education, economics, and psychology. However, it was not until the 1970s and 1980s that Whitehead's thought drew much attention outside of a small group of American philosophers and theologians, and even today he is not considered especially influential outside of relatively specialized circles.

In recent years, Whiteheadian thought has become a stimulating influence in scientific research.

In physics particularly, Whitehead's thought has been influential, articulating a rival doctrine to Albert Einstein's general relativity. Whitehead's theory of gravitation continues to be controversial. Even Yutaka Tanaka, who suggests that the gravitational constant disagrees with experimental findings, admits that Einstein's work does not actually refute Whitehead's formulation. Also, although Whitehead himself gave only secondary consideration to quantum theory, his metaphysics of events has proved attractive to physicists in that field. Henry Stapp and David Bohm are among those whose work has been influenced by Whitehead.

Whitehead is widely known for his influence in education theory. His philosophy inspired the formation of the Association for Process Philosophy of Education (APPE), which published eleven volumes of a journal titled Process Papers on process philosophy and education from 1996 to 2008. Whitehead's theories on education also led to the formation of new modes of learning and new models of teaching. ...more