Questions tagged [whitehead]

Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) was an English mathematician and philosopher known for process philosophy. He and Bertrand Russell worked on the Principia Mathematica (1910-1913).

Filter by
Sorted by
Tagged with
13 votes
3 answers
557 views

What is the telos of a proposition?

Whitehead contends in Process and Reality that propositions are “hybrid entities” which act as “lures for feeling.” The famous co-author of Principia Mathematica scolds the traditional conventions of ...
Paradox Lost's user avatar
  • 1,903
9 votes
2 answers
296 views

Self determination in non atomistic time?

I am reading the book Perspective in Whitehead's Metaphysics by Stephen David Ross. On page 182 he says, "whiteheads theory of events is atomistic-primarily to allow for self determination, but the ...
Lee Hudson's user avatar
8 votes
8 answers
1k views

What does Whitehead mean by calling science anti-rational?

In Science and the Modern World, Whitehead writes: Science has never shaken off the impress of its origin in the historical revolt of the later renaissance. It has remained predominantly an anti-...
Mozibur Ullah's user avatar
8 votes
4 answers
473 views

Can we do without Necessity?

It appears that necessity is a dead idea that, unfortunately, only philosophers still gush over. The association of epistemological and logical necessity with ontological necessity ran its course ...
Paradox Lost's user avatar
  • 1,903
8 votes
3 answers
160 views

How does Whitehead explain repeated attempts of remembrance/recollection?

In Process and Reality one of the main concepts Whitehead talks about is the symbolic reference. A derivative element of the connection between symbolic type and meaning type of species (in Whitehead'...
Yechiam Weiss's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
507 views

Should Time and Space Serve as Necessary or Contingent modalities of Division in Cosmology?

In the introduction to Process and Reality, Whitehead criticizes the tendency to posit logical or ontological necessity as the primary modes of cosmological explanation. For Whitehead time is a ...
Paradox Lost's user avatar
  • 1,903
4 votes
3 answers
404 views

GUT and TOE as Fallacies of Misplaced Concreteness?

A.N. Whitehead warns in the introduction to Process and Reality, that the “chief error” of Western philosophy is “overstatement.” He states: “the aim at generalization is sound, but the estimate of ...
Paradox Lost's user avatar
  • 1,903
4 votes
4 answers
163 views

Is there more to Whitehead’s “Age-Spirit” than metaphor?

While reading Whitehead’s Science and the Modern World, I found the following sentence (page 51): It is only in a period, fortunate both in its opportunities for disengagement from the immediate ...
Frank Hubeny's user avatar
  • 19.4k
4 votes
1 answer
275 views

Is Whiteheads 'occasions of experience' fundamentally relational?

Shimon Malin writes in Nature Loves to Hide: According to Whitehead, the ultimate blocks of reality are discrete items which he calls 'throbs of experience', 'occasions of experience', 'actual ...
Mozibur Ullah's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
166 views

Informative diagram of Whitehead's philosophy?

I've been reading Whitehead's Process and Reality for the past few months, and I now realize that his writing is indeed very much hard to read (Concept of Nature was much easier in comparison). He ...
Yechiam Weiss's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
332 views

Cosmological truth and the theory of cosmic epochs

According to Whitehead’s theory of cosmic epochs and extensive continuum, there are material conditions that drive the more general metaphysical descriptions and principles. We only can account for ...
Myron Moses Jackson's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
45 views

Formal deduction of Whitehead's Philosophy of Organism

In Process and Reality Whitehead starts off the investigation by giving his categoreal scheme - different types of categories and their derivatives, as well as some axioms. If I understand correctly, ...
Yechiam Weiss's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
221 views

What are the characteristics of an event according to Whitehead?

Throughout Concept of Nature Whitehead adds different types of characteristics to his most basic concept - events. For example, he talks of objects, the situation of the event in space and time, its ...
Yechiam Weiss's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
334 views

What motivated Whitehead to choose "Cogredience"?

I'm not a native english speaker, so I was not familiar with the term "cogredience" when I first saw it in Concept of Nature. frankly, it seems like its a word Whitehead used in a different ...
Yechiam Weiss's user avatar
2 votes
3 answers
586 views

What is the relationship between Al-Ghazali's Occasionalism, Whitehead's occasions and QM?

In 1993, Karen Harding, a philosopher wrote a paper, Causality then and now: Al-Ghazali and QM. She remarked: In both cases, and contrary to common sense, objects are viewed as having no inherent ...
Mozibur Ullah's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
187 views

Did Whitehead express his motivation for writing with Russell the Principia Mathematica?

I imagine Bertrand Russell's motivation for participating in the project leading to the Principia Mathematica was an attempt to justify logicism and reject Kant's synthetic a priori, but what was ...
Frank Hubeny's user avatar
  • 19.4k
1 vote
1 answer
65 views

Aristotle and the Platonic Footnotes Alluded to by Whitehead

In Process and Reality, Alfred North Whitehead famously states: The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. I do ...
DDS's user avatar
  • 47
1 vote
2 answers
136 views

For Whitehead, is an event theoretical or ontological?

I'm getting to Whitehead in my reading list, and have started with "Concept of Nature". Have not finished it yet, but something disturbs me throughout the book (aside from his god-awful ...
Yechiam Weiss's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
465 views

Wordsworth & thaumazein

Whitehead, in Science & the Modern World quotes the following from the beginning of Wordsworths Prelude: Ye presences of Nature in the sky! And on the earth! Ye visions of the hills! And souls of ...
Mozibur Ullah's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
147 views

Does Whitehead's physics include atoms?

I know that one of the major points of Whitehead is to criticize the atomistic theory of nature and replace it with events. But can an atom exist as part of an event? What role does electron, protons, ...
Yechiam Weiss's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
56 views

How did Fitch's opposition to the Russell-Whitehead theory of types turn out since the 1950's?

In a footnote to Appendix C of Frederic Fitch's Symbolic Logic (page 217), Fitch writes about his article, "Self-Reference in Philosophy": It is reprinted here in order to indicate more fully my ...
Frank Hubeny's user avatar
  • 19.4k
0 votes
2 answers
240 views

Question regarding the proof 3.3 in the Principia Mathematica

As far as I can understand, the key of PM is to make sure there are no leaps and gaps when making inferences. In other words, all the premises and rules of inferences should be explicitly enumerated ...
George Chen's user avatar
  • 2,228
0 votes
0 answers
57 views

What is the meaning of Coherence by Whitehead?

I am just started reading the book Process and Reality. On page 5, He talked about what is the accentual thing we have to keep in mind while building a speculative philosophy. Pints are Rational side....
Shriman Keshri's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
89 views

What is process philosophy by Alfred North Whitehead?

What I am trying. I want to know this process philosophy that Alfred North Whitehead is talking about. Problem I am facing. I read some articles and watched some videos on what this philosophy is. But ...
Shriman Keshri's user avatar
-1 votes
1 answer
378 views

Contradiction, and the Being and Becoming of Mathematics [closed]

Mathematics is rife with contradictions, is shot through with them: the fault-lines lie where theories collide, fade or open up. Does this disturb the incarnation of mathematics - the Ideal ...
Mozibur Ullah's user avatar
-1 votes
1 answer
265 views

Question regarding proof of ❋3.47 in Principia Mathematica by Whitehead and Russell

❋3.03 in the the last step seems unnecessary. Can someone explain to me why 3.03 is listed? The last step can be written out in full like this: ⊦: p .⊃. q ⊃ r (1) ...
George Chen's user avatar
  • 2,228