Product Description
Philosopher and man of science, Whitehead is the man who went farthest on the road we all must travel. Here, recorded as conversations in his own home and clearly modeled on Eckermann s dialogues with Goethe, are some of the landmarks, signposts, milestones and noble scenery of that journey, and they are presented there in a volume The Washington Post called "as readable as it is provocative." Whitehead's mind is a compass for the modern world. In these pages the immense reaches of his thought in philosophy, religion, science, statesmanship, education, literature, art and conduct of life are gathered and edited by critic and writer Lucien Price. Time, the present; scene, the Cambridge of Harvard (with flashbacks to London, Cambridge, England, and his native Ramsgate in Kent); cast, undergraduates along with men and women, often eminent, who join in his penetrating, audacious, and exhilarating verbal forays. The subjects discussed range for the homeliest details of modern living to the greatest ideas that have animated the mind of man over the past thirty centuries. A noble mind is here exposed. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

An Intimate View into the Mind of a Genius
The more you read in this book the more you will resent the fact that the author/editor was able to spend time with Dr. Whitehead and you couldn't.We are offered an intimate view of Whitehead's breadth of interests and his famiylife.We sit in the home sharing refreshment and easvesdropping on the conversations.We gain a feeling of knowing the very human philosopher.If you enjoy the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table and the like, you will read this again and again.

The Pleasure of Ideas and Good Conversation
I read this as a freshman in college, again years later, and am finishing my latest reading.A pleasure to read, forcing one to think.Some of the ideas are clearly dated, Whitehead being truly of the 19th century, but what he and the other discussants say makes one think. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

poorly published
The content of the book is just terrific.See other reviews.

I just wanted to let folks know that for their $19.95, they are getting a very cheaply made book.The cover is quite thin, but even worse, the book is printed on awful, pulpy paper--worse than most romance/mystery novels.

I'm sure that it will pass out of its concrescence sooner than most books . . . .

A deep study by a great mind
I cannot make a good summary of this book, for I do not know it well enough. I do have a sense of its great depth and beauty. Whitehead seems to me not only a profound thinker but a humble person who stands in certain awe before the Universe. He opens by describing the way a few people in a small part of Europe caused a great revolution in human thinking. He argues that this Scientific Revolution will amount to the triumph of Reason in the world. His chapters are on, The Origins of Modern Science, Mathematics as Element in the History of Thought, The Century ofGenius, The Eighteenth Century, The Romantic Reaction, The Nineteenth Century, Relativity, The Quantum Theory ,Science and Philosophy, Abstraction, God, Religion and Science, Requisites for Social Progress.

I was moved by the concluding words of his book .

" I have endeavoured in these lectures to give a record of a great adventure in the region of thought. It was shared in by all the races of Western Europe .It developed with the slowness of a mass movement. Half a century is its unit of time. The tale is the epic of an episode in the manifestation of reason. It tells how a particular direction of reason emerges in a race by the long preparation of antecedent epochs, how after its birth its subject- matter gradually unfolds itself, howit attains its triumphs, how its influence moulds the very springs of action of mankind ,and finally how at its moment of supreme success its limitations disclose themselves and call for a renewed exercise of the creative imagination. The moral of the tale is the power of reason ,its decisive influence on the life of humanity. The great conquerors from Caesar to Napoleon, influenced profoundly the lives of subsequent generations. But the total effect of this influence shrinks to insignificance, if compared to the entire transformation of human habits and human mentality produced by the long line of men of thought from Thales to the present day, men individually powerless, but ultimately the rulers of the world. p. 186

CLassic little work in the philosophy of science
Whitehead is widely regarded as a humane philosopher in the best sense of that word--a philosopher able to get across very difficult ideas with a wink and a smile. Also, he has always been commended for his prose style in his more intimate writings, at least in his books based on lectures (the best of which are Science in the Modern World and Adventures of Ideas). Process and Reality is difficult but worth the effort; one does need a glossary at times, but this isn't a review of that book.

It is hard to imagine a philosophy book written with more clarity than this one. I think that the quotes given by reviewers witness that fact. The only review here, it turns out, which dilikes the book because of its "unreadability" is the one riddled with spelling and grammatical errors itself. Hard reading, it turns out, is even harder if one cannot spell. With that, I heartily concur.

unreadable
The ideas and philosophical concepts in this book are generally sensible, rational, and correct, but the writing style and execution leaves much to be desired.In other words, this book is extremely difficult.The impenetrable density of this prose is intolerable, especially considering it was written IN ENGLISH, in the TWENTIETH CENTURY!If someone had handed me this book with a blank cover, I would have been convinced that it was originally written in old German during the time of Kant, and verbosely translated by some frustrated acedemic.It is beyond me how any book writeen in English so recently could be so unreadable.

I might recommend this book to someone with a highly scientific, mathematical and empiricist mind-set.After all, Whitehead is an accomplished mathematician, and his book has an aire of unbiased, empirical objectivity.For a mathematician with a desire to cross over into the philosophy genre, this might be a good choice.But for normal philosophy readers who come from a liberal arts/literary background, this book will probably come across as obfiscated and tortuous.

Dense and sometimes difficult, but fascinating
In short: A serious and thoughtful book about the meaning and impact of science. This is not light, popular science reading. (If you're looking for that, I highly recommend the works of folks like Freeman Dyson or Stephen Jay Gould.)

_Science and the Modern World_ has some stunning, timeless insights, and many things I'm fond of quoting. Here's a favorite, from the last chapter:

"Modern science has imposed upon humanity the necessity for wandering. Its progressive thought and its progressive
technology make the transition through time, from generation to generation, a true migration into uncharted seas of adventure.
The very benefit of wandering is that it is dangerous and needs skill to avert evils. We must expect, therefore, that the future
will disclose dangers."

(Here it comes:)

"It is the business of the future to be dangerous; and it is among the merits of science that it equips the future for its duties."

(*P*O*W*!*)

"The prosperous middle classes, who ruled the nineteenth century, placed an excessive value upon the placidity of existence. They refused to face the necessities for social reform imposed by the new industrial system, and they are now refusing to face the necessities for intellectual reform imposed by the new knowledge."

(Same as it ever was!)

"The middle class pessimism over the future of the world comes from a confusion between civilization and security. In the immediate future there will be less security than in the immediate past, less stability. It must be admitted that there is a degree of instability which is inconsistent with civilization. But, on the whole, the great ages have been unstable ages."

Whew. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Elegant, profound and accessible
This volume consists of four lectures delivered in King's Chapel, Boston in 1926. Here Whitehead applies to religion the same train of thought that he applies to science in Science and the Modern World. The purpose of the lectures is to provide a concise analysis of the various factors in human nature that lead to religion, to display the inevitable transformation of religion with the transformation of knowledge, and to focus on those permanent elements by which a stable order is maintained in the universe and without which there could be no changing world.

Lecture: Religion in History, looks at definitions of religion, the emergence of religion, ritual and emotion, belief, rationalism, the ascent of man and the ultimate contrast between Christianity and Buddhism. Most important observation for me: One's character is developed according to one's faith. This is the primary religious truth from which no one can escape. Also: "Religion is by no means necessarily good. It may be very evil." The last sentence is prophetic, referring to Christianity and Buddhism: "They have lost their ancient hold upon the world."

Lecture 2: Religion and Dogma, explores the religious consciousness in history with quotes from Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Psalms, the description of religious experience, the concept of God with the three main renderings as an impersonal order (Eastern Asiatic), extreme transcendence (Semitic) and extreme monism (Pantheism), and the quest of God with observations on the emotions of fear and love, Paul and the beloved disciple John.

Lecture 3: Body and Spirit deals with religion and metaphysics, the contribution of religion to metaphysics, metaphysics as description (with the 3 formative elements of: Creativity as temporal passage to novelty/The realm of ideal entities or forms exemplified in everything that is actual/The actual but non-temporal entity through which the indetermination of mere creativity is transmuted into a determinate freedom), God and the moral order, value and the purpose of God, body and mind, and the creative process. Most striking sentences: "To measure is to count vibrations" and a quote from philosopher CF Alexander: "Time is the mind of space."

Lecture 4: Truth and Criticism, examines the development of dogma, experience and expression, the traditions of Christianity, Buddhism and science as a third organized system of thought, and the nature of God.

In the conclusion, Whitehead provides this beautiful description of God:

"God is that function in the world by reason of which our purposes are direct to ends which in our own consciousness are impartial as to our own interests. He is that element in life in virtue of which judgement stretches beyond facts of existence to values of existence ... that element in virtue of which our purposes extend beyond values for ourselves to values for others ... that element in virtue of which the attainment of such a value for others transforms itself into value for ourselves.

He is the binding element in the world. The consciousness which is individual in us, is universal in him; the love which is partial in us is all-embracing in him ..."

Although difficult and profound, Whitehead's language is elegant and poetic. With some effort and concentration this book can be read and understood reasonably easily, unlike some of his other works like The Concept of Nature: Tarner Lectures which is so complex that I could not move faster than one page per day.

Principia Theologica & Logica

"Religions commit suicide when they find their inspirations in their dogmas. The inspiration of religion lies in the history of religion:'Primary expression of religious life'"



Religion, A Liberal Essay:
People often complain that philosophers present too complex a picture of God, but Whitehead cautions that it may be the very simplicity of modernist notions of God that thwarts the religious response. "As a rebound from dogmatic intolerance, the simplicity of religious truth has been a favorite axiom of liberalizing theologians," he writes in Religion in the Making. "It is difficult to understand upon what evidence this notion is based . . . To reduce religion to a few simple notions seems an arbitrary solution to the problem before us. It may be common sense; but is it true?". Whitehead spoke these words in 1926 in King's Chapel, the venerable Unitarian church in Boston. Early twentieth-century Unitarians were undoubtedly vulnerable to the charge of proceeding by a process of theological subtraction, boiling their religion down into what one Unitarian Universalist has called "wholesome abstraction."Philocrites

Religion in the Making:
"The train of thought which was applied to science in my Lowell lectures of the previous year, since published under the title, Science and the Modern World, is here applied to religion. The two books are independent, but it is inevitable that to some extent they elucidate each other by showing the same way of thought in different applications. The aim of the lectures was to give a concise analysis of the various factors in human nature which go to form a religion, to exhibit the inevitable transformation of religion with the transformation of knowledge, and more especially to direct attention to the foundation of religion on our apprehension of those permanent elements by reason of which there is a stable order in the world, permanent elements apart from which there could be no changing world." (Preface by Alfred North Whitehead)

A summary is not a review!
Starting methodically, A. N. W. defines religion in his first lecture on the history of religion, its emergence, roots of rituals, emotion and belief. In his second lecture (Ch. 2) he proceeds from the dawn of consciousness to the quest of God, describing religious experience.Philosophizing religion, relates to metaphysics. moral order is linked with God, and values lead to God's purpose, and material in relation to intellectual, and he describes the 'process as creative. Well, now we are prepared to the tricky theological subjects Doctrine to Dogma, and Tradition to liturgy (Group worship as expression)
Now proceeds the dragon of thought; "science suggested a cosmology; and whatever suggests a cosmology, suggests a religion."

A Pioneer of Process Philosophy:
Whitehead's life is often described as having three distinct phases roughly corresponding to his academic positions, and his influence can be felt in all three areas--that of a mathematician and logician (Trinity 1884-1910), a philosopher of science (London 1910-1924) and a philosopher of metaphysics (Harvard from 1924 onward). During this latter period he developed a comprehensive metaphysical system which has come to be known as Process Philosophy. In contrast to traditional philosophies, he asserted the essential interrelationship of matter, space, and time; that objects may be understood as a series of events and processes.
Whitehead's distinction rests upon his contributions to mathematics and logic, the philosophy of science, and the study of metaphysics. In the field of mathematics Whitehead extended the range of algebraic procedures and, in collaboration with Bertrand Russell, wrote Principia Mathematica, a landmark in the study of logic. His inquiries into the structure of science provided the background for his metaphysical writings. He criticized traditional categories of philosophy for their failure to convey the essential interrelation of matter, space, and time. (Cornerstone Books )

Bare, beautiful spirituality
In his other books, and especially in Process and Reality, Whitehead's prose can be so dense as to discourage all but the most determined readers. But Religion in the Making, while occasionally technical, is Whitehead at his simplest and most elegant. Reading this book, written just three years before P&R, will show people who have been exposed to "process theology" that Whitehead's own beliefs about God were really much more simple and poetic. The great Cambridge-Harvard philosopher's spirituality boils down to a single sentence in the midst of Religion in the Making: "Expression is the one fundamental sacrament."

Whitehead redux
It's good to have this work of Whitehead back in print.This is an excellent contribution to our understanding of religion.Judith Jones gives a fine introductory essay showing the metaphysical roots ofWhitehead's concept of religion. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

The Timaeus and Process and Reality
If you can read closely, this is not as difficult as many would have you believe.It is a brilliant analysis of that which comes before any study of physics and how you can understand general and special relativity theory through meta(that which comes before)physics.A wonderfu exercise is to read it side by side with Plato's TIMAEUS. Doing so will blow your socks off.

Poor writing style
"Whitehead" doesn't refer to something on the face.Although, like puss spewing therefrom, the book is a morass of grotesque prose.What is Whitehead getting at that so many scholars seem to ignore completely?At the core of Whitehead's philosophy is "bifurcation of nature."From this, Ph.D's have waxed eloquent and stated, "Aha, Whitehead is a panentheist," meaning, the universe contains a god like a spirit in the body.Hmmmm.Modern democrats espouse an unusually similar theory that cannot be coincidence.Nevertheless, everyone has missed the point.First and foremost, to his credit, Whitehead had great command over mathematics and modern ideas in science.More noteworthy is the fact that quantum mechanics (micro physics) and relativity theory (macro physics) cannot be reconciled (unless we use Hermann Weyl's guage theory, which implements methods from group theory, which is nothing but mathematical formalism and reconstruction with no physical meaning).The theories are irreconcilable since relativity predicts via E=mc squared that an electron, which approaches the speed of light, must approach infinity.Yet, the physical fact is that an electron is of finite weight (although, I think a clue to this problem is in nuclear fission, aka the fact of the atom bomb).Whitehead resolved to accept that both quantum mechanics and relativity theory are both true, or rather, complete unto themselves for the domain of physical phenomena they addressed, and resolved to accept they cannot be reconciled.This resolution is formulated in his fundamental hypothesis about the bifurcation of reality.Case closed.

"The shock of a great philosopher."
I approached this book as an influence to Ken Wilber. In his book, SEX, ECOLOGY, SPIRITUALITY, he recognizes Whitehead "as one of the first great philosophers of vision-logic" (p. 191). As Editor Donald Sherburne acknowledges in the Preface to this edition, PROCESS AND REALITY "is highly technical and far from easy to understand" (p. v). In fact, Whitehead (1861-1947) makes reading Ken Wilber seem easy.

First published as a series of lectures in 1929, PROCESS AND REALITY sets forth Whitehead's philosophy of speculatve metaphysics. "Speculative Philosophy," he writes, "is the endeavor to frame a coherent, logical, necessary system of general ideas in terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted" (p. 3). Whitehead integrates the the works of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, Hume, and Kant (p. 39), as he looks into the nature of all things as an ongoing process. (About Plato, Whitehead says, "the safest general characterization of the whole Western philosophic tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.")

I do not profess to fully understand Whitehead, but his basic premise appears to be that reality is in an organic process of becoming, and is never complete. That is, he asserts the many become one and are then increased by one. So, too, God is a process of becoming. Whitehead's philosophy is revolutionary. "Philosophy never reverts to its old position after the shock of a great philosopher" (p. 11), he writes. I have given this book a four-star rating only because Whitehead's writing style is difficult and at times impenetrable, which detracts from his five-star content.

G. Merritt

The Brilliance of Hard Work and Imagination
Early in this century American philosophy made a 'linguistic' turn that determined the direction it would take all the way to the present day.In the spirit of the times, language made its way to the forefront of philosophy, the end result being (among other things) Positivism and a scientistic approach to the Geisteswissenschaften.It is a turn many of us, looking back, wish it had never made.Because of this turn, certain philosophers and ways of doing philosophy all but stopped being considered.Among these philosophers were Dewey and James.These thinkers have in recent decades been resurrected by contemporary neopragmatists, most notably Richard Rorty, who look back at the arid desert of mid-twentieth century philosophy and wonder how far we have come after all.To quote Rorty (who is certainly no Whiteheadian), American philosophical thought 'began taking its cue from Frege rather than Locke.'Broadly considered, this meant that language rather than experience, mind rather than body, was taken to be the most serious matter for philosophy.

Whitehead stayed with Locke.Whitehead wanted to critique most Modern philosophy with what he termed the 'philosophy of organism;' that is, Whitehead insisted that experience or'feeling' rather than disembodied thinking was the hallmark of human existence, and that all experience was subjective.Now, this does not sound like Locke.Anyone writing this side of modernity knows that Locke was the quintessential modern philosopher, with all the baggage that entails.But when Whitehead wrote in the preface to Process and Reality that `the writer who most fully anticipated the main positions of the philosophy of organism is John Locke,' he was stressing the fact that Locke discarded metaphysics, seeking rather to look at what was actually happening, as far as he could tell.

In many ways, and though they wrote at the same time but in complete isolation from each other's thought, Whitehead and Heidegger were searching for the same thing, the thing both philosophers thought that Plato and Aristotle had known, but that had been forgotten in the intervening centuries: what it actually meant to experience something, or, as Cooper puts it, how `to make intelligible our immediate experience so that we can discover how it is possible to have any experience of the actual world.'Rather than reading Whitehead as an elaborate and old-school metaphysician, one ought to read him as a phenomenological empiricist, if such a beast exists, and thus find an answer to the people who dismiss Whitehead as `behind the times,' people who simply don't bother to actually read Whitehead.

It is true that thinkers still committed to a reductionist/linguistic approach to philosophy will not see Whitehead's importance as a critic of closed systems (Whitehead's is expressly open and revisable, one reason it has endured as long as it has without being widely read in philosophy departments).It is also true that American philosophy left Whitehead behind.However, the blind alleys linguistic analysis and positivism lead us into should cause us to wonder if we were led in the right directions, or if we should have left in the first place.Leaving something behind certainly does not necessarily mean progressing beyond it.Whitehead's goal was expressly NOT the goal of philosophy in America after his time, though Whitehead's goal had been an important part of James's `Radical Empiricism,' ironically.Whitehead looked back to James and Dewey, and Bergson on the continent, hoping `to rescue their type of thought from the charge of anti-intellectualism, which rightly or wrongly has been associated with it.'Present-day neopragmatism, noting how vapid and unsatisfying most rationalist and linguistic philosophy has become in American thought, also looks back to Dewey and James, but to the pragmatism rather than to the empiricism of these two masters.It has become axiomatic that the only way to read James and Dewey is as pragmatists, after all.

However, the axiom is not true.A `rediscovery' of Whitehead by contemporary American philosophy might lead to another and equally valid reading of James and Dewey.James, Dewey, and Whitehead were thinkers of the same ilk.If you like any two, you should at least consider reading the third.Similarly, the relations between Heidegger and Whitehead have only recently been resurfacing, and deserve closer scrutiny.Analytic philosophy never took seriously the questions raised by Heidegger because they weren't precise enough for logical analysis.When a grandfather of the analytic movement, Wittgenstein, began distancing himself from his earlier work, his own disciples balked because, they said, he seemed to be retreating into metaphysics!It is much more likely, however, that Wittgenstein realized that life cannot be reduced to propositions and truth tables.This was also Whitehead's view.Whitehead was also not precise enough for the analytic philosophers (I always wonder who is).Whether or not the fact that he did not measure up to their standards (and still does not) should be seen as an indictment or a complement remains to be seen.

Whitehead is an immensely difficult writer. Hosinski's Stubborn Fact and Creative Advance (1993) is a brilliant introductory work, and I highly recommend it, especially if you have to read Whitehead for a classSherburne's Key is also very helpful, though you get a lot of Sherburne, too.At issue is usually Whitehead's neologisms.To draw another analogy between Heidegger and Whitehead, however, both men were notorious for creating new words because what they wanted to explain was both so uncanny and yet so obvious that the old words didn't work.Don't let the language scare you away.Whitehead rewards hard work, and you will likely never forget what you learn from him.The ideas that we are beginning to take much more seriously these days about holistic thinking, interconnectedness, interdisciplinarity, non-dualism, commensurability between science and religion, and creativity were all covered by him seventy years ago.Don't let your professors tell you that Whitehead is an outmoded metaphysician.His `philosophy of organism' is as inherently open-ended, properly understood, as anything passing today as postmodernism.Read Whitehead.

uplifting but difficult....
Whitehead carries on the tradition of turgidity inaugurated by Hegel and even buys into the philosophy-as-system game; on the plus side, however, his key concepts make sense, especially his emphasis creativity and onreality as process.If you're new to Whitehead, read someone else's stuffabout him before attempting this book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Philosopy is either self-evident or it is not Philosophy
AI researchers often referencing Alfred North Whitehead's book "Modes of Thought" in an attempt too explain thought, consciousness, and reasoning.Whitehead's writings suggests that thought has quality of being both conditional and discrete. These two qualities are coveted in AI programming.

Whitehead starts by discussing the topics of "Interest and Importance".He covers the topics of interest and importance. Interest drives importance, as either exciters or inhibitors.

One becomes interested in his environmental factors and this interest activates a conditional response.To the observer, he believes this process is called thinking, but is following a series of behavioral responses and conditioned beliefs.The outcome of these conditions can be represented by a graph of possible paths.Disbelief is the pruning of certain paths that are dependant on the environmental factors. Consciousness seems to be the awareness or intuition too believe in ones conclusions or disbelieve.Consciousness creatively adds or subtracts conditional states in a person belief tree.

The interaction of these states generates discrete and predictable behavior and the observer concludes intelligence is emerging. In reality the system is a series of augmented finite state machines running their algorithms.

Interest and importance are the primary reasons for effort after exact discrimination of the sense data.For example, the motion of cars approaching an intersection is the conditioned by signals. The driver watches signals to determine exist lanes, when to stop, the rate of speed, merging into adjacent lanes, and travel spacing. The traffic signals are the outcome of the traffic. Stop lights are added to busy intersection to manage the flow of traffic and reduce confusion on turn taking at the intersection, car pool lanes encourage conservation by consolidation, and large digital messages forewarn of pending changes in traffic flow or detours information.Importance generates interest.Interest leads to discrimination.Finally consciousness develops and gradually and fitfully becomes another agent of stimulation.Consciousness is a human and divine quality.Consciousness is necessary for abstraction and abstraction necessary for proven theorms.Can a machine dream? Can a machine see the future? Can a machine feel?Of course not.A machine is no more conscious than a rock in your garden.

Whitehead focuses on the importance of language and usage of language for expression. Feelings are the comprehension is the reception of expression.Language is the triumph of human ingenuity. Language can be both oral and written and the distinction difficult to distinguish.The greatest invention in the past century was the printing press.Today the Internet replaces the printing press and introduces digital publishing as the modern means of communication.Expression tells of widespread intelligence.Voice is produced sound interpretation as natural symbols of human existence.Language is the expression of ones past into ones present.Language meaning presupposes the concrete relationship of real events happening and issuing from each other.Language is the systemization of expression.Human civilization is the outgrowth of language.

A thought is a tremendous mode of excitement.However, it is a hopeless task to attempt to understand understanding.Understanding is limited by its finitude.As science grew, men shrank in their width of comprehension.

Science has failed to produce men of learning with sensitivities and appreciation of varieties of interest and of varieties of potentiality.The rise of objectivity dulled comprehension and defeated understanding.Instead of understanding man became more critical. It is impossible to prove through criticism.Proof is only possible through abstraction.Instead, objectivity created men of criticism and not men dedicated to abstraction and if civilization will survive then understanding is a prime necessity.

Understanding involves the notion of composition.If a thing can be composed, the understanding of it can be in reference to its factors.The second mode of thought is to treat the concept as one unity, whether or not is capable of analysis.Philosophy is the attempt to make manifest the fundamental evidence as the nature of things.However, philosophy is only as good as things being explored are self-evident. The natural realm of cause and effect is described as differential equations.Differential equations provide a purely mathematical explanation of gravity, force, torque, current, optics, and relativity.

Philosophy is only as good as the topics it explores are self-evident.Philosophy is the criticism of abstraction governing special modes of thought.Philosophy in the proper sense cannot be proven.Proof is in abstraction.So philosophy is either self evident or it is not philosophy.Philosophy can only argue that the existence of God is self evident.Certain truthes are self evident, such as, life, liberty, rights of property, and the pursuit of happiness. Philosophy can made explore and expound endlessly on these truthes.However, Philsophy does not have the capacity to prove the nonexistence of God because it can not abstract.Objectivity at best can only criticize those who believe in God and this criticism can be classified as "lacking understanding".

The Best Single Introduction to Whitehead's Thought
For the reader looking for a way into the thought of Alfred North Whitehead, this short volume is the best place to begin.In six lectures delivered toward the end of his career, Whitehead provides a non-technical sketch of the metaphysics and cosmology he had earlier presented in extended and highly technical form in his magnum opus, Process and Reality.

Modes of Thought is not an easy book--for it is highly compressed and sometimes reads like a series of aphorisms.But while this book will likely leave most readers wondering how all these aphorisms hold together, they are individually nearly crystaline in clarity and are wonderfully provocative.Even if one never reads further in Whitehead, engaging this short volume will set one pondering productively.And, if nothing else, one will come away armed with some wonderful philosophical one-liners.

If reading Modes of Thought makes one want to read on, the good way to proceed would be to read Science and the Modern World next followed by Adventures of Ideas and then (and only then) Process and Reality.

A book that will change forever how you see the world.
Whitehead wrote clearly and simply about some of the most difficult philosophical ideas.This brief book is perfect for anyone who has ever wondered "How do I know what I know?"It is filled with gems such as "The notion of a mere fact is the triumph of the abstractiveintellect"; "The whole understanding of the world consists in theanalysis of process in terms of the identities and diversities of theindividuals involved."Today we know a lot more about the machineryof the mind and the nature of human cognition than he did.But like Darwinwho didn't really know how "genes" work, Whitehead saw thingsthat most of us miss.You have to think "on your toes" to readhim.But the reward is worth the effort.No one who claims to be aneducated person should make such a claim without "reading theirWhitehead." ... Read more

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An unabridged printing, with text and all figures digitally enlarged. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (4)

Hard Going
The thought in this book is profound and enlightening, the style and language are clear enough, but I found it unbearably hard going to get through it.

Creative Platonist's Perspective on History and Civilization
There are four parts to this text:"Sociological," "Cosmological," "Philosophical," and "Civilization."The first part is a history of how ideas, especially moral ideas, have influenced the progress of civilization.Whitehead is by training mathematician and by nature a philosopher, not a historian.As a consequence, he covers a great deal of historical ground at a high level of generality which, in Whitehead's case, I consider a virtue.He has a beautiful, long-term perspective; his account of the transition from a world in which slavery was taken for granted to one in which it is no longer legitimate, and the role that the ideas of Platonism and Christianity played in that 2500 year transition, makes me quite optimistic about the long-term possibility of humane progress in the world.

I describe the first section in depth because it is among the more accessible pieces of Whitehead's writing.The remainder of the book calls upon his unique metaphysical perspective to some extent, and is thus more of a struggle for the casual reader.It, too, is beautiful and valuable for those who are willing to learn how to read Whitehead, but it is not easy.Buy the book for the first part, then if you like Whitehead's highly idiosyncratic view of reality, train yourself to read the rest of the book.

Personally, although Whitehead has fallen out of favor of academic philosophers for most of this century, I think that his work is more likely to be read 200 years from now than are most other works written this century.Whitehead is definitely thinking of the big picture with a certain serene timelessness.Far more people should be exposed to his 20th century articulation of the eternal search for the True, the Good, and the Beautiful (and the Adventure).

The Ideas Are Still Adventurous
Whitehead was the foremost twentieth-century advocate of Process Philosophy--he called it "The Philosophy of Organism"--the conviction that reality is composed of processes rather than of substances or matter.

Students of process thought frequently focus on Whitehead's major work, _Process and Reality_, sometimes to the neglect of his other books. But Whitehead's thought was, fittingly, in continual flux; and _Adventures of Ideas_, written after _Process and Reality_, contains new themes which, some would say, provide needed correctives to some of the notions in Whitehead's earlier books. _Adventures of Ideas_ is also considerably more readable than _Process and Reality_. It should not be passed over.

One of the best
Excellently written. I was somewhat fan of Whitehead's philosophical ideas before I picked up this book. However, since I started reading this book I have become quite fascinated by his works. I recommend this book for all who seek knowledge or would like to further their command over making an inquiry into pre thought process. ... Read more

Book Description
This book, a development of his Tarner Lectures given in 1919, is one of Alfred North Whiteheads most important contributions to natural philosophy. His first concern is with the fundamental problems of substance, space, and time; and the most interesting part of his discussion is, perhaps, his criticism of Einsteins method of interpreting results, and the alternative development of his own well-known theory of the four-dimensional Space-Time manifold. Although this book was first published over a generation ago, and the characteristic approach of philosophers to the problems of nature has changed considerably in the intervening period, The Concept of Nature has never ceased to deserve their careful attention. When the book first appeared, A. E. Taylor, writing in Mind, said The Concept of Nature is a great contribution to Naturphilosophie, far the finest contribution, in my own judgement, yet made by any one man; J. E. McTaggart in The Cambridge Review called it one of the most valuable books on the relation of philosophy and science which has appeared for many years, adding I am sure the study of this book will benefit metaphysicians. I venture to believe that it will benefit men of science. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Challenging and mind-expanding

This book from 1920 consists of the Tarner Lectures in the philosophy of science and features Whitehead's assessment of the impact of Einstein's theories on nature. He argues for taking events and the process of becoming as the starting points for analysing reality. This organic interpretation is not simple, but it does make more sense than the abstract concept of matter as assumed by scientists and philosophers for so long.

Whitehead criticizes the idea of nature as a mere aggregate of independent entities, each capable of isolation. According to this idea, by their accidental relations entities form the system of nature. In this theory space might exist without time, and time without space. The relational theory of space is an admission that space without matter or matter without space cannot exist.

But the seclusion of both from time is still accepted. Whitehead's alternative is that nothing in nature could be what it is except as an ingredient in nature as it exists. There cannot be time apart from space, because every event forms part of a whole and is significant in the whole. Likewise there can be no space apart from time.

Our knowledge of nature is an experience of activity or passage. Events are active entities; their relations with one another differentiate into space-relations and time-relations. But this differentiation is comparatively superficial, since time and space are each partial expressions of one fundamental relation between events, which is neither spatial not temporal. Whitehead calls this relation Extension: it is the relation of including and does not require spatio-temporal differentiation.

I found the book extremely challenging to read and had to go back constantly to re-read and properly assimilate previous passages in order to proceed. And Whitehead uses mathematical formulae that I am not familiar with. But people with a solid grounding in the natural sciences will have no such problem. A determination to understand at least some of this great man's ideas was certainly rewarded in reading and studying this book.

The chapters are titled: Nature and Thought; Theories of the Bifurcation of Nature; Time; The Method of Extensive Abstraction; Congruence; Objects; Summary, and The Ultimate Physical Concepts. The book concludes with an index.
... Read more

Product Description
The contents of this book were originally delivered at Trinity College in the autumn of 1919 as the inaugural course of Tarner lectures. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Thought-provoking and challenging read
This book first published in 1920 consists of the Tarner Lectures in the philosophy of science and features Whitehead's assessment of the impact of Einstein's theories on nature. He argues for taking events and the process of becoming as the starting points for analysing reality. This organic interpretation is not simple, but it does make more sense than the abstract concept of matter as assumed by scientists and philosophers for so long.

Whitehead criticizes the idea of nature as a mere aggregate of independent entities, each capable of isolation. According to this idea, by their accidental relations entities form the system of nature. In this theory space might exist without time, and time without space. The relational theory of space is an admission that space without matter or matter without space cannot exist.

However, the seclusion of both space and matter from time is still accepted. Whitehead's alternative is that nothing in nature could be what it is except as an ingredient in nature as it exists. There cannot be time apart from space, because every event forms part of a whole and is significant in the whole. Likewise there can be no space apart from time.

Our knowledge of nature is an experience of activity or passage. Events are active entities; their relations with one another differentiate into space-relations and time-relations. But this differentiation is comparatively superficial, since time and space are each partial expressions of one fundamental relation between events, which is neither spatial not temporal. Whitehead calls this relation Extension: it is the relation of including and does not require spatio-temporal differentiation.

I found the book extremely challenging to read and had to go back constantly to re-read and properly assimilate previous passages in order to proceed. And Whitehead uses mathematical formulae that I am not familiar with. But people with a solid grounding in the natural sciences will have no such problem. A determination to understand at least some of this great man's ideas was certainly rewarded in reading and studying this book.

The chapters are titled: Nature and Thought; Theories of the Bifurcation of Nature; Time; The Method of Extensive Abstraction; Congruence; Objects; Summary, and The Ultimate Physical Concepts. The book concludes with an index.

... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

I was fortunate to find this book.
I must say, I am indebted to Colin Wilson for leading me to this book. I read Beyond the Outsider a few years ago, and immediately afterwards was itching to read this book. A.N Whitehead is a clear and logical thinker. Agenius of the 20th century, his idea of the two modes of perception:Immediacy Perception and Causal Efficacy. Finally, I think, refutes'successfully' Hume's theory that causation cannot be perceived. ... Read more

Book Description
Whitehead is fond of paradoxes, so perhaps it is appropriate that this [study] start with a paradox. The paradox is that Whitehead does not have a theory of value.

[But] perhaps this one is the ultimate paradox - the identification of the evanescent moment, the now, the ever-beginning, ever-perishing transience of the present with the ultimate reality which accounts for everything else, no matter how permanent or intricate, or noble, in the world.And yet this is certainly what Whitehead means to do.

Let there be no misunderstanding. Whitehead doesn't mean merely that through experience we "know" or have representations of the real world. Nor, at the other extreme, is he a solipsist. Experience is reality, but so is the world out there which is experienced.

... Things are so turbulent and wild - since actuality is nothing but an avalanche of fleeting moments of process - that the universe would fly apart in a millisecond if it were not for the unobtrusive, cohesive function of eternal objects. ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of Alfred North Whitehead, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 5142 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

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