The Concept of Nature

by Alfred North Whitehead

Overview

This volume on ‘the Concept of Nature’ forms a companion book to my previous work An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge. Either book can be read independently, but they supplement each other. In part the present book supplies points of view which were omitted from its predecessor; in part it traverses the same ground with an alternative exposition. For one thing, mathematical notation has been carefully avoided, and the results of mathematical deductions are assumed. Some of the explanations have been improved and others have been set in a new light. On the other hand important points of the previous work have been omitted where I have had nothing fresh to say about them. On the whole, whereas the former work based itself chiefly on ideas directly drawn from mathematical physics, the present book keeps closer to certain fields of philosophy and physics to the exclusion of mathematics. The two works meet in their discussions of some details of space and time.
I am not conscious that I have in any way altered my views. Some developments have been made. Those that are capable of a non-mathematical exposition have been incorporated in the text. The mathematical developments are alluded to in the last two chapters. They concern the adaptation of the principles of mathematical physics to the form of the relativity principle which is here maintained. Einstein’s method of using the theory of tensors is adopted, but the application is worked out on different lines and from different assumptions. Those of his results which have been verified by experience are obtained also by my methods. The divergence chiefly arises from the fact that I do not accept his theory of non-uniform space or his assumption as to the peculiar fundamental character of light-signals. I would not however be misunderstood to be lacking in appreciation of the value of his recent work on general relativity which has the high merit of first disclosing the way in which mathematical physics should proceed in the light of the principle of relativity. But in my judgment he has cramped the development of his brilliant mathematical method in the narrow bounds of a very doubtful philosophy.
The object of the present volume and of its predecessor is to lay the basis of a natural philosophy which is the necessary presupposition of a reorganised speculative physics...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781531267711
Publisher:	Ozymandias Press
Publication date:	03/28/2018
Sold by:	StreetLib SRL
Format:	eBook
File size:	450 KB

About the Author

Born on February 15, 1861, in Kent, England, ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD profoundly influenced the fields of science and math­ematical logic. Readily admitting his indebtedness to such schol­ars as Henri Bergman, whose work constituted the main challenge to the mechanistic view of nature, Whitehead used his grounding in mathematics in his later investigation of metaphysics. 

A lecturer in mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge University, from 1884 until 1911, Whitehead spent the first of three periods of his academic life concentrating on mathematics and logic. There he met his most famous student, Bertrand Russell, and the two composed the three-volume Principia Math­ematica (1910-1913), a momentous work that advanced new theories in the study of logic. Second in influence only to Aris­totle's Organon, the Principia Mathematica advanced the theory that mathematics could, in some important sense, be reduced to logic. This monumental work popularized modern mathematical logic, demonstrating its deductive power and exhibiting its con­nections with metaphysics and epistemology. By introducing such ideas as propositional function and type theory, Principia Mathematica paved the way for other logicians like Kurt Goedel, among others, to build their own mathematical theories. Even today, Whitehead and Russell's work remains controversial, with contemporary scholars debating its influence. 

As a lecturer in applied mathematics and mechanics at the University of London—generally considered to be his second period of activity—Whitehead focuseed his attention on the philosophy of natural science. In The concept of nature (1920), Whitehead argued that nature consists only of what the senses perceive. He dismissed as unnecessary the division of nature into apparent, the world as physically experienced, and causal, the world as scientific theories depict it. Influenced by Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, Whitehead thought that ideas employed in mathematics and physics, which are not directly identified through the senses, could be described in terms of the things that the senses do perceive. Whitehad also rejected the belief that every object possesses a simple spatial or temporal location and elaborated this theory and others in Process and Reality (1929). While at London, White­head served as the dean of the Faculty of Science, pub­lishing several essays on education (collected in The Aims of Education and Other Essays). 

In 1924, Whitehead moved to the United States, where he taught at Harvard, lecturing on general issues in philosophy. Here, Whitehead developed his work on metaphysics—strongly influenced by his scientific background—calling his concept of reality the "phi­losophy of organics" (which contradicted commonly held views of material substance) and rejecting the notion of a perfect, omnipotent God. Whitehead's process philosophy, which said that nature comprises dynamic processes and not fixed things, greatly influ­enced theologians in the latter half of the twentieth cen­tury. Christianity in particular found useful process pbi­losophy's ability to link theology to the natural sciences, seemingly giving traditional Christian beliefs more credibility. Process philosophy also offers a solu­tion to the problem of theodicy—although God tries to realize value in the world, human beings can actually frustrate divine intentions in the natural process.

 In 1945, Whitehead received the Order of Merit, a British honor that rewards achievement in science, art, or literature. Whitehead died in Cambridge, Massa­chusetts, on December 30, 1947. Whitehead's other works include The Organisation of Thought (1916), Principles of Natural Knowledge (1919), The Principle of Relativity (1922), Science and the Modern World (1925), Religion in the Making (1926), Symbolism (1927), Adventures of Ideas (1933), and Essays in Science and Philosophy (1947).