Peter Middleton
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226290003
- eISBN:
- 9780226290140
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226290140.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
This chapter traces the development of Rukeyser and Olson’s thinking about physics over the next two decades, as they gradually jettisoned conceptual schemes based on the system and the field. Their ...
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This chapter traces the development of Rukeyser and Olson’s thinking about physics over the next two decades, as they gradually jettisoned conceptual schemes based on the system and the field. Their trajectory is contrasted with the shifting interests in science of Robert Duncan. Rukeyser begins with high hopes of editing a major anthology on science and the humanities, but gradually loses confidence in schemas borrowed from physics. After her long poem One Life she largely abandons the use of poetic masks, and writes in The Speed of Darkness that the fundamental unit of the universe is the story not the atom. The chapter then offers close readings of science in Olson’s poems “The Kingfishers,” the unpublished “Maximus Letter #28,” and “Maximus to Gloucester, Letter 27 [withheld].” This last poem is read in detail against its sources in Whitehead’s metaphysics, which provided Olson with a readymade conceptual scheme. The final section explores Duncan’s discursive responses to public knowledge of the sciences, and gives close readings of two poems, “Apprehensions” and “The Fire: Passages 13.” “The Fire” is a poem that Olson could not have written, because it expresses and then examines the poet’s rage at scientists like Oppenheimer.Less
This chapter traces the development of Rukeyser and Olson’s thinking about physics over the next two decades, as they gradually jettisoned conceptual schemes based on the system and the field. Their trajectory is contrasted with the shifting interests in science of Robert Duncan. Rukeyser begins with high hopes of editing a major anthology on science and the humanities, but gradually loses confidence in schemas borrowed from physics. After her long poem One Life she largely abandons the use of poetic masks, and writes in The Speed of Darkness that the fundamental unit of the universe is the story not the atom. The chapter then offers close readings of science in Olson’s poems “The Kingfishers,” the unpublished “Maximus Letter #28,” and “Maximus to Gloucester, Letter 27 [withheld].” This last poem is read in detail against its sources in Whitehead’s metaphysics, which provided Olson with a readymade conceptual scheme. The final section explores Duncan’s discursive responses to public knowledge of the sciences, and gives close readings of two poems, “Apprehensions” and “The Fire: Passages 13.” “The Fire” is a poem that Olson could not have written, because it expresses and then examines the poet’s rage at scientists like Oppenheimer.
Michael Epperson
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823223190
- eISBN:
- 9780823235551
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823223190.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Logic/Philosophy of Mathematics
In Process and Reality and other works, Alfred North Whitehead struggled to come to terms with the impact the new science of quantum mechanics would have on metaphysics. This book is ...
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In Process and Reality and other works, Alfred North Whitehead struggled to come to terms with the impact the new science of quantum mechanics would have on metaphysics. This book is the first extended analysis of the intricate relationships between relativity theory, quantum mechanics, and Whitehead's cosmology. Illuminated here is the intersection of science and philosophy in Whitehead's work, and details of Whitehead's attempts to fashion an ontology coherent with quantum anomalies. Including a non-specialist introduction to quantum mechanics, the book adds an essential new dimension to our understanding of Whitehead.Less
In Process and Reality and other works, Alfred North Whitehead struggled to come to terms with the impact the new science of quantum mechanics would have on metaphysics. This book is the first extended analysis of the intricate relationships between relativity theory, quantum mechanics, and Whitehead's cosmology. Illuminated here is the intersection of science and philosophy in Whitehead's work, and details of Whitehead's attempts to fashion an ontology coherent with quantum anomalies. Including a non-specialist introduction to quantum mechanics, the book adds an essential new dimension to our understanding of Whitehead.
Roland Faber
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823230815
- eISBN:
- 9780823235087
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823230815.003.0010
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
In Alfred North Whitehead and Gilles Deleuze, there are two direct accounts of “bodies of the void”, that is, of “apophatic bodies”, that conceptualize the “bodying of the ...
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In Alfred North Whitehead and Gilles Deleuze, there are two direct accounts of “bodies of the void”, that is, of “apophatic bodies”, that conceptualize the “bodying of the apophatic” (in the second sense). Both concepts undercut any negation of bodying, but negate its dualistic construction of identity and unity. A better way of phrasing it might be that they uncover bodying in its apophatic dimension of becoming, and they insist on multiplication as the veiled event in all structuring and subject-creating of the body. In bodying the apophatic, these bodies live only by the traversing multiplicities of their becoming. Apophatic bodying, hence, is the caring about multiplicity, the love for the multiple. Its event of becoming is polyphilic. In God's apophatic activity, God is the event of theoplicity, of insistence on multiplicity, in being the apophatic bodying of multiplicity, in being the polyphilic Eros of initiation and, at the same time, the polyphilic salvation of the self-created multiplicity of the World of Creative Act, thereby insisting on its diversity.Less
In Alfred North Whitehead and Gilles Deleuze, there are two direct accounts of “bodies of the void”, that is, of “apophatic bodies”, that conceptualize the “bodying of the apophatic” (in the second sense). Both concepts undercut any negation of bodying, but negate its dualistic construction of identity and unity. A better way of phrasing it might be that they uncover bodying in its apophatic dimension of becoming, and they insist on multiplication as the veiled event in all structuring and subject-creating of the body. In bodying the apophatic, these bodies live only by the traversing multiplicities of their becoming. Apophatic bodying, hence, is the caring about multiplicity, the love for the multiple. Its event of becoming is polyphilic. In God's apophatic activity, God is the event of theoplicity, of insistence on multiplicity, in being the apophatic bodying of multiplicity, in being the polyphilic Eros of initiation and, at the same time, the polyphilic salvation of the self-created multiplicity of the World of Creative Act, thereby insisting on its diversity.
Wahida Khandker
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780748676774
- eISBN:
- 9781474406468
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748676774.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
In line with ‘Continental’ approaches to critical animal studies, this book aims to uncover the philosophical and historical progression of concepts of animal and organic life, in order to understand ...
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In line with ‘Continental’ approaches to critical animal studies, this book aims to uncover the philosophical and historical progression of concepts of animal and organic life, in order to understand the logic of the human-animal distinction at play across the life sciences and medicine. This is opposed to traditional moral philosophical analyses of animal life in terms of intrinsic value, sentience and rights, which limit ‘the animal question’ to that of admissibility to the circle of morally considerable agents and patients. This book focuses, in particular, on the categorisation of certain forms and functions of life as ‘pathological’, and the mobility of this categorisation both in philosophy and the sciences in question. The book argues through conjunctions of the thought of a range of philosophers, including Henri Bergson, Georges Canguilhem, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault (on biopolitics), Alfred North Whitehead and Donna Haraway, on questions of animal being and the process of the advancement of scientific knowledge, that the category of ‘pathological life’ can yield productive insights into prevailing concepts of animality and the derogation of animal life.Less
In line with ‘Continental’ approaches to critical animal studies, this book aims to uncover the philosophical and historical progression of concepts of animal and organic life, in order to understand the logic of the human-animal distinction at play across the life sciences and medicine. This is opposed to traditional moral philosophical analyses of animal life in terms of intrinsic value, sentience and rights, which limit ‘the animal question’ to that of admissibility to the circle of morally considerable agents and patients. This book focuses, in particular, on the categorisation of certain forms and functions of life as ‘pathological’, and the mobility of this categorisation both in philosophy and the sciences in question. The book argues through conjunctions of the thought of a range of philosophers, including Henri Bergson, Georges Canguilhem, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault (on biopolitics), Alfred North Whitehead and Donna Haraway, on questions of animal being and the process of the advancement of scientific knowledge, that the category of ‘pathological life’ can yield productive insights into prevailing concepts of animality and the derogation of animal life.
Wahida Khandker
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780748676774
- eISBN:
- 9781474406468
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748676774.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
This chapter focuses on the writings of Alfred North Whitehead and the complexity theorist, Stuart Kauffman, both of whom undertake critiques of certain scientific conceptions of life and organic ...
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This chapter focuses on the writings of Alfred North Whitehead and the complexity theorist, Stuart Kauffman, both of whom undertake critiques of certain scientific conceptions of life and organic complexity, in particular the fundamental problem of the reduction of biological processes to the laws of physics. Whitehead's arguments against what he characterises as scientific materialism, or the presupposition of ‘the ultimate fact of an irreducible brute matter’ distributed throughout space, begin with the criticism of this matter as senseless, valueless and purposeless. The challenge is to reverse the hierarchy in which materiality and mechanism precedes and determines the organic. As Kauffman goes on to argue, evolutionary processes are irreducible to physics, insofar as it would require infinitely many simulations of these processes in order to model the development of life as it has occurred in this specific biosphere. We require instead an account of the emergence of biological systems, and the uniquely biological laws that govern life on earth (and the possible emergence of life elsewhere). Kauffman discusses a number of alternatives, but the focus in this chapter is on his account of autocatalytic sets: that is, Kauffman's equivalent to Whitehead's account of the interdependence of parts in an organic whole.Less
This chapter focuses on the writings of Alfred North Whitehead and the complexity theorist, Stuart Kauffman, both of whom undertake critiques of certain scientific conceptions of life and organic complexity, in particular the fundamental problem of the reduction of biological processes to the laws of physics. Whitehead's arguments against what he characterises as scientific materialism, or the presupposition of ‘the ultimate fact of an irreducible brute matter’ distributed throughout space, begin with the criticism of this matter as senseless, valueless and purposeless. The challenge is to reverse the hierarchy in which materiality and mechanism precedes and determines the organic. As Kauffman goes on to argue, evolutionary processes are irreducible to physics, insofar as it would require infinitely many simulations of these processes in order to model the development of life as it has occurred in this specific biosphere. We require instead an account of the emergence of biological systems, and the uniquely biological laws that govern life on earth (and the possible emergence of life elsewhere). Kauffman discusses a number of alternatives, but the focus in this chapter is on his account of autocatalytic sets: that is, Kauffman's equivalent to Whitehead's account of the interdependence of parts in an organic whole.
Jeffrey A. Bell and Claire Colebrook (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748636082
- eISBN:
- 9780748671748
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748636082.003.0008
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This chapter evaluates the history in relation to life by Charles Péguy, Alfred North Whitehead and Gilles Deleuze. It is noted that the time and history run on ageing. To age in the past is to ...
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This chapter evaluates the history in relation to life by Charles Péguy, Alfred North Whitehead and Gilles Deleuze. It is noted that the time and history run on ageing. To age in the past is to become tarnished; to age in the future is lose even the possibility of acquiring lustre. Péguy's argument is sophisticated and knowing, for it addresses the purity sought by Deleuze in the return of difference to show that purity itself is a concept that ages and that depends on ageing its surroundings. Whitehead introduces the concept of perpetual perishing and inflects the role of memory to preserve Deleuze's eternal return of pure novelty from Péguy's historical pessimism. Péguy and Whitehead maintain a direction in time and this characterises their views of time. Apparently, there is never a pure ageing, since the present is a form of novelty that can change what it ages from.Less
This chapter evaluates the history in relation to life by Charles Péguy, Alfred North Whitehead and Gilles Deleuze. It is noted that the time and history run on ageing. To age in the past is to become tarnished; to age in the future is lose even the possibility of acquiring lustre. Péguy's argument is sophisticated and knowing, for it addresses the purity sought by Deleuze in the return of difference to show that purity itself is a concept that ages and that depends on ageing its surroundings. Whitehead introduces the concept of perpetual perishing and inflects the role of memory to preserve Deleuze's eternal return of pure novelty from Péguy's historical pessimism. Péguy and Whitehead maintain a direction in time and this characterises their views of time. Apparently, there is never a pure ageing, since the present is a form of novelty that can change what it ages from.
John Allan Knight
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199969388
- eISBN:
- 9780199301546
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199969388.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies
This chapter describes the liberal theological method of Schubert Ogden. It begins by describing the most important contributors to Ogden’s thought: Rudolf Bultmann’s existential hermeneutics, Alfred ...
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This chapter describes the liberal theological method of Schubert Ogden. It begins by describing the most important contributors to Ogden’s thought: Rudolf Bultmann’s existential hermeneutics, Alfred North Whitehead’s analysis of human subjectivity, and Charles Hartshorne’s concept of God. The chapter then describes Ogden’s method of interpreting and validating theological claims, displayed in his dual criteria of adequacy. Theological claims must be appropriate to Jesus Christ (an existential criterion) and credible to common human experience and reason. Ogden derives his articulation of common human experience through a transcendental analysis of the conditions of the possibility of any and all acts of human subjectivity. Further, Ogden’s transcendental argument for God’s existence yields an understanding of God whose existence is necessary. The descriptive sense Ogden associates with “God” thus picks out God alone as its referent. Additionally, the descriptive senses associated with the predicates of theological claims are also derived from elements of human experience. We can therefore have knowledge, either through acquaintance or through description, of whether the conditions described in those descriptive senses are satisfied. Therefore, This allows him to meet the demands of Russell as well as Flew and other falsification theorists.Less
This chapter describes the liberal theological method of Schubert Ogden. It begins by describing the most important contributors to Ogden’s thought: Rudolf Bultmann’s existential hermeneutics, Alfred North Whitehead’s analysis of human subjectivity, and Charles Hartshorne’s concept of God. The chapter then describes Ogden’s method of interpreting and validating theological claims, displayed in his dual criteria of adequacy. Theological claims must be appropriate to Jesus Christ (an existential criterion) and credible to common human experience and reason. Ogden derives his articulation of common human experience through a transcendental analysis of the conditions of the possibility of any and all acts of human subjectivity. Further, Ogden’s transcendental argument for God’s existence yields an understanding of God whose existence is necessary. The descriptive sense Ogden associates with “God” thus picks out God alone as its referent. Additionally, the descriptive senses associated with the predicates of theological claims are also derived from elements of human experience. We can therefore have knowledge, either through acquaintance or through description, of whether the conditions described in those descriptive senses are satisfied. Therefore, This allows him to meet the demands of Russell as well as Flew and other falsification theorists.
Roland Faber
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780823251551
- eISBN:
- 9780823252985
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823251551.003.0014
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
This chapter proposes that our ecological future is indispensably entangled with a different view of nature that is sensible to the necessity of wildness in which we are only strangers or guests. The ...
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This chapter proposes that our ecological future is indispensably entangled with a different view of nature that is sensible to the necessity of wildness in which we are only strangers or guests. The author proposes, using Whitehead, that we must become an intermezzo within this necessity and that to become such an intermezzo we must give up on all forms of power of control, manipulation, and destruction in the name of our survival. We must become what we always have been: an expression of the rhythms of necessity in which our contingent existence is an overflow of its patient grace. The art of becoming “one” with its multiplicity is the realm of poetics, the rupture of the continuity of power, where “God” indicates a suspension of all existence in this wilderness that breaks all cycles of the omnipotence of power.Less
This chapter proposes that our ecological future is indispensably entangled with a different view of nature that is sensible to the necessity of wildness in which we are only strangers or guests. The author proposes, using Whitehead, that we must become an intermezzo within this necessity and that to become such an intermezzo we must give up on all forms of power of control, manipulation, and destruction in the name of our survival. We must become what we always have been: an expression of the rhythms of necessity in which our contingent existence is an overflow of its patient grace. The art of becoming “one” with its multiplicity is the realm of poetics, the rupture of the continuity of power, where “God” indicates a suspension of all existence in this wilderness that breaks all cycles of the omnipotence of power.
Luke B. Higgins
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780823238958
- eISBN:
- 9780823238996
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823238958.003.0009
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
Drawing on the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead and Ilya Prigogine in conjunction with Isabelle Stengers, this chapter traces some of the problematic theological underpinnings of the specifically ...
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Drawing on the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead and Ilya Prigogine in conjunction with Isabelle Stengers, this chapter traces some of the problematic theological underpinnings of the specifically modern dichotomization (“bifurcation” in Whitehead's language) between human culture and nature's processes that has centrally informed current discourses around “energy.” Whitehead's process philosophy provides an alternative to the reductive materialism that justifies current environmental exploitation, seeing at the base of reality not some mute, mindless matter or energy—knowledge of which can only exist in an ontologically separate, “mental” sphere—but instead a co-creative process of ecological becoming set in motion by an immanent divine “lure” towards “intensity.” A theology of “intensive alliance,” as the chapter calls it, encourages us to encounter the living God in and through the webs of dynamic human/non-human partnerships that are the basis of a healthy ecology.Less
Drawing on the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead and Ilya Prigogine in conjunction with Isabelle Stengers, this chapter traces some of the problematic theological underpinnings of the specifically modern dichotomization (“bifurcation” in Whitehead's language) between human culture and nature's processes that has centrally informed current discourses around “energy.” Whitehead's process philosophy provides an alternative to the reductive materialism that justifies current environmental exploitation, seeing at the base of reality not some mute, mindless matter or energy—knowledge of which can only exist in an ontologically separate, “mental” sphere—but instead a co-creative process of ecological becoming set in motion by an immanent divine “lure” towards “intensity.” A theology of “intensive alliance,” as the chapter calls it, encourages us to encounter the living God in and through the webs of dynamic human/non-human partnerships that are the basis of a healthy ecology.
W. NORRIS CLARKE, S.J.
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823227198
- eISBN:
- 9780823237166
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823227198.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
This chapter presents the position of Alfred North Whitehead on whether God is the creator of the universe or not. God does play an indispensable role in this world ...
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This chapter presents the position of Alfred North Whitehead on whether God is the creator of the universe or not. God does play an indispensable role in this world system. God is a source of the eternal object. He provides the ideal goal of each newly arising actual occasion. Moreover, He guides the universe toward the greatest possible realizable value. Finally, He preserves the objectified values achieved by the successively perishing actual entities.Less
This chapter presents the position of Alfred North Whitehead on whether God is the creator of the universe or not. God does play an indispensable role in this world system. God is a source of the eternal object. He provides the ideal goal of each newly arising actual occasion. Moreover, He guides the universe toward the greatest possible realizable value. Finally, He preserves the objectified values achieved by the successively perishing actual entities.
Strachan Donnelley
Ceara Donnelley and Bruce Jennings (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780813167275
- eISBN:
- 9780813175669
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813167275.003.0005
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Environmental Studies
Reflecting on the debate in American education concerning the scientific validity and teaching of biological evolution, this chapter suggests that speculative philosophical thinking offers a better ...
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Reflecting on the debate in American education concerning the scientific validity and teaching of biological evolution, this chapter suggests that speculative philosophical thinking offers a better alternative than either dogmatic theology or dogmatic science. It touches briefly on the work of three thinkers who are discussed at length in later chapters—Alfred North Whitehead, Hans Jonas, and Ernst Mayr.Less
Reflecting on the debate in American education concerning the scientific validity and teaching of biological evolution, this chapter suggests that speculative philosophical thinking offers a better alternative than either dogmatic theology or dogmatic science. It touches briefly on the work of three thinkers who are discussed at length in later chapters—Alfred North Whitehead, Hans Jonas, and Ernst Mayr.
Roland Faber and Catherine Keller
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780823253951
- eISBN:
- 9780823260980
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823253951.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This chapter first identifies a certain tendency toward colonization and appropriation in even the most well-meaning and ethically driven discourses on religious plurality, especially in the West. It ...
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This chapter first identifies a certain tendency toward colonization and appropriation in even the most well-meaning and ethically driven discourses on religious plurality, especially in the West. It suggests that the ethical desire to affirm and celebrate plurality is often difficult to distinguish from forms of exoticism and “piracy,” whereby an ever-widening diversity is continually gathered into a single “collection”—for example, a discourse—for the aesthetic pleasure of its “owner,” the Western subject. To resist and counter this tendency, a form of polyphilia is proposed as an emerging form of discourse. This love of multiplicity envisions plurality and difference as generative, exceeding any effort to “collect” diversity into a totality or unifying whole. Drawing primarily on the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead in conversation with postmodern and postcolonial theory as well as various religious traditions of both East and West, the chapter launches a polydox “experiment” grounded independent of any distinct religious confession for the sake of providing resources for an emerging future of religious difference beyond competition or appropriation.Less
This chapter first identifies a certain tendency toward colonization and appropriation in even the most well-meaning and ethically driven discourses on religious plurality, especially in the West. It suggests that the ethical desire to affirm and celebrate plurality is often difficult to distinguish from forms of exoticism and “piracy,” whereby an ever-widening diversity is continually gathered into a single “collection”—for example, a discourse—for the aesthetic pleasure of its “owner,” the Western subject. To resist and counter this tendency, a form of polyphilia is proposed as an emerging form of discourse. This love of multiplicity envisions plurality and difference as generative, exceeding any effort to “collect” diversity into a totality or unifying whole. Drawing primarily on the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead in conversation with postmodern and postcolonial theory as well as various religious traditions of both East and West, the chapter launches a polydox “experiment” grounded independent of any distinct religious confession for the sake of providing resources for an emerging future of religious difference beyond competition or appropriation.
Daniel J. Cohen
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197263266
- eISBN:
- 9780191734854
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197263266.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
This chapter focuses on the progress of mathematics in the nineteenth century. British mathematicians of this period showed interest in the formal aspects of mathematics, particularly in symbolic ...
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This chapter focuses on the progress of mathematics in the nineteenth century. British mathematicians of this period showed interest in the formal aspects of mathematics, particularly in symbolic logic. Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead were among the most highly influential figures in Victorian mathematical circles due to their wide-ranging thought and institutional positions. Principia Mathematica (1910–1913), in which Russell and Whitehead equated logic and mathematics at the deepest level possible, was a culmination of the innovative mathematical research of the Victorian age.Less
This chapter focuses on the progress of mathematics in the nineteenth century. British mathematicians of this period showed interest in the formal aspects of mathematics, particularly in symbolic logic. Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead were among the most highly influential figures in Victorian mathematical circles due to their wide-ranging thought and institutional positions. Principia Mathematica (1910–1913), in which Russell and Whitehead equated logic and mathematics at the deepest level possible, was a culmination of the innovative mathematical research of the Victorian age.
Elizabeth M. Kraus
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780823217953
- eISBN:
- 9780823284924
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823217953.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, American Philosophy
This book styles itself as “a Sherpa guide to Process and Reality, whose function is to assist the serious reader in grasping the meaning of the text and to prevent falls into misinterpretation.” ...
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This book styles itself as “a Sherpa guide to Process and Reality, whose function is to assist the serious reader in grasping the meaning of the text and to prevent falls into misinterpretation.” Although originally published in 1925, Process and Reality has perhaps even more relevance to the contemporary scene in physics, biology, psychology, and the social sciences than it had in the mid-twenties. Hence, its internal difficulty, its quasi-inaccessibility, is all the more tragic, since, unlike most metaphysical endeavors, it is capable of interpreting and unifying theories in the above sciences in terms of an organic world view, instead of selecting one theory as the paradigm and reducing all others to it. Because Alfred North Whitehead is so crucial to modern philosophy, this book plays an important role in making Process and Reality accessible to a wider readership.Less
This book styles itself as “a Sherpa guide to Process and Reality, whose function is to assist the serious reader in grasping the meaning of the text and to prevent falls into misinterpretation.” Although originally published in 1925, Process and Reality has perhaps even more relevance to the contemporary scene in physics, biology, psychology, and the social sciences than it had in the mid-twenties. Hence, its internal difficulty, its quasi-inaccessibility, is all the more tragic, since, unlike most metaphysical endeavors, it is capable of interpreting and unifying theories in the above sciences in terms of an organic world view, instead of selecting one theory as the paradigm and reducing all others to it. Because Alfred North Whitehead is so crucial to modern philosophy, this book plays an important role in making Process and Reality accessible to a wider readership.
Steven Shaviro
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816689248
- eISBN:
- 9781452949307
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816689248.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This book is the first general book to look at the current philosophical trend known as Speculative Realism. It also compares this philosophy to the work of early-twentieth-century philosopher Alfred ...
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This book is the first general book to look at the current philosophical trend known as Speculative Realism. It also compares this philosophy to the work of early-twentieth-century philosopher Alfred North Whitehead. Speculative Realism insists upon the actuality of things or objects apart from the ways that our own (human) minds relate to them and understand them; it is thus part of what has been called the Nonhuman Turn in recent thought. The book gives an explication of the main tenets of Speculative Realism, and engages in close examination of several of its main figures: most notably, Graham Harman and Quentin Meillassoux. It juxtaposes their thought to that of Whitehead, who anticipated many Speculative Realist ideas, but gives them a very different focus. In the course of this discussion, the book also touches upon other philosophical themes of contemporary concern: panpsychism (the thesis that mentality is incipient in all entities), ecological thought (increasingly necessary in this time of crisis), and aesthetics (which is presented as not merely a human concern). The book serves both as an overall introduction to Speculative Realism, for those who have not encountered it previously, and as a series of arguments within Speculative Realism. It will be of interest to an interdisciplinary academic and extra-academic audience; particularly to those in the fields of literature, continental philosophy, post-structuralist theory, art and architecture, and environmental studies.Less
This book is the first general book to look at the current philosophical trend known as Speculative Realism. It also compares this philosophy to the work of early-twentieth-century philosopher Alfred North Whitehead. Speculative Realism insists upon the actuality of things or objects apart from the ways that our own (human) minds relate to them and understand them; it is thus part of what has been called the Nonhuman Turn in recent thought. The book gives an explication of the main tenets of Speculative Realism, and engages in close examination of several of its main figures: most notably, Graham Harman and Quentin Meillassoux. It juxtaposes their thought to that of Whitehead, who anticipated many Speculative Realist ideas, but gives them a very different focus. In the course of this discussion, the book also touches upon other philosophical themes of contemporary concern: panpsychism (the thesis that mentality is incipient in all entities), ecological thought (increasingly necessary in this time of crisis), and aesthetics (which is presented as not merely a human concern). The book serves both as an overall introduction to Speculative Realism, for those who have not encountered it previously, and as a series of arguments within Speculative Realism. It will be of interest to an interdisciplinary academic and extra-academic audience; particularly to those in the fields of literature, continental philosophy, post-structuralist theory, art and architecture, and environmental studies.
Michael L. Thomas
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226376943
- eISBN:
- 9780226377131
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226377131.003.0010
- Subject:
- Philosophy, American Philosophy
Michael L. Thomas provides a fresh analysis of the relationship between Mead and the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead. There can be no doubt that in the last years of his life Mead grappled with ...
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Michael L. Thomas provides a fresh analysis of the relationship between Mead and the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead. There can be no doubt that in the last years of his life Mead grappled with Whitehead’s thinking more than with any other philosophy. The expression “objective reality of perspectives”—the title of one of Mead’s essays—conveys the basic idea behind his effort very well. Perspective alludes to subjectivity, but every subjectivity is itself part of an objective reality. Instead of yielding to a bifurcation of nature into an objective and a subjective realm, both Mead and Whitehead view reality as a temporal, constructive process in which the subjectivity of individuals plays a role in its construction. But Thomas also insists on the differences between the two thinkers. Mead saw himself as being more consistent in this shared effort and better able to prevent any recreation of the bifurcation they were both struggling to overcome. Thomas sees Mead as focusing on the scientific understanding of reality and Whitehead as more interested in an aesthetic project. But these two projects do not necessarily contradict each other, and it is Thomas’s ambition to outline possible avenues of synthesis.Less
Michael L. Thomas provides a fresh analysis of the relationship between Mead and the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead. There can be no doubt that in the last years of his life Mead grappled with Whitehead’s thinking more than with any other philosophy. The expression “objective reality of perspectives”—the title of one of Mead’s essays—conveys the basic idea behind his effort very well. Perspective alludes to subjectivity, but every subjectivity is itself part of an objective reality. Instead of yielding to a bifurcation of nature into an objective and a subjective realm, both Mead and Whitehead view reality as a temporal, constructive process in which the subjectivity of individuals plays a role in its construction. But Thomas also insists on the differences between the two thinkers. Mead saw himself as being more consistent in this shared effort and better able to prevent any recreation of the bifurcation they were both struggling to overcome. Thomas sees Mead as focusing on the scientific understanding of reality and Whitehead as more interested in an aesthetic project. But these two projects do not necessarily contradict each other, and it is Thomas’s ambition to outline possible avenues of synthesis.
Strachan Donnelley
Ceara Donnelley and Bruce Jennings (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780813167275
- eISBN:
- 9780813175669
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813167275.003.0017
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Environmental Studies
A struggle that began in the seventeenth century is still being waged today. It pits a mechanistic, reductionistic worldview that sets human being apart from the rest of being and mind or cognition ...
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A struggle that began in the seventeenth century is still being waged today. It pits a mechanistic, reductionistic worldview that sets human being apart from the rest of being and mind or cognition apart from the rest of natural reality, on the one side, against a worldview that aims at ontological monism and the relational being of humans and nature, on the other. This chapter presents the terms and aspects of this debate in a close discussion of Descartes and then considers the work of Spinoza and Whitehead against the background of Cartesian thought. Descartes severs an ontological connection between thought and material being, thereby making it impossible to talk about an interconnected web of being. Spinoza rejects this and views all forms of life and material being as finite manifestations of one unbounded active being, Nature (God).Less
A struggle that began in the seventeenth century is still being waged today. It pits a mechanistic, reductionistic worldview that sets human being apart from the rest of being and mind or cognition apart from the rest of natural reality, on the one side, against a worldview that aims at ontological monism and the relational being of humans and nature, on the other. This chapter presents the terms and aspects of this debate in a close discussion of Descartes and then considers the work of Spinoza and Whitehead against the background of Cartesian thought. Descartes severs an ontological connection between thought and material being, thereby making it impossible to talk about an interconnected web of being. Spinoza rejects this and views all forms of life and material being as finite manifestations of one unbounded active being, Nature (God).
Elizabeth M. Kraus
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780823217953
- eISBN:
- 9780823284924
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823217953.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, American Philosophy
This chapter argues that Science and the Modern World (SMW) represents Alfred North Whitehead in his moment of romancing the metaphysical implications of his earlier epistemological theories, the ...
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This chapter argues that Science and the Modern World (SMW) represents Alfred North Whitehead in his moment of romancing the metaphysical implications of his earlier epistemological theories, the full schematization of Process and Reality (PR) having yet to be constructed. The work has the “vividness of novelty,” the “unexplored connexions,” the “possibilities half-disclosed ... and halfconcealed,” and hence the vital immediacy which makes it an admirable introduction to the complexities of PR. Furthermore, it provides an experiential grounding for the later, more abstract superstructure, showing as it does that the metaphysics springs not from a vacuum, but from a solid basis of human experience given form, universality, and stability in science, mathematics, philosophy, literature, religion, language, and social structures.Less
This chapter argues that Science and the Modern World (SMW) represents Alfred North Whitehead in his moment of romancing the metaphysical implications of his earlier epistemological theories, the full schematization of Process and Reality (PR) having yet to be constructed. The work has the “vividness of novelty,” the “unexplored connexions,” the “possibilities half-disclosed ... and halfconcealed,” and hence the vital immediacy which makes it an admirable introduction to the complexities of PR. Furthermore, it provides an experiential grounding for the later, more abstract superstructure, showing as it does that the metaphysics springs not from a vacuum, but from a solid basis of human experience given form, universality, and stability in science, mathematics, philosophy, literature, religion, language, and social structures.
Elizabeth M. Kraus
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780823217953
- eISBN:
- 9780823284924
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823217953.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, American Philosophy
This chapter analyzes Part II of Process and Reality. It begins with a discussion of fact and form, and states that for Alfred North Whitehead, to be an actual entity is to be fully formed, fully ...
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This chapter analyzes Part II of Process and Reality. It begins with a discussion of fact and form, and states that for Alfred North Whitehead, to be an actual entity is to be fully formed, fully definite, with no indeterminations left unresolved. From the welter of what it could be, an actual entity decides what it will be: realizing certain potentials and positively excluding others; taking a definite stance with respect to everything in the ideal and actual worlds. Its real essence, structured by its associative hierarchy, comprises the full particularity of its status in the universe and of the universe in it: its unique way of housing and pervading this world populated by these actual entities. The remainder of the chapter explains the extensive continuum; order, society, organisms, and environment; the modal theory of perception; and a theory of judgment.Less
This chapter analyzes Part II of Process and Reality. It begins with a discussion of fact and form, and states that for Alfred North Whitehead, to be an actual entity is to be fully formed, fully definite, with no indeterminations left unresolved. From the welter of what it could be, an actual entity decides what it will be: realizing certain potentials and positively excluding others; taking a definite stance with respect to everything in the ideal and actual worlds. Its real essence, structured by its associative hierarchy, comprises the full particularity of its status in the universe and of the universe in it: its unique way of housing and pervading this world populated by these actual entities. The remainder of the chapter explains the extensive continuum; order, society, organisms, and environment; the modal theory of perception; and a theory of judgment.
Theodore Walker Jr.
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780823276219
- eISBN:
- 9780823277049
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823276219.003.0009
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
Here early modern “Astro-Theology” (William Derham 1715) is revised to produce a constructive postmodern astro-theology. This revisionary astro-theology includes a panentheistic theology and ...
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Here early modern “Astro-Theology” (William Derham 1715) is revised to produce a constructive postmodern astro-theology. This revisionary astro-theology includes a panentheistic theology and cosmology, plus a metaphysical realism essential to meeting the ethical challenge of realism (Reinhold Niebuhr 1932). Recognizing that Christian ethics is reality-based can be liberating. Hence, a revisionary astro-theology can be righty described as an astro-liberation theology, or better, as a cosmo-liberation theology.Less
Here early modern “Astro-Theology” (William Derham 1715) is revised to produce a constructive postmodern astro-theology. This revisionary astro-theology includes a panentheistic theology and cosmology, plus a metaphysical realism essential to meeting the ethical challenge of realism (Reinhold Niebuhr 1932). Recognizing that Christian ethics is reality-based can be liberating. Hence, a revisionary astro-theology can be righty described as an astro-liberation theology, or better, as a cosmo-liberation theology.
