Alfred North Whitehead livre Procès et réalité
The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.
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Process and Reality, 1929
Alfred North Whitehead, né le 15 février 1861 à Ramsgate et mort le 30 décembre 1947 à Cambridge , est un philosophe, logicien et mathématicien britannique. Il est le fondateur de l'école philosophique connue sous le nom de la philosophie du processus, un courant influent dans toute une série de disciplines : l'écologie, la théologie, l'éducation, la physique, la biologie, l'économie et la psychologie.
Au début de sa carrière, Whitehead écrit principalement sur les mathématiques, la logique et la physique. Son premier grand ouvrage A Treatise of Universal Algebra porte sur l'algèbre qu'il se propose d'unifier tout comme David Hilbert l'a fait avec les géométries non euclidiennes. Son œuvre la plus remarquable dans ces domaines demeure les Principia Mathematica , en trois volumes, œuvre majeure écrite en collaboration avec son ancien étudiant Bertrand Russell. Les Principia Mathematica sont considérés comme l'une des œuvres les plus importantes du XXe siècle en logique mathématique.
Durant la période allant de la fin des années 1910 au début des années 1920, Whitehead s'est progressivement tourné vers la philosophie des sciences et la métaphysique. Peu à peu il s'éloigne du logicisme et s'oriente vers la philosophie de la nature dans ses œuvres An Inquiry concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge et The Concept of Nature . Dans The Principles of Relativity , il discute et critique la théorie einsteinienne de la relativité. Sa pensée, partie des mathématiques, s'oriente vers une métaphysique dans laquelle l'idée de « process », parfois traduite en français par « procès », tient une place prépondérante. Il a développé un système de métaphysique complet, radicalement nouveau dans la philosophie occidentale. Aujourd'hui, les travaux philosophiques de Whitehead — notamment Procès et réalité — sont considérés comme les textes fondateurs de la philosophie du process.
Sa métaphysique est centrée sur les notions de préhensions et de relations. Le fait qu'il ne cherche pas les conditions de possibilité d'une connaissance, mais comment rendre compte de l'expérience, constitue une différence forte entre les métaphysiques de Kant et de Whitehead. Par rapport à Aristote et à Leibniz, chez lui l'harmonie de l'ordre du monde n'est pas donnée une fois pour toutes, mais doit évoluer pour répondre aux changements du monde. Dans cette optique, la notion de créativité occupe une place clé. Concernant sa théologie, elle est centrée sur une double nature de Dieu : sa nature primordiale et sa nature conséquente. La première est immuable alors que la seconde en lien avec le monde est muable. L'ordre du monde est fondé sur des relations entre ces deux natures et le monde qui, d'une certaine façon, coopère avec Dieu.
La philosophie du process de Whitehead insiste sur le fait qu'« il est urgent de voir le monde comme un réseau de processus interdépendants dont nous sommes partie intégrante, et que tous nos choix et nos actions ont des conséquences sur le monde qui nous entoure ». Pour cette raison, l'une des applications les plus prometteuses de sa pensée au cours des années 2000 concerne l'écologie, notamment l'éthique de l'environnement de John B. Cobb, Jr. Wikipedia

Alfred North Whitehead livre Procès et réalité
The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.
en
Process and Reality, 1929
It is the first step in sociological wisdom, to recognize that the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur:— like unto an arrow in the hand of a child.
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Symbolism: its meaning and effect, 1927
“La religion est ce que fait l’individu de sa propre solitude.”
Alfred North Whitehead livre Religion in the Making
Religion is what the individual does with his own solitariness.
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Religion in the Making, 1926
The Concept of Nature (1919), Chapter VII, p.143 http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18835/18835-h/18835-h.htm#CHAPTER_VII. <br class="br">1910s <br class="br">Contexte: The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanations of complex facts. We are apt to fall into the error of thinking that the facts are simple because simplicity is the goal of our quest. The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be, "Seek simplicity and distrust it."
Preface
1920s, Science and the Modern World (1925)
Contexte: Philosophy, in one of its functions, is the critic of cosmologies. It is its function to harmonise, refashion, and justify divergent intuitions as to the nature of things. It has to insist on the scrutiny of the ultimate ideas, and on the retention of the whole of the evidence in shaping our cosmological scheme. Its business is to render explicit, and — so far as may be — efficient, a process which otherwise is unconsciously performed without rational tests.
Source: 1920s, Science and the Modern World (1925), Ch. 1: "The Origins of Modern Science"
Contexte: The new tinge to modern minds is a vehement and passionate interest in the relation of general principles to irreducible and stubborn facts. All the world over and at all times there have been practical men, absorbed in 'irreducible and stubborn facts'; all the world over and at all times there have been men of philosophic temperament, who have been absorbed in the weaving of general principles. It is this union of passionate interest in the detailed facts with equal devotion to abstract generalisation which forms the novelty of our present society.
Pt. V, ch. 1, sec. 1.
1920s, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
Contexte: There is a greatness in the lives of those who build up religious systems, a greatness in action, in idea and in self-subordination, embodied in instance after instance through centuries of growth. There is a greatness in the rebels who destroy such systems: they are the Titans who storm heaven, armed with passionate sincerity. It may be that the revolt is the mere assertion by youth of its right to its proper brilliance, to that final good of immediate joy. Philosophy may not neglect the multifariousness of the world — the fairies dance, and Christ is nailed to the cross.
“He gave them speech, and they became souls”
Modes of Thought (1938).
1930s
Contexte: The mentality of mankind and the language of mankind created each other. If we like to assume the rise of language as a given fact, then it is not going too far to say that the souls of men are the gift from language to mankind. The account of the sixth day should be written: He gave them speech, and they became souls.
1920s, The Aims of Education (1929)
Contexte: The essence of education is that it be religious. Pray, what is religious education? A religious education is an education which inculcates duty and reverence. Duty arises from our potential control over the course of events. Where attainable knowledge could have changed the issue, ignorance has the guilt of vice. And the foundation of reverence is this perception, that the present holds within itself the complete sum of existence, backwards and forwards, that whole amplitude of time, which is eternity.
Source: 1910s, An Introduction to Mathematics (1911), ch. 5. <!-- pp. 41-42 -->
Contexte: It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle — they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments.
"The Education of an Englishman" in The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 138 (1926), p. 192.
1920s
Alfred North Whitehead livre Procès et réalité
Pt. II, ch. 1, sec. 1.
Source: 1920s, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
Prologue.
Attributed from posthumous publications, Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead (1954)
“The human body is an instrument for the production of art in the life of the human soul.”
Source: 1930s, Adventures of Ideas (1933), p. 349.
Pt. V, ch. II, sec. V.
1920s, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
as cited in History, Humanity and Evolution (1989), p. 383.
1920s, Science and the Modern World (1925)
1920s, Science and the Modern World (1925)
Source: Attributed from posthumous publications, Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead (1954), Ch. 29, June 10, 1943.
1920s, The Aims of Education (1929)
1920s, Science and the Modern World (1925)
Source: Attributed from posthumous publications, Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead (1954), p. 135; Ch. 17, December 15, 1939.
Pt. I, ch. 2, sec. 2.
1920s, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
the corruption of the best is the worst
1920s, The Aims of Education (1929)
1920s, The Aims of Education (1929)
1920s, Science and the Modern World (1925)
“The term many presupposes the term one, and the term one presupposes the term many.”
Pt. I, ch. 2, sec. 2.
1920s, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
“For the kingdom of heaven is with us today.”
1920s, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
“…The modern fading of interest in religion.”
1920s, Science and the Modern World (1925)
“Error is the price we pay for progress.”
1920s, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
“A culture is in its finest flower before it begins to analyze itself.”
Source: Attributed from posthumous publications, Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead (1954), Ch. 22, August 17, 1941.