Alfred North Whitehead – angielski filozof, matematyk i fizyk.
Był najmłodszym z czworga dzieci anglikańskiego duchownego Alfreda Whiteheada. Ukończył Trinity College na Uniwersytecie Cambridge, następnie został profesorem tego uniwersytetu.
Współpracował z Bertrandem Russelem przy dziele Principia Mathematica . Jest twórcą tzw. filozofii organizmu oraz prekursorem, rozwijanego głównie w Stanach Zjednoczonych, nurtu współczesnej filozofii procesu. Począwszy od problemów logiki i matematyki, zakres naukowych zainteresowań Whiteheada rozszerzał się w kierunku epistemologicznych i metodologicznych podstaw nauki, by ostatecznie objąć swym zasięgiem najbardziej ogólne zagadnienia z dziedziny filozofii spekulatywnej.
"Process and Reality" zawierające Wykłady im. Gifforda prezentuje jego metafizykę, która została przedstawiona w sposób niebywale uporządkowany. Wydaje się, że ambicją Whiteheada było zebranie w jedną syntezę wszystkich głównych filozofii i religii ludzkości. W tym celu stworzył szczególną koncepcję Boga, odrzucając dotychczasowe koncepcje, które sprowadził do trzech pojęć:
wszechmocny władca,
bezlitosny twórca reguł pierwszych,
motor pierwszy.Opowiedział się za ideą Boga – Miłości.
Wikipedia
„Cywilizacja rozwija się przez wzrost liczby operacji, które możemy wykonywać bez myślenia o nich.”
Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. (ang.)
Źródło: An introduction to mathematics http://books.google.pl/books?id=w9KPBXdtXskC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false, Forgotten Books, 1924, s. 61.
„Elektrony nie istnieją jak stoły czy krzesła, lecz jak melodia.”
Źródło: Michał Heller, Wszechświat u schyłku stulecia, Znak 1994, s. 34.
Religion in the Making (February 1926), Lecture IV: "Truth and Criticism" http://www.mountainman.com.au/whiteh_4.htm.
1920s
“One side makes process ultimate; the other side makes fact ultimate.”
Pt. I, ch. 1, sec. 2.
1920s, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
Kontekst: In all philosophic theory there is an ultimate which is actual in virtue of its accidents. It is only then capable of characterization through its accidental embodiments, and apart from these accidents is devoid of actuality. In the philosophy of organism this ultimate is termed creativity; and God] is its primordial, non-temporal accident. In [[monistic philosophies, Spinoza's or absolute idealism, this ultimate is God, who is also equivalently termed The Absolute. In such monistic schemes, the ultimate is illegitimately allowed a final, eminent reality, beyond that ascribed to any of its accidents. In this general position the philosophy of organism seems to approximate more to some strains of Indian, or Chinese, thought, than to western Asiatic, or European, thought. One side makes process ultimate; the other side makes fact ultimate.
“It lies in the nature of things that the many enter into complex unity.”
Pt. I, ch. 2, sec. 2.
1920s, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
Kontekst: Creativity is the universal of universals characterizing ultimate matter of fact. It is that ultimate principle by which the many, which are the universe disjunctively, become the one actual occasion, which is the universe conjunctively. It lies in the nature of things that the many enter into complex unity.
1920s, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
Kontekst: In the inescapable flux, there is something that abides; in the overwhelming permanence, there is an element that escapes into flux. Permanence can be snatched only out of flux; and the passing moment can find its adequate intensity only by its submission to permanence.
“Seek simplicity and distrust it.”
The Concept of Nature (1919), Chapter VII, p.143 http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18835/18835-h/18835-h.htm#CHAPTER_VII.
1910s
Kontekst: 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."
“Philosophy is the self-correction by consciousness of its own initial excess of subjectivity.”
Pt. I, ch. 1, sec. 6.
1920s, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
Kontekst: Philosophy is the self-correction by consciousness of its own initial excess of subjectivity. Each actual occasion contributes to the circumstances of its origin additional formative elements deepening its own peculiar individuality. Consciousness is only the last and greatest of such elements by which the selective character of the individual obscures the external totality from which it originates and which it embodies. An actual individual, of such higher grade, has truck with the totality of things by reason of its sheer actuality; but it has attained its individual depth of being by a selective emphasis limited to its own purposes. The task of philosophy is to recover the totality obscured by the selection.
“The mentality of mankind and the language of mankind created each other.”
Modes of Thought (1938).
1930s
Kontekst: 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.
“The vitality of thought is in adventure. Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them.”
Źródło: Attributed from posthumous publications, Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead (1954), p. 100; Ch. 12, April 28, 1938.
Kontekst: The vitality of thought is in adventure. Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them. When the idea is new, its custodians have fervor, live for it, and, if need be, die for it.
“Knowledge does not keep any better than fish.”
1920s, The Aims of Education (1929)
Kontekst: For successful education there must always be a certain freshness in the knowledge dealt with. It must be either new in itself or invested with some novelty of application to the new world of new times. Knowledge does not keep any better than fish. You may be dealing with knowledge of the old species, with some old truth; but somehow it must come to the students, as it were, just drawn out of the sea and with the freshness of its immediate importance.
“It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.”
Preface (p. 4)
1920s, Science and the Modern World (1925)
Źródło: Attributed from posthumous publications, Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead (1954), Ch. 29, June 10, 1943.
“The art of progress is to preserve order amid change, and to preserve change amid order.”
1920s, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
“The rhythm is then the life, in the sense in which it can be said to be included within nature.”
1910s, The Principles of Natural Knowledge (1919)
1920s, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
“Rationalism is an adventure in the clarification of thought.”
Pt. I, ch. 1, sec. 3.
1920s, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
Źródło: 1920s, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929), p. 259.
Variant: It is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true. This statement is almost a tautology. For the energy of operation of a proposition in an occasion of experience is its interest, and its importance. But of course a true proposition is more apt to be interesting than a false one.
As extended upon in Adventures of Ideas (1933), Pt. 4, Ch. 16.
Kontekst: Some philosophers fail to distinguish propositions from judgments; … But in the real world it is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true. The importance of truth is that it adds to interest.
“In all philosophic theory there is an ultimate which is actual in virtue of its accidents.”
Pt. I, ch. 1, sec. 2.
1920s, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
Kontekst: In all philosophic theory there is an ultimate which is actual in virtue of its accidents. It is only then capable of characterization through its accidental embodiments, and apart from these accidents is devoid of actuality. In the philosophy of organism this ultimate is termed creativity; and God] is its primordial, non-temporal accident. In [[monistic philosophies, Spinoza's or absolute idealism, this ultimate is God, who is also equivalently termed The Absolute. In such monistic schemes, the ultimate is illegitimately allowed a final, eminent reality, beyond that ascribed to any of its accidents. In this general position the philosophy of organism seems to approximate more to some strains of Indian, or Chinese, thought, than to western Asiatic, or European, thought. One side makes process ultimate; the other side makes fact ultimate.
Pt. I, ch. 1, sec. 6.
1920s, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
Kontekst: Philosophy is the self-correction by consciousness of its own initial excess of subjectivity. Each actual occasion contributes to the circumstances of its origin additional formative elements deepening its own peculiar individuality. Consciousness is only the last and greatest of such elements by which the selective character of the individual obscures the external totality from which it originates and which it embodies. An actual individual, of such higher grade, has truck with the totality of things by reason of its sheer actuality; but it has attained its individual depth of being by a selective emphasis limited to its own purposes. The task of philosophy is to recover the totality obscured by the selection.
Źródło: 1920s, Science and the Modern World (1925), Ch. 1: "The Origins of Modern Science"
Kontekst: More and more it is becoming evident that what the West can most readily give to the East is its science and its scientific outlook. This is transferable from country to country, and from race to race, wherever there is a rational society.
“The universities are schools of education, and schools of research.”
1920s, The Aims of Education (1929)
Kontekst: The universities are schools of education, and schools of research. But the primary reason for their existence is not to be found either in the mere knowledge conveyed to the students or in the mere opportunities for research afforded to the members of the faculty. Both these functions could be performed at a cheaper rate, apart from these very expensive institutions. Books are cheap, and the system of apprenticeship is well understood. So far as the mere imparting of information is concerned, no university has had any justification for existence since the popularization of printing in the fifteenth century. Yet the chief impetus to the foundation of universities came after that date, and in more recent times has even increased. The justification for a university is that it preserves the connection between knowledge and the zest of life, by uniting the young and the old in the imaginative consideration of learning.
Źródło: 1930s, Adventures of Ideas (1933), p. 91.
Kontekst: In the study of ideas, it is necessary to remember that insistence on hard-headed clarity issues from sentimental feeling, as if it were a mist, cloaking the perplexities of fact. Insistence on clarity at all costs is based on sheer superstition as to the mode in which human intelligence functions. Our reasoning grasps at straws for premises and float on gossamer for deductions.
“Ninety percent of our lives is governed by emotion.”
Źródło: Attributed from posthumous publications, Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead (1954), Ch. 29, June 10, 1943.
Kontekst: Ninety percent of our lives is governed by emotion. Our brains merely register and act upon what is telegraphed to them by our bodily experience. Intellect is to emotion as our clothes are to our bodies; we could not very well have civilized life without clothes, but we would be in a poor way if we had only clothes without bodies.
Pt. I, ch. 1, sec. 6.
1920s, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
Kontekst: Philosophy finds religion, and modifies it; and conversely religion is among the data of experience which philosophy must weave into its own scheme. Religion is an ultimate craving to infuse into the insistent particularity of emotion that non-temporal generality which primarily belongs to conceptual thought alone. In the higher organisms the differences of tempo between the mere emotions and the conceptual experiences produce a life-tedium, unless this supreme fusion has been effected. The two sides of the organism require a reconciliation in which emotional experiences illustrate a conceptual justification, and conceptual experiences find an emotional illustration.
1920s, The Aims of Education (1929)
Kontekst: The universities are schools of education, and schools of research. But the primary reason for their existence is not to be found either in the mere knowledge conveyed to the students or in the mere opportunities for research afforded to the members of the faculty. Both these functions could be performed at a cheaper rate, apart from these very expensive institutions. Books are cheap, and the system of apprenticeship is well understood. So far as the mere imparting of information is concerned, no university has had any justification for existence since the popularization of printing in the fifteenth century. Yet the chief impetus to the foundation of universities came after that date, and in more recent times has even increased. The justification for a university is that it preserves the connection between knowledge and the zest of life, by uniting the young and the old in the imaginative consideration of learning.
The Concept of Nature (1919), Chapter VII, p.143 http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18835/18835-h/18835-h.htm#CHAPTER_VII.
1910s
Kontekst: 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)
Kontekst: 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.
Źródło: 1920s, Science and the Modern World (1925), Ch. 1: "The Origins of Modern Science"
Kontekst: 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.
