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.
Pt. V, ch. 1, sec. 1.
1920s, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
Kontekst: 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
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.
1920s, The Aims of Education (1929)
Kontekst: 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.
“The task of philosophy is to recover the totality obscured by the selection.”
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: 1910s, An Introduction to Mathematics (1911), ch. 5. <!-- pp. 41-42 -->
Kontekst: 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
Pt. II, ch. 1, sec. 1.
Źródło: 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.”
Źródło: 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)
Źródło: 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)
Źródło: Attributed from posthumous publications, Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead (1954), p. 135; Ch. 17, December 15, 1939.
“Every human being is the natural guardian of his own importance.”
Źródło: 1920s, Science and the Modern World (1925), Ch. 9: "Science and Philosophy"
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)
“A culture is in its finest flower before it begins to analyze itself.”
Źródło: Attributed from posthumous publications, Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead (1954), Ch. 22, August 17, 1941.
