Whitehead's Radically Different Postmodern Philosophy

Whitehead's Radically Different Postmodern Philosophy
Author: David Ray Griffin
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 318
Release: 2012-02-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0791480305

Postmodern philosophy is often dismissed as unintelligible, self-contradictory, and as a passing fad with no contribution to make to the problems faced by philosophers in our time. While this characterization may be true of the type of philosophy labeled postmodern in the 1980s and 1990s, David Ray Griffin argues that Alfred North Whitehead had formulated a radically different type of postmodern philosophy to which these criticisms do not apply. Griffin shows the power of Whitehead's philosophy in dealing with a range of contemporary issues—the mind-body relation, ecological ethics, truth as correspondence, the relation of time in physics to the (irreversible) time of our lives, and the reality of moral norms. He also defends a distinctive dimension of Whitehead's postmodernism, his theism, against various criticisms, including the charge that it is incompatible with relativity theory.

The Relevance of Whitehead

The Relevance of Whitehead
Author: Ivor Leclerc
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 382
Release: 2014-06-03
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1317852117

This is Volume X of seventeen in a collection on Metaphysics. Originally published in 1994, this text looks at the relevance of Alfred North Whitehead with a collection of philosophical essays on his ideas. He was a scientist-a mathematician and physicist. Then, on the eve of his retirement as professor of applied mathematics in the University of London, at the age of 63, he commenced his second career, as professor of philosophy in Harvard University.

Whitehead's Metaphysics of Extension and Solidarity

Whitehead's Metaphysics of Extension and Solidarity
Author: Jorge Luis Nobo
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 466
Release: 1986-06-30
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1438414803

At the base of Whitehead's philosophy of organism is a vision of the solidarity of all final actualities. Each actuality is a discrete individual enjoying autonomous self-determination, yet each also requires all other actualities as essential components and partial determinants of its own nature. This vision of universal solidarity, Nobo demonstrates, is the fundamental metaphysical thesis whose truth the categories and principles of Whitehead's philosophy were expressly designed to elucidate. The received interpretations of Whitehead's thought, Nobo shows, have ignored the mutual relevance of the solidarity thesis and the organic categoreal scheme and, for that reason, have grossly misrepresented many of Whitehead's most important metaphysical doctrines. Contending that the difficult tasks of interpreting and developing Whitehead's metaphysics presuppose an understanding of the solidarity thesis, Nobo explores that thesis and the metaphysical categories and principles most relevant to its elucidation. In the process, he not only corrects many misinterpretations but also develops important metaphysical doctrines that Whitehead neglected to make sufficiently explicit in his published writings. It is precisely in terms of the neglected doctrine of eternal extensive continuity, Nobo demonstrates, that the more puzzling aspects of the solidarity thesis are satisfactorily explained. He then shows that the extensional solidarity of all final actualities is an essential ingredient of the generalized conception of experience on which Whitehead builds his ontology, cosmology, and epistemology.

Principia Mathematica

Principia Mathematica
Author: Alfred North Whitehead
Publisher:
Total Pages: 688
Release: 1910
Genre: Logic, Symbolic and mathematical
ISBN:

An Introduction to Mathematics

An Introduction to Mathematics
Author: Alfred North Whitehead
Publisher: Courier Dover Publications
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2017-05-04
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0486821382

Concise volume for general students by prominent philosopher and mathematician explains what math is and does, and how mathematicians do it. "Lucid and cogent ... should delight you." — The New York Times. 1911 edition.

The Relevance of Whitehead

The Relevance of Whitehead
Author: Ivor Leclerc
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 392
Release: 2014-06-03
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1317852109

This is Volume X of seventeen in a collection on Metaphysics. Originally published in 1994, this text looks at the relevance of Alfred North Whitehead with a collection of philosophical essays on his ideas. He was a scientist-a mathematician and physicist. Then, on the eve of his retirement as professor of applied mathematics in the University of London, at the age of 63, he commenced his second career, as professor of philosophy in Harvard University.

The Quantum of Explanation

The Quantum of Explanation
Author: Randall E. Auxier
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2017-03-31
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1351792482

The Quantum of Explanation advances a bold new theory of how explanation ought to be understood in philosophical and cosmological inquiries. Using a complete interpretation of Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophical and mathematical writings and an interpretive structure that is essentially new, Auxier and Herstein argue that Whitehead has never been properly understood, nor has the depth and breadth of his contribution to the human search for knowledge been assimilated by his successors. This important book effectively applies Whitehead’s philosophy to problems in the interpretation of science, empirical knowledge, and nature. It develops a new account of philosophical naturalism that will contribute to the current naturalism debate in both Analytic and Continental philosophy. Auxier and Herstein also draw attention to some of the most important differences between the process theology tradition and Whitehead’s thought, arguing in favor of a Whiteheadian naturalism that is more or less independent of theological concerns. This book offers a clear and comprehensive introduction to Whitehead’s philosophy and is an essential resource for students and scholars interested in American philosophy, the philosophy of mathematics and physics, and issues associated with naturalism, explanation and radical empiricism.

The Lure of Whitehead

The Lure of Whitehead
Author: Nicholas Gaskill
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 535
Release: 2014-10-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1452943214

Once largely ignored, the speculative philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead has assumed a new prominence in contemporary theory across the humanities and social sciences. Philosophers and artists, literary critics and social theorists, anthropologists and computer scientists have all embraced Whitehead’s thought, extending it through inquiries into the nature of life, the problem of consciousness, and the ontology of objects, as well as into experiments in education and digital media. The Lure of Whitehead offers readers not only a comprehensive introduction to Whitehead’s philosophy but also a demonstration of how his work advances our emerging understanding of life in the posthuman epoch. Contributors: Jeffrey A. Bell, Southeastern Louisiana U; Nathan Brown, U of California, Davis; Peter Canning; Didier Debaise, Free U of Brussels; Roland Faber, Claremont Lincoln U; Michael Halewood, U of Essex; Graham Harman, American U in Cairo; Bruno Latour, Sciences Po Paris; Erin Manning, Concordia U, Montreal; Steven Meyer, Washington U; Luciana Parisi, U of London; Keith Robinson, U of Arkansas at Little Rock; Isabelle Stengers, Free U of Brussels; James Williams, U of Dundee.

Aims of Education

Aims of Education
Author: Alfred North Whitehead
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 180
Release: 1967
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0029351804

Presents the texts of a series of lectures delivered between 1912 and 1928 on the purposes and practice of education.