Thursday, November 23, 2023

Alfred North Whitehead - Collection of Publications, Part 1



Alfred North Whitehead

Nationality: British

Description

Alfred North Whitehead (15 February 1861 – 30 December 1947) was an English mathematician and philosopher. He is best known as the defining figure of the philosophical school known as process philosophy, which today has found application to a wide variety of disciplines, including ecology, theology, education, physics, biology, economics, and psychology, among other areas.

In his early career Whitehead wrote primarily on mathematics, logic, and physics. His most notable work in these fields is the three-volume Principia Mathematica (1910–1913), which he wrote with former student Bertrand Russell. Principia Mathematica is considered one of the twentieth century's most important works in mathematical logic, and placed 23rd in a list of the top 100 English-language nonfiction books of the twentieth century by Modern Library.Beginning in the late 1910s and early 1920s, Whitehead gradually turned his attention from mathematics to philosophy of science, and finally to metaphysics. He developed a comprehensive metaphysical system which radically departed from most of western philosophy. Whitehead argued that reality consists of processes rather than material objects, and that processes are best defined by their relations with other processes, thus rejecting the theory that reality is fundamentally constructed by bits of matter that exist independently of one another. Today Whitehead's philosophical works – particularly Process and Reality – are regarded as the foundational texts of process philosophy.

Whitehead's process philosophy argues that "there is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have consequences for the world around us." For this reason, one of the most promising applications of Whitehead's thought in recent years has been in the area of ecological civilization and environmental ethics pioneered by John B. Cobb Jr.






Alfred North Whitehead's "Philosophy of Organism"
with Matthew D. Segall
by Dartington Trust
June 4, 2021   |   1:36:01

This talk introduces Alfred North Whitehead’s “Philosophy of Organism,” a novel metaphysical scheme that he articulated in the first half of the twentieth century not only as a protest against the lifeless Nature imagined by scientific materialism, but also as a rejection of the narrow linguistic analysis and sterile logical positivism of his philosophical contemporaries. His was an attempt to make natural science philosophical again by asking whether physical causes and motions need be so violently segregated from the conscious reasons and emotions by which we apprehend them. We will explore the major themes of his magnum opus, Process & Reality, wherein Whitehead attempts to construct an organic system of the universe that not only brings quantum and relativity theories into coherence, but gathers up scientific truths, aesthetic feelings, and religious values into an integral vision of reality. 
ABOUT THE SPEAKER 
Matthew D. Segall is a process philosopher whose research focuses on process-relational thought (especially Alfred North Whitehead) and German Idealism (especially Friedrich Schelling). He is an Assistant Professor in the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, CA (CIIS.edu). He has published articles on a wide-array of topics, including metaphysics, Gaia theory, religious studies, psychedelics, and architecture. He also blogs regularly at footnotes2plato.com. 
This talk is part of the Holistic Science programme at Schumacher College. Find out more about the programme and register for updates about the course: https://campus.dartington.org/study/courses/



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Alfred North Whitehead and James Haughton Woods


Alfred North Whitehead
and James Haughton Woods
George R. Lucas, Jr., our General Editor for the Critical Edition of Whitehead, recently completed an east coast crawl that included visits to several archives that held Whitehead-related papers. While combing through the Victor Lowe and Whitehead papers held at Johns Hopkins, he not only recovered numerous letters, photographs, and student notes, but also one item of special interest: Whitehead’s appointment book for 1924-26. This is an exciting resource for us to have as we are in the midst of editing student notes for 1925-27, as it gives us a better idea of when Whitehead met individually with students, when he met with other friends and colleagues, and explains some of his classroom absences.
In reviewing this appointment book, I noticed something interesting. For the fall of 1925, Whitehead wrote “Woods at 3-4” (or some variation thereof) for every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. James Haughton Woods (1864-1935) was the philosophy department chair, so it’s possible that these could have been departmental or private meetings, but it seems more likely that Whitehead was regularly attending one of Woods’ classes.
That semester, Woods co-taught a seminar on the history of philosophy, but if we assume that seminars were commonly once a week, the more likely class that Whitehead was attending was Woods’ “Philosophy 12: Early Greek philosophy, with especial reference to Plato.”
How much might Woods (who was an expert in Greek and Indian/Buddhist thought) have influenced Whitehead’s thought, particularly with regard to Plato and Buddhism? Lowe opined that Whitehead’s references to Buddhism in the Lowell lectures owed much to Woods (volume 2, p. 195), who was apparently Whitehead’s closest friend in the department.
From Lowe (volume 2, 137-138):
Woods, at fifty-nine, was the oldest of the tenured philosophers at Harvard. His teacher, William James, had suggested that he enter the field of Indian philosophy. He became expert in it, in Far Eastern thought, and in Greek philosophy. He is now forgotten because he published so little… He was intensely proud of the Harvard Philosophy Department, and raised money from outside sources to strengthen it. Woods was the one who got assurance from President Lowell that he would not veto Whitehead’s appointment on ground of age (as he had vetoed the offer of a professorship to John Dewey [Whitehead was only a year and a half younger than Dewey])… Whitehead felt more at ease with [Woods] than with anyone else in the Department… Woods helped him with everything, and for many years was his most valued colleague in the Philosophy Department.
Speaking of publishing little, Whitehead co-wrote a “Minute on the Life and Services of Professor James Haughton Woods” upon his death in 1935 for the Harvard University Gazette, the final paragraph of which reads:
It is inevitable that a man so extravagantly endowed should be imperfectly embodied in his published works. The soil from which these sprang, their context of unused learning, their surrounding and sustaining medium of experience and sensitive discernment, are perpetuated in what he gave during his life to his students and friends, and in the grateful love which this giving inspired.
We may never know the extent to which Whitehead’s thought on Plato was influenced by what he heard in Woods’ lectures. Unless someone later digs up notes from Woods’ classes in the same way that we’ve dug up notes for Whitehead’s, we have no points of comparison. But this recent discovery is a good reminder that Whitehead’s philosophy, as startlingly original as it is, did not emerge out of a vacuum, with Woods being only the latest example of a largely overlooked influence to whom Whitehead may have owed an intellectual debt.

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How to cite this blog: Petek, Joseph. “Whitehead and James Haughton Woods.” whiteheadresearch.org: 


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Online Books by

Alfred North Whitehead

(Whitehead, Alfred North, 1861-1947)

An online book about this author is available, as is a Wikipedia article.

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Additional books from the extended shelves:



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Alfred North Whitehead -
Collection of Publications
Part 1
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