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Topoi (2015) 34:297305DOI 10.1007/s11245-013-9161-3
Alfred North Whiteheads Process and Reality
Peter Simons
Published online: 24 April 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
Charles W. Dement (19532005) in memoriam
That low man seeks a little thing to do, Sees it and does it:This high man, with a great thing to pursue, Dies ere he knows it.
Robert Browning
1 Introduction
This book has good claims to be the greatest metaphysical treatise for many years, certainly since the beginning of the twentieth century. Process and Reality: A Study in Cosmology (hereafter: PR) is based on the Gifford Lectures that Whitehead gave in Edinburgh a few years ago. It is Whiteheads foremost philosophical work and for importance its only peer among his works is the very different Principia Mathematica, co-authored of course with his former student Mr. Bertrand Russell. Remarkably, Professor Whitehead has been a professional philosopher for only a little over 5 years, yet this book clearly marks the culmination of his transformation from mathematician to metaphysician. That journey has taken more than 20 years: it began with his Royal Society memoir On Mathematical Concepts of the Material World and progressed through the natural philosophy of An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge, The Concept of Nature, and Science and the Modern World, to this work. It is rapidly emerging as the undisputed chef doeuvre of what is becoming known as process philosophy, and Whitehead the principal prophet of that genre. Its admirers in North America and continental Europe defend it with a devotion
that in some cases borders on the fanatical, while its detractors, principally from the new analytical tradition, and led as in so many things by Mr. Russell, consider Whiteheads most recent work obscure, confused, woolly and mystical, not worth the effort of reading or trying to understand. We shall take issue with both extremes.
We must rst say something about the text. PR is long, rich, and difcult, and it gives up its secrets only through dogged persistence. It comes in ve parts: I, The Speculative Scheme; II, Discussions and Applications; III, The Theory of Prehensions; IV, The Theory of Extension; V, Final Interpretation. Of these I and V are excessively compressed, while II and III are overly expansive. IV seems...