Whitehead

Abstract

‘There can be no successful democratic society till general education conveys a philosophic outlook,’ declares Whitehead. We must accordingly consider first the philosophic outlook that general education should convey. Whitehead’s own philosophy of organism may be said to satisfy the need. It takes full account of modern scientific developments and is a remarkable contribution to the interpretation of reality from the contemporary standpoint. It is the only serious advance in metaphysics since German idealism more than a century before; Leclerc² even refers to it as ‘an analysis which surpasses in the extent of its detail and meticulous rigour anything which has so far been achieved in the entire history of philosophy’. This estimate is confirmed by the succession of commentaries which keeps appearing.

1861–1947. Works listed here are restricted to such as are available in soft covers. Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (New York: Harper and Row. Harper Torchbooks. The Academy Library, 1957); Science and the Modern World (New York: A Mentor Book, published by The New American Library, 1964); Adventures of Ideas (Pelican Books, 1948); The Interpretation of Science (New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc. A Liberal Arts Press Book, 1961); The Aims of Education (London: Ernest Benn Ltd., 1962). Commentaries: Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead as recorded by Lucien Price (London: Max Reinhardt, 1954); Victor Lowe, Understanding White- head (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1962); I. Leclerc, Whitehead’s Metaphysics: An Introductory Exposition (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1958); W. Mays, The Philosophy of Whitehead (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1959); William A. Christian, An Introduction to Whitehead’s Meta- physics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959); Harold B. Dunkel, Whitehead on Education (Ohio State University Press, 1965).