The Function of Reason

by Alfred North Whitehead

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Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Science, Evolution

Paperback

First published January 1, 1929

About the author

Alfred North Whitehead, OM FRS (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 (1910–13), which he co-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 was fundamentally constructed by events rather than substances, and that these events cannot be defined apart from their relations to other events, thus rejecting the theory of independently existing substances. 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.

Isabelle Stengers wrote that "Whiteheadians are recruited among both philosophers and theologians, and the palette has been enriched by practitioners from the most diverse horizons, from ecology to feminism, practices that unite political struggle and spirituality with the sciences of education." Indeed, in recent decades attention to Whitehead's work has become more widespread, with interest extending to intellectuals in Europe and China, and coming from such diverse fields as ecology, physics, biology, education, economics, and psychology. However, it was not until the 1970s and 1980s that Whitehead's thought drew much attention outside of a small group of American philosophers and theologians, and even today he is not considered especially influential outside of relatively specialized circles.

In recent years, Whiteheadian thought has become a stimulating influence in scientific research.

In physics particularly, Whitehead's thought has been influential, articulating a rival doctrine to Albert Einstein's general relativity. Whitehead's theory of gravitation continues to be controversial. Even Yutaka Tanaka, who suggests that the gravitational constant disagrees with experimental findings, admits that Einstein's work does not actually refute Whitehead's formulation. Also, although Whitehead himself gave only secondary consideration to quantum theory, his metaphysics of events has proved attractive to physicists in that field. Henry Stapp and David Bohm are among those whose work has been influenced by Whitehead.

Whitehead is widely known for his influence in education theory. His philosophy inspired the formation of the Association for Process Philosophy of Education (APPE), which published eleven volumes of a journal titled Process Papers on process philosophy and education from 1996 to 2008. Whitehead's theories on education also led to the formation of new modes of learning and new models of teaching.

Reviews

[Peiman E iran · Rating 2 out of 5]

‎دوستانِ گرانقدر، <وایت هد> در این کتاب به موضوع واقعیت و حقیقت پرداخته است. البته بسیار موضوع را پیچیده بیان کرده است
‎در کلیدی ترین اظهارِ نظرِ خود، اینگونه مینویسد که: پایهٔ همهٔ قدرتها، برتریِ واقعیت بر فکر است. با اینحال این تضاد بینِ واقعیت و فکر را، میتوان سفسطه پنداشت. زیرا فکر در امرِ تجربه، خود نیز یک عامل است.. لذا واقعیت بدون واسطه، آن چیزی است که میباشد و این تا اندازه ای به علتِ فکری است که واقعیت را فراگرفته است
‎واقعیت ها تفسیرِ وقایع هستند و تفسیر بر پایهٔ یک رشته علایقِ قبلی، که مناسبتِ واقعه را تشکیل میدهد، استوار است... پس مسئلهٔ قطعی این است که باید از علاقه ها و اینکه این علاقه ها مناسبتِ واقعیت ها را معلوم میکنند، آگاه بود
‎باید بدانیم که انتخابِ چند واقعه به عنوانِ کلِ واقعیت ها، عاملی است که بر رویِ خود ما نیز تأثیر میگذارد
-----------------------------------------------
‎امیدوارم مفید بوده باشه
‎<پیروز باشید و ایرانی>

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pernicious teleology permeates our world today and Whitehead defends it in these lectures from 1929 which are no longer than an obnoxious Hollywood Blockbuster would be. I prefer thought to action and would recommend this lecture over blowing up people on the screen.

Whitehead doesn't like Scientific Materialism and does a very good job at defending a scientific realism position. According to him, our world is understandable in the domain of applicability for which it is under consideration and Whitehead will sneak in 'emergent properties' concepts which just magically appear from earlier foundations, and the abstract comes before the real, and science progresses towards truth. He'll mention that Einstein's General Theory is an improvement and an extension to Newton's not a replacement. He predates Willard van Orman Quine in realizing how knowledge must fall in the current web of understanding and that determines how we understand a fact. Our truths must be consistent within the domain of applicability as well as between domains, and we need to understand all of the parts before we can understand the particular, he will say.

He takes evolution by natural selection to illustrate his brand of teleology. He says, we desire to live, live well, and to live better as individuals and as a species thus leading to a purpose with a direction. As for me, teleology with in science is always dangerous and gives mystics and crackpots too much potential credence.

Einstein started his career as an anti-realist and ended it as a realist. Hidden variables had to exist in Einstein's world view in order to explain quantum effects and now days we know spooky action at a distance is real and there are no hidden variables. Most people today fall into the bromides of Whitehead's world view but don't understand the contradictions that they entail. Whitehead has a 'pragmatist' streak of a William James running through the lecture also. The 'concept', the thing in the mind becomes real and useful (pragmatic), or 'the word becomes the thing', or 'the subject becomes the object', or 'the actual becomes the perceived'. As for me, the world worlds and as usual it is up to us to find our place any way we know how, but our abstract always resides only within us.

I have no problem whatsoever in recommending a lecture or a book that disagrees with most of what I believe when it is presented as splendidly as these lectures. I love different perspectives when they are argued persuasively.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are several great ideas in this book. The main one goes back to Kant and his “Critique of Judgment” - mechanical vs. teleological determinism. Another one is that sciences, with their extremely successful mechanical explanations, forgot their boundaries and the imperative of considering all existing evidence; while they more and more infringed on all other human activities and turned dogmatic. I also liked the respect that the author showed for the Greeks – especially for their abstract, free, metaphysical, speculative - but at the same time - rigorous and systematic thinking.

[Aung Sett Kyaw Min · Rating 2 out of 5]

If the trajectory of our material cosmos is characterized by slow-oozing entropic decomposition, then how do we account for the increasing complexity of life across a development that spans eons? Whitehead's answer is that basically there is a counter-tendency at work that seeks to enhance and increase the quality of life beyond what is executed by a method, i.e. Reason.
REASON is a synthesis of theoretical reflection (Speculative Reason), which serves only itself and operates as a regulative principle, and practical activity (Practical Reason) which is subordinated to some other end.
Apart from the slipperiness of some of the key terms and the superflous distinctions made between them, this is a tidy presentation of the function of Reason as the "promotion of the art of life".
Looking forward to reading Whitehead's substantive works soon.

[Wais · Rating 3 out of 5]

Requires homework

[David Top · Rating 5 out of 5]

A deep 3 lecture series on reason where he expands on the notion of logical speculation drawing from history, philosophy, physics and biology.

“The secret of progress [in societies and human development] is the speculative interest in the abstract schemes of morphology.”

Although I don't understand everything of these lectures, they certainly have expanded my understanding of reason and the novelty of ideas.

[Matthew · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ugh. I was hoping for much more from this, but Whitehead goes round in circles here, and never really makes any strong points.

[Sophie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The function of Reason : To promote the art of life.

2 Types of Reasons :
- Pratical : characterized by Ulysses, focused on methodology and results
- Speculative : characterized by Plato, concerned only by itself, is its own end and is about finality (in an ultimate way)

Reason is used to :
1 - Live (Survival)
2 - Live well (Improve survival)
3 - Live better (Beyond survival)

Fatigue is the antithesis of Reason. It is the return to the ways of custom (Rhythm), short term goals (Transience) and relapse (Blindness to novelty).

There is 2 universal trends in the universe :
- Downward : Entropy, Chaos
- Upward : Evolution, Order

Reason as an adjusted search for purpose is a pragmatism and is against a naive rationalism.

The theory of evolution does not explain the trend of increasing complexity in organisms
A pebble or a cockroach survives much better than a horse or a human.
The pragmatic and finalist function of the reason explains it well.

Reason judges the significant glimpses of novelty it perceives
Reason is the organ of emphasis of novelty :

In the animal body, we can observe the appetition towards the upward trend, with Reason as the selective agency. P. 24

Whitehead wants to reintroduce finalism into the world, removed by modern science.
He heavily criticizes scientific materialism and most scientists as obscurantists and dogmatists.
Scientists are the new clergy :

Science has always suffered from the vice of overstatement. In this way conclusions true within strict limitations have been generalized dogmatically into a fallacious universality. P. 27

Large sections of the clergy were the standing examples of obscurantism. Today their place has been taken by scientists. Today scientific methods are dominant, and scientists are the obscurantists. Pp. 43-44

He wants to bring up a new cosmology intertwining causal efficacy and causal finality.
This is the intertwining of the 2 types of Reason : speculative and pratical.

In the last chapter, speculative Reason becomes the plane to flight above the world with the necessity to land again on it with new insights : Novelty.

To this end, he wants to reintroduce speculation into science and philosophy as the transcendance of methodology. Thus is born again the very important concept of speculative philosophy into Whitehead's thought.
But he wants to do it with proper limitations. Speculation can, as the common meaning suggests, be unproductive or foolish.
It must always stay in the realm of adequacy with experiences of the real world. To this end :

The proper satisfaction to be derived from speculative thought is elucidation. It is for this reason that fact is supreme over thought. P.80

Thus, speculative Reason disciplined by practical Reason calls for progress: it allows novelty.
Nothing is stable. Everything follows a downward trend that we must counter with an upward trend.

Our experience shows us an appetition, with final causation for ideal ends, apart from physical tendencies :

But mere blind appetition would be the product of chance and could lead nowhere. In our experience, we find Reason and speculative imagination. There is a discrimination of appetitions according to a rule of fitness. This reign of Reason is vacillating, vague, and
dim. But it is there. Pp. 89-90 (End of the book)

[Rasmus Tillander · Rating 4 out of 5]

Miksi pelkkä tiede ei riitä maailmankuvaksi?

Tämä on kysymys johon filosofi ja matemaatikko Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) pyrkii vastaamaan luennoillaan, jotka on koottu The Function of Reason -kirjaksi. Kirja lähtee ajatuksesta, että järki on elämisen taitoa - kolmiportaisesti sen tulee auttaa meitä elämään, elämään hyvin ja elämään paremmin.

Järkeä on Whiteheadin mukaan kahdenlaista: spekulatiivista ja käytännöllistä. Käytännöllisellä järjellä hän tarkoittaa toimintaa jonkun tietyn skeeman, esimerkiksi tieteellisen metodin tai shakin sääntöjen, sisällä. Spekulatiivisella järjellä taas jotain mikä ylittää käytännöllisen järjen rajat ja luo jotain uutta: kuviteltuja ideaaleja, jotka voidaan laittaa käytäntöön. Klassinen "tiede ei voi vahvistaa, että tiede toimii tieteen sääntöjen sisällä" -päätelmä on Whiteheadin mukaan totta; tarvitaan siis unelmointia, filosofiaa ja visioita. Whiteheadille koko ihmiskunnan historia on prosessi, jossa välillä ylitetään käytännöllisen järjen rajat, välillä mennään jopa vähän yli ja välillä taas jumitetaan samojen rajojen sisällä iankaikkisuuksia. Mutta tämä kuuluu asiaan: meidän on välttettävä sekä käytännöllisellä järjellä estelijät että spekulaatioilla huijaavat. Whitehead ajatteli, että vuonna 1929 tiedemiehet olivat estelijöitä, samoin kuin papisto tätä ennen. Tämä johtui siitä, että nämä ajattelivat tieteen, erityisesti fysiikan ja biologian, voivan selittää kaiken vetoamatta minkäänlaiseen tavoitteellisuuteen. Whiteheadin mielestä tämä oli puhdasta ylimielisyyttä: suurin osa inhimillisestä toiminnasta liittyy juuri ideaaleihin, eikä niitä listoilla sähkökemiasta tai selviytymisvaistolla selitetä.

Whiteheadin pragmaattinen tai prosessifilosofinen yleisesitys on edelleen hyvä skientiesmin ja positivismin kritiikki. Tekisi hyvää aika monelle "rationaaliselle" ihmiselle lukaista läpi tämä lyhyt kirjanen, säästyttäisiin paljolta typeryydeltä. Hauskaa myös, että tälläisiäkin vähän vaikeampia (mutta silti lähestyttäviä) tekstejä on alettu lukea äänikirjoiksi.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

IS THERE AN “UPWARD COURSE” IN BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION?

Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) was an English mathematician [he is credited as co-writer with Bertrand Russell of Principia Mathematica] and philosopher, best known for developing Process Philosophy. He wrote many other books such as 'Process and Reality,' 'Modes of Thought,' 'Religion in the Making,' etc.

He wrote in the Introductory Summary of this 1929 book, “History discloses two main tendencies in the course of events. One tendency is exemplified in the slow decay of physical nature. With stealthy inevitableness, there is degradation of energy. The sources of activity sink downward and downward. Their very matter wastes. The other tendency is exemplified by the yearly renewal of nature in the spring, and by the upward course of biological evolution. In these pages I consider Reason in its relation to these contrasted aspects of history. Reason is the self-discipline of the originative element in history. Apart from the operations of Reason this element is anarchic.”

He states in the first chapter, “I will start with a preliminary definition of the function of Reason, a definition to be illustrated, distorted, and enlarged, as this discussion proceeds. The function of Reason is to promote the art of life. In the interpretation of this definition, I must at once join issue with the evolutionist fallacy suggested by the phrase ‘the survival of the fittest.’ … the fallacy is the belief that fitness for survival is identical with the best exemplification of the Art of Life.” (Pg. 4)

He states, “I now state the thesis that the explanation of this active attack on the environment is a three-fold urge: (i) to live, (ii) to live well, (iii) to live better. In fact the art of life is first to be alive, secondly to be alive in a satisfactory way, and thirdly to acquire an increase in satisfaction. It is at this point of our argument that we have to recur to the function of Reason, namely the promotion of the art of life. The primary function of Reason is the direction of the attack on the environment… Reason is a factor in experience which directs and criticizes the urge towards the attainment of an end realized in imagination but not in fact.” (Pg. 8)

Later, he clarifies, “Provided that we admit the category of final causation, we can consistently define the primary function of Reason. This function is to constitute, emphasize, and criticize the final causes and strength of aims directed towards them.” (Pg. 26)

He asserts, “This pragmatic function of Reason provides the agency procuring the upward trend of animal evolution. But the doctrine of the upward trend equally requires explanation in the purely physical cosmos. Our scientific formulation of physics requires a limited universe in process of dissipation. We require a counter-agency to explain the existence of a universe in dissipation within a finite time… A satisfactory cosmology must explain the interweaving of efficient and of final causation… What we seek is such an explanation of the metaphysical nature of things that everything determinable by efficient causation is thereby determined, and that everything determined by final causation is thereby determined. The two spheres of operation should be interwoven and required, each by the other. But neither sphere should be arbitrarily limit the scope of the alternative mode.” (Pg. 28)

He points out, “If we follow Descartes and express this duality in terms of the concept of substance, we obtain the notion of bodily substances and of mental substances. The bodily substances… are sheer facts, devoid of all intrinsic values. It is intrinsically impossible to give any reason why they should come into existence, or should endure, or should cease to exist. Descartes tells us that they are sustained by God, but fails to give any reason why God should care to do so. This concept of vacuous substantial existence lacks all explanatory insight.” (Pg. 29-30)

He observes, “When mentality is working at a high level, it brings novelty into the appetitions of mental experience. In this function, there is a sheer element of anarchy. But mentality now becomes self-regulative… It introduces a higher appetition which discriminates among its own anarchic productions… Reason civilizes the brute force or anarchic appetition… Reason is the special embodiment in us of the disciplined counter-agency which saves the world.” (Pg. 34)

He asserts, “For it scientific materialism be the last word, metaphysics must be useless for physical science. The ultimate truths about nature are then not capable of any explanatory interpretation. On this theory, all that there is to be known is that inexplicable bits of matter are hurrying about with their motions correlated by inexplicable laws expressible in terms of their spatial relations to each other. If this be the final dogmatic truth, philosophy can have nothing to say to natural science.” (Pg. 49-50)

He begins the third chapter with the statement, “The speculative Reason is in its essence untrammeled by method. Its function is to pierce into the general reasons beyond limited reasons, to understand all methods as coordinated in a nature of things only to be grasped by transcending all method. This infinite ideal is never to be attained by the bounded intelligence of mankind. But what distinguishes men from the animals, some humans from other humans, is the inclusion in their natures… of a disturbing element, which is the flight after the unattainable.” (Pg. 65)

He summarizes, “The basis of all authority is the supremacy of fact over thought… [This] means that even the utmost flight of speculative thought should have its measure of truth… The proper satisfaction to be derived from speculative thought is elucidation. It is for this reason that fact is supreme over thought. This supremacy is the basis of authority.” (Pg. 80)

He concludes, “there is in nature some tendency upwards, in a contrary direction to the aspect of physical decay… The appetition towards esthetic satisfaction by some enjoyment of beauty is equally outside the mere physical order… In our experience, we find Reason and speculative imagination. There is a discrimination of appetitions according to a role of fitness. This reign of Reason is vacillating, vague, and dim. But it is there. We have thus some knowledge, in a form specialized to the special aptitudes of human beings---we have some knowledge of that counter-tendency which converts the decay of one order into the birth of its successor.” (Pg. 89-90)

This is one of Whitehead’s most interesting works, and will be of great interest to anyone studying his philosophy.

[Ethan Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whitehead usually strikes me as an exceptionally clear thinker and writer, and as one who familiarized himself with as much as can be expected of an individual with the most basic justifications of the various sciences. As a result, he was as little at the mercy of institutional authority as an individual can expect to be. In this set of three lectures, he examines, from three different angles, the relationship between theoretical and practical reason. I most enjoyed the final lecture where he describes the relationship between methods of thinking that become embodied in authoritative institutions (in a college faculty for example) and the speculative transcending of established methods that can produce nonsense as easily as revolutionary breakthroughs. Many of his thoughts, for instance, on the unstable relation between immediate observation and the evidence necessary to validate some theory, anticipate ideas I usually associate with Kuhn and Polanyi. This is short and worth reading.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s not anti-science, but says there’s more to reason (thinking about thinking) than scientific methods and methodology. At least that was my take away. I’m still trying to turn off my mental Richard Dawkins to wrap my head around it.

After further thought, I’m increasing my rating. I’m ready to go down the road with him to discover what more we can do. I reached a point of rejecting his thesis out of hand, but couldn’t articulate why. More doesn’t diminish science; more doesn’t mean we believe in magic, but it means more. Ok, I’m in to look into this idea.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

A brief and breezy (for Whitehead) set of lectures published in 1929, on the vital importance of reason in articulating and guiding an urge in nature to life, to living well, and to living better. Reason and purpose then are exhibited in nature every bit as much as mechanism and efficient causation--and the problem for the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is to find our way through and beyond a mindset that denies this common fact of experience in the name of "science."

[Timo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really important ideas about the introduction of Teleology back into evolution...will read again (it's short) and perhaps expand this review.

[Scott Andrews · Rating 4 out of 5]

to live
to live well
to live better

[Nathanael Greene Slater · Rating 5 out of 5]

easy, deep, and vast

[Narendra · Rating 5 out of 5]

don't judge a book by the number of pages . a must read .

[Shahram Moosavi · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best!

Absolutely the best book! I highly recommend this book who likes to bridge gap between science and philosophy! What a brilliant guy!

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

North!

[Sarbajit Ghosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

The tendency to move "upward" was a brilliantly novel idea (novel based on Whiteheads construction)

[Liedzeit Liedzeit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sie besteht darin, "die Zweckursachen und die Stärke des auf sie gerichteten Strebens zu konstituieren, zu artikulieren und zu kritisieren". (S. 25)

Und es gibt die Vernunft "über kurze Distanz", das ist die Vernunft des Odysseus und die spekulative Vernunft Platos. Wobei erstere sich über Millionen von Jahren entwickelt hat, letztere in den letzten 6000 Jahren.

Am interessantesten der dritte Teil, in dem Whitehead das Loblied der spekulativen Vernunft singt. Aber nicht ohne Einschränkungen. "So haben z.B. die Griechen und die mittelalterlichen Denker gemeint, dass es einfach wäre klare und exakte Prämissen zu finden, die mit der Erfahrung übereinstimmen; und so haben sie denn ziemlich wenig Energie auf die Kritik ihrer Prämissen verwendet..." (S. 55) "Ich dagegen meine, dass hier überhaupt nichts einfach ist. [...] Solange es kein vollständiges metaphysisches Verstehen des Universums gibt, ist es äußerst schwierig, irgendeinen Satz so klar zu erfassen, dass man zu einer hinreichend vollständigen analytischen Zerlegung in seine Bestandteile kommen könnte." (S. 56)


Und: "Der entscheidene Punkt bleibt in jedem Fall, dass die Entwicklung abstrakter Theorien, dem Verständnis der Tatsachen vorausgeht." (S. 61) Und daraus folgt etwa: "Wer keine Vorstellung von der Zahl hat, wird nie zählen." (S. 59) Sehr erfrischend. Man verfasse dazu einen Besinnungsaufsatz!

Die Geschichte Europas zeige "dass es abstrakte Spekulationen gewesen sind, die die Welt gerettet und vorangebracht hat." - "Wer der Spekulation Grenzen ziehen will, begeht Verrat an der Zukunft." (S. 62)

Das alles haben wir natürlich den Griechen zu verdanken. Würde sich heute auch keiner mehr trauen, das so uneingeschränkt zu sagen, und um es ganz klar zu machen, sagt er auch noch, dass die großen asiatischen Zivilisationen in kontemplativen Einstellungen verharrten und Ideen statisch wurden. (S. 59)

"Was wie Stabilität aussieht, ist ein relativ langsamer Prozeß der Atrophie und desVerfalls." (S. 67)

[Mitch Olson · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the most important but unappreciated philosophers of all time. This book is about the limits of science and scientific-rational thinking. On the need for our openness to "speculative reason" to always be able to overcome the dogma of the day. In the same way that the "speculative reason" of science overcame some the dogma of institutionalised religion, we must open ourselves for new "speculative reason" to overcome the dogma of scientific materialism.

The reductionalism and materialism of science and how this has infected and limited the invisible and unquestioned beliefs of our day (eg. liberalism without responsibility or Darwinian evolution) places real and significant impediments to the future of humanity.

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Add notes from my third reading:
The more I read this book the more I appreciate what an awesome thinker Whitehead was. Such a big thinker but also logical but open-minded. Poetic but based in logic and reason. Love this guy.

[Mike Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A classic that should be a 'must' for any library on philosophy. Short book that delves into reason as derived from Greek philosophical methodology.