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Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead
Philospher, mathematician & general man of science, Whitehead was a polymath whose interests & sympathies encompassed entire worlds. Here, modelled on Eckermann's conversations with Goethe & recorded in Whitehead's own home, are some of the landmarks, signposts, milestones & scenery of that extraordinary mind. His approach to life & science provides a compass for the modern world. In these pages the reaches of his thought--in philosophy, religion, science, statesmanship, education, literature, art & conduct of life--are gathered & edited by the writer Lucien Price, a journalist whose own interests were as eclectic as Whitehead's & whose memory for verbatim conversation was nothing short of miraculous. The scene, the Cambridge of Harvard from 1932-47 (with flashbacks to London, Cambridge, England & his native Ramsgate in Kent); the cast, often eminent men & women, who join him for these penetrating, audacious & exhilarating verbal forays. The subjects range from the homeliest details of living to the greatest ideas that have animated minds over the past 30 centuries. Featuring a new preface & an introduction--previously unavailable in this country--this book stands alongside Boswell's as a model of biography, shaped jointly by the acuity of the biographer & the genius of the subject. It also stands as an accessible monument to a mind that never stopped working, a man whose life & career no writer could have invented & no serious reader can afford to overlook.
400 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1956
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About the author
Alfred North Whitehead
118 books441 followersAlfred 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
September 5, 2011
Philosopher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead (he and Bertrand Russell were colleagues at Cambridge, working closely on the Mathematica Principia) had three lives--at Cambridge, which he entered in 1885,and stayed to teach for 20 years, then to London University, 1910-1924, and then, in 1924, when he was 63, he was invited to Harvard to teach philosophy, and generally to raise the level of intellectual culture at that institution, which had flagged for two decades preceding his arrival--the era of William James and George Santayana. (It was unknown for decades that a single couple, the Henry Osborn Taylors, paid for his professorship. My hat's off to that kind of philanthropy--instead of the kind that needs to slap its name on every building and hallway and stadium bench and left eyelash.)
This book is a record by a friend and colleague at Harvard, Lucien Price, of the intellectual life that went on in the Whitehead apartment in the Thirties and through World War II. (Whitehead and his wife were given rooms on campus, these weren't wealthy people, just educated ones). Just the level of conversation that went on at the dining room table!!! Your mouth drops open. And not just among professional intellectuals, but people like Whitehead's neighbors and random friends--a doctor's wife, a daughter in law! It shames us supposed intellectuals, who talk way too much about consumption, know and are interested in where to eat, what to buy, career maneuvering, did-you- see type of entertainment chat, and grousing about politics but not really discussing it on a highest level, not working in the things we actually do know about history and philosophy, just gossiping and showing off our latest iphone 'apps.' This book reminds us that its WE who need to smart, not our iphones and ipads.
What a challenge to the intellectual life, a sociable intellectual life. He lectured 3x a week, and integrated his students into his own social life. "More than professorial, this association was also personal. For thirteen years... one heard of 'evenings at the Whiteheads'.' one night a week of open house to students, although anyone was welcome... they were asked to bring their girls... they came by the score, from sixty up to ninety-eight of an evening."
It's really a book about the art of conversation, which in our sad times is either painfully superficial (what to buy, where to eat), devolving into "Games People Play" ('school parents,' 'ain't it awful') This is the conversation that's an adventure, that no one knows where it will go and what great ideas will be revealed in its pursuit. The kind of conversation that makes you feel more alive after five hours than you did the whole week before. In these conversation, it's not Whitehead playing the Great Man, it's the way he inspires everybody else to think "up" to his level. Themes and counter-themes emerge, it's like chamber music in that respect. Price writes that "His use of language had such flavour of mathematical prcision, his command of English was so masterly, and the thinking itself so compact that moments would come when I listened with secret consternation: 'How can I retain all that?"
Reading these conversations, I was tremendously inspired to elevate the discourse among my own colleagues, friends and family. Talk is so precious when you really do it right, and we so let opportunities for interesting intellectual investigations fall either into banality or into arguments. We've lost the knack, but its worth relearning.
This book is a record by a friend and colleague at Harvard, Lucien Price, of the intellectual life that went on in the Whitehead apartment in the Thirties and through World War II. (Whitehead and his wife were given rooms on campus, these weren't wealthy people, just educated ones). Just the level of conversation that went on at the dining room table!!! Your mouth drops open. And not just among professional intellectuals, but people like Whitehead's neighbors and random friends--a doctor's wife, a daughter in law! It shames us supposed intellectuals, who talk way too much about consumption, know and are interested in where to eat, what to buy, career maneuvering, did-you- see type of entertainment chat, and grousing about politics but not really discussing it on a highest level, not working in the things we actually do know about history and philosophy, just gossiping and showing off our latest iphone 'apps.' This book reminds us that its WE who need to smart, not our iphones and ipads.
What a challenge to the intellectual life, a sociable intellectual life. He lectured 3x a week, and integrated his students into his own social life. "More than professorial, this association was also personal. For thirteen years... one heard of 'evenings at the Whiteheads'.' one night a week of open house to students, although anyone was welcome... they were asked to bring their girls... they came by the score, from sixty up to ninety-eight of an evening."
It's really a book about the art of conversation, which in our sad times is either painfully superficial (what to buy, where to eat), devolving into "Games People Play" ('school parents,' 'ain't it awful') This is the conversation that's an adventure, that no one knows where it will go and what great ideas will be revealed in its pursuit. The kind of conversation that makes you feel more alive after five hours than you did the whole week before. In these conversation, it's not Whitehead playing the Great Man, it's the way he inspires everybody else to think "up" to his level. Themes and counter-themes emerge, it's like chamber music in that respect. Price writes that "His use of language had such flavour of mathematical prcision, his command of English was so masterly, and the thinking itself so compact that moments would come when I listened with secret consternation: 'How can I retain all that?"
Reading these conversations, I was tremendously inspired to elevate the discourse among my own colleagues, friends and family. Talk is so precious when you really do it right, and we so let opportunities for interesting intellectual investigations fall either into banality or into arguments. We've lost the knack, but its worth relearning.
April 30, 2014
a wonderful book. a unique (as far as I know) glimpse into the more personal thoughts and events in the life of Alfred North Whitehead. Lucien Price has done us a real service by managing to record such conversations in their lived authenticity. these read like real events, real conversations, real statements by Whitehead in moments of his more relaxed philosophical insight.
the insights are not the laser-precise geometries of his metaphysical work, but that's just the point; conversation is rarely a prolonged foray into such vast territory. the profound novelties elicited through dialogue are accentuated by the ebbs and flows of casual exchange. conversation flows through the weather, local geography, local demography, social nuances, geopolitical events, the nature of cats & dogs...the respect given to Plato's legacy by Whitehead is predominantly because the dialogues mimic this chaotic 'flow' of conversation. using a fishing analogy: sometimes you catch a minnow, sometimes you catch a big fish; rarely the white whale nears the surface. the only way to get the best out of dialogue is treating it like an adventure, for it truly is such a process.
the contemporary topics were interesting...I got a look into the social dynamics prevalent at the time in Boston, always juxtaposed with the Whiteheads' experience back in the UK. the two countries were often contrasted to bring up interesting points about their class struggles, education policies, and even language quirks. the time of the dialogues, the late 30s, is historically interesting for another obvious reason. the events before and during the war are discussed less then you'd expect, but presumably they were discussed ad nauseam everywhere. these conversations offered a respite from the habit, a shot at some novelty.
the religious topics were constant and important considering Whitehead's status as an unusually religious analytic thinker. they were highly critical, especially of christianity in general and protestantism in particular. christianity, as you surely know, suffers from a profound inability to conceptually evolve and grow. protestantism he critiques for the same reason he critiques the reformation movement in general: taking away the major aesthetic notions, thereby depriving religious culture of what was probably most valuable in it. St Paul and Luther are the two respective whipping boys for Whitehead on these critical points. he remarks of buddhism's impressive intellectual sophistication, but considers it a fact that it failed to motivate the advancement of asiatic civilization. a few very beautiful words are said of mysticism and process theology.
what was the running theme for Whitehead? he says it repeatedly: ideas won't keep, something must be done about them. they must evolve, transcended and included in the adventure of thought. philosophy is a process of such adventure in thought, this is his constant insight. philosophy and human thought in general won't survive if closed systems are erected as idols. this goes for science and philosophy and casual little conversations. in this way Whitehead's enduring contribution is his reluctance to codify an inflexible system of thought. Whitehead didn't fight against materialists or dualists, he fought dogmatists.
hopefully an impression isn't given that all the goods come from Whitehead. Price was a natural conversationalist, Whitehead evidently enjoyed his company on a philosophical level too. his wife Evelyn constantly spiced things up, threw in a curve ball whenever the boys followed a point too sharply.
all in all, impressing and unique, this one. considering the importance Whitehead placed on privacy - having the entirety of his personal notes destroyed after his death, to illustrate the point - this book of conversation offers a novel glimpse at Whitehead the person, who I intuit was as good a man as the epilogue insists.
I can't help but put some of the great quotes I found inside here:
"the task of democracy is to relieve mass misery and yet preserve the freedom of the individual"
"when the idea is new, its custodians have fervour, live for it, die for it. inheritors receive the idea, perhaps now strong and successful, but without fervour; so the idea settles down to comfortable middle age, turns senile, then dies; institutions organized around it don't stop; they go on by sheer force of acquired momentum, or like the dead knight borne along on his horse"
"it is the interpreters of Christianity that have been its misfortune"
"education with inert ideas is not only useless; it is, above all things, harmful"
"great events, points of new departure in human history, are seldom if ever the product of a single cause; they come when 2 or 3 causes coalesce"
"naive people, because they are keenly interested in the important things, treat an old subject in some novel aspect"
"people compose either in words directly, the words satisfying their ideas of things [Bertrand Russell], or they compose in concepts and then try to find words into which those concepts can be translated [himself]."
"the method of nature seems to be the production of novelty - some totally unexpected turn of origination"
"who that watches the heavens can doubt that forms of life just as amazing exist on other planets?"
"the total absence of humour from the Bible is one of the most singular things in all literature"
"the Reformation was one of the most colossal failures in history; it threw overboard what makes the Church tolerable and even gracious; namely, its aesthetic appeal; but kept its barbarous theology"
"one of the great fallacies of American thinking is that human worth is constituted by a particular set of aptitudes which lead to economic advancement [...] this habitual elevation of the type of ability that leads to economic advancement is one of the worst mistakes in your American thinking and needs to be unceasingly corrected by people who speak to the public"
"man, in his social system, has so far given so little scope to the development of our faculties of enjoyment"
"the meaning of life is adventure [...] the vitality of thought is in adventure. that is what I have been saying all my life, and I have said little else. The idea must be constantly be seen in some new aspect. Some element of novelty must be brought into it freshly from time to time; and when that stops, it does"
"architecture is a good illustration of the life cycle in adventures of ideas"
"if a dog jumps into your lap it is because he is fond of you; but if a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer"
"a society run on strictly Christian principles could not survive at all"
"I believe that the two great powers which will emerge from this war are Russia and America, and the principles which animate them will be antithetical: that of Russia will be cohesion; that of America will be individualism"
"can you imagine anything more appallingly idiotic then the Christian view of heaven?"
"mathematics is the study of possibilities"
"people make the mistake of talking about 'natural laws'. there are no natural laws. there are only temporary habits of nature"
"dead knowledge is the danger. It is the peculiar danger of scholarship, of universities; and it is considered quite respectable. If you 'know' a great deal, that is supposed to suffice. What is wanted is 'activity in the presence of knowledge' "
"mysticism leads us to try to create out of the mystical experience something that will save it, or at least save the memory of it. words don't convey it except feebly; we are aware of having been in communication with infinitude and we know that no finite form we can give can convey it [...] out of this effort to save the mystical experience, in the hope of creating a form which will preserve the experience for ourselves and possibly for others, comes clarification - in a thought or perhaps an art-form; and that clarification then turned into some form of action...mysticism, clarification, action."
"God is in the world, or nowhere, creating continually in us and around us. this creative principle is everywhere, in animate and so-called inanimate matter, in the ether, water, earth, human hearts. but this creation is a continuing process, and 'the process is itself the actuality', since no sooner do you arrive then you start on a fresh journey. insofar as man partakes of this creative process does he partake of the divine, of God, and that participation is his immortality, reducing the question of whether is individuality survives the death of the body to the estate of an irrelevancy. our true destiny as cocreators in the universe is our dignity and our grandeur"
the insights are not the laser-precise geometries of his metaphysical work, but that's just the point; conversation is rarely a prolonged foray into such vast territory. the profound novelties elicited through dialogue are accentuated by the ebbs and flows of casual exchange. conversation flows through the weather, local geography, local demography, social nuances, geopolitical events, the nature of cats & dogs...the respect given to Plato's legacy by Whitehead is predominantly because the dialogues mimic this chaotic 'flow' of conversation. using a fishing analogy: sometimes you catch a minnow, sometimes you catch a big fish; rarely the white whale nears the surface. the only way to get the best out of dialogue is treating it like an adventure, for it truly is such a process.
the contemporary topics were interesting...I got a look into the social dynamics prevalent at the time in Boston, always juxtaposed with the Whiteheads' experience back in the UK. the two countries were often contrasted to bring up interesting points about their class struggles, education policies, and even language quirks. the time of the dialogues, the late 30s, is historically interesting for another obvious reason. the events before and during the war are discussed less then you'd expect, but presumably they were discussed ad nauseam everywhere. these conversations offered a respite from the habit, a shot at some novelty.
the religious topics were constant and important considering Whitehead's status as an unusually religious analytic thinker. they were highly critical, especially of christianity in general and protestantism in particular. christianity, as you surely know, suffers from a profound inability to conceptually evolve and grow. protestantism he critiques for the same reason he critiques the reformation movement in general: taking away the major aesthetic notions, thereby depriving religious culture of what was probably most valuable in it. St Paul and Luther are the two respective whipping boys for Whitehead on these critical points. he remarks of buddhism's impressive intellectual sophistication, but considers it a fact that it failed to motivate the advancement of asiatic civilization. a few very beautiful words are said of mysticism and process theology.
what was the running theme for Whitehead? he says it repeatedly: ideas won't keep, something must be done about them. they must evolve, transcended and included in the adventure of thought. philosophy is a process of such adventure in thought, this is his constant insight. philosophy and human thought in general won't survive if closed systems are erected as idols. this goes for science and philosophy and casual little conversations. in this way Whitehead's enduring contribution is his reluctance to codify an inflexible system of thought. Whitehead didn't fight against materialists or dualists, he fought dogmatists.
hopefully an impression isn't given that all the goods come from Whitehead. Price was a natural conversationalist, Whitehead evidently enjoyed his company on a philosophical level too. his wife Evelyn constantly spiced things up, threw in a curve ball whenever the boys followed a point too sharply.
all in all, impressing and unique, this one. considering the importance Whitehead placed on privacy - having the entirety of his personal notes destroyed after his death, to illustrate the point - this book of conversation offers a novel glimpse at Whitehead the person, who I intuit was as good a man as the epilogue insists.
I can't help but put some of the great quotes I found inside here:
"the task of democracy is to relieve mass misery and yet preserve the freedom of the individual"
"when the idea is new, its custodians have fervour, live for it, die for it. inheritors receive the idea, perhaps now strong and successful, but without fervour; so the idea settles down to comfortable middle age, turns senile, then dies; institutions organized around it don't stop; they go on by sheer force of acquired momentum, or like the dead knight borne along on his horse"
"it is the interpreters of Christianity that have been its misfortune"
"education with inert ideas is not only useless; it is, above all things, harmful"
"great events, points of new departure in human history, are seldom if ever the product of a single cause; they come when 2 or 3 causes coalesce"
"naive people, because they are keenly interested in the important things, treat an old subject in some novel aspect"
"people compose either in words directly, the words satisfying their ideas of things [Bertrand Russell], or they compose in concepts and then try to find words into which those concepts can be translated [himself]."
"the method of nature seems to be the production of novelty - some totally unexpected turn of origination"
"who that watches the heavens can doubt that forms of life just as amazing exist on other planets?"
"the total absence of humour from the Bible is one of the most singular things in all literature"
"the Reformation was one of the most colossal failures in history; it threw overboard what makes the Church tolerable and even gracious; namely, its aesthetic appeal; but kept its barbarous theology"
"one of the great fallacies of American thinking is that human worth is constituted by a particular set of aptitudes which lead to economic advancement [...] this habitual elevation of the type of ability that leads to economic advancement is one of the worst mistakes in your American thinking and needs to be unceasingly corrected by people who speak to the public"
"man, in his social system, has so far given so little scope to the development of our faculties of enjoyment"
"the meaning of life is adventure [...] the vitality of thought is in adventure. that is what I have been saying all my life, and I have said little else. The idea must be constantly be seen in some new aspect. Some element of novelty must be brought into it freshly from time to time; and when that stops, it does"
"architecture is a good illustration of the life cycle in adventures of ideas"
"if a dog jumps into your lap it is because he is fond of you; but if a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer"
"a society run on strictly Christian principles could not survive at all"
"I believe that the two great powers which will emerge from this war are Russia and America, and the principles which animate them will be antithetical: that of Russia will be cohesion; that of America will be individualism"
"can you imagine anything more appallingly idiotic then the Christian view of heaven?"
"mathematics is the study of possibilities"
"people make the mistake of talking about 'natural laws'. there are no natural laws. there are only temporary habits of nature"
"dead knowledge is the danger. It is the peculiar danger of scholarship, of universities; and it is considered quite respectable. If you 'know' a great deal, that is supposed to suffice. What is wanted is 'activity in the presence of knowledge' "
"mysticism leads us to try to create out of the mystical experience something that will save it, or at least save the memory of it. words don't convey it except feebly; we are aware of having been in communication with infinitude and we know that no finite form we can give can convey it [...] out of this effort to save the mystical experience, in the hope of creating a form which will preserve the experience for ourselves and possibly for others, comes clarification - in a thought or perhaps an art-form; and that clarification then turned into some form of action...mysticism, clarification, action."
"God is in the world, or nowhere, creating continually in us and around us. this creative principle is everywhere, in animate and so-called inanimate matter, in the ether, water, earth, human hearts. but this creation is a continuing process, and 'the process is itself the actuality', since no sooner do you arrive then you start on a fresh journey. insofar as man partakes of this creative process does he partake of the divine, of God, and that participation is his immortality, reducing the question of whether is individuality survives the death of the body to the estate of an irrelevancy. our true destiny as cocreators in the universe is our dignity and our grandeur"
January 24, 2008
A great document of informal conversation with Whitehead, which also gives a great sense of place. Worth reading for many hidden gems of Whitehead remarks, one trusts accurately remembered by L. Price, at least in spirit:
-- "If I were to be cast on that desert island and allowed to take only one book, I would certainly take Who's Who," he looked up at us laughing [p. 295].
-- "...I think that we are on the threshold of an age of liberation, a better life for the masses, a new burst of liberated creative energy, a new form of society; or mankind may all but exterminate itself and desolate this planet" [!, pp. 339-340].
Also many recurring comments regarding the limits of language to adequately express human experience, proving that one need not become a deconstructionist in order to take language seriously -- that is, that it's possible to still do metaphysics without being naive about language. (Whitehead is completely underrated in contemporary philosophy, IMHO...)
-- "If I were to be cast on that desert island and allowed to take only one book, I would certainly take Who's Who," he looked up at us laughing [p. 295].
-- "...I think that we are on the threshold of an age of liberation, a better life for the masses, a new burst of liberated creative energy, a new form of society; or mankind may all but exterminate itself and desolate this planet" [!, pp. 339-340].
Also many recurring comments regarding the limits of language to adequately express human experience, proving that one need not become a deconstructionist in order to take language seriously -- that is, that it's possible to still do metaphysics without being naive about language. (Whitehead is completely underrated in contemporary philosophy, IMHO...)
November 24, 2018
2.5
It is not the kind of book that gives you answers.. it only brings certain topics io your mind which every one of the attendants say something about it and Whitehead explains his point of view in details to some extent but still doesn't give you an answer
Only random info and questions
Some of the dialogues were totally out of my interest so i just have a rapid look at the page and skip it..
It made me often feel that it is a conversation between a group of friends that i can't fit in and even if i want to fit in, i am not always able to
I know that this is the idea of writing dialogues and neither the author nor Whitehead intended this to be well organized discussions like plato's dialogues but i didn't like it much
It is not the kind of book that gives you answers.. it only brings certain topics io your mind which every one of the attendants say something about it and Whitehead explains his point of view in details to some extent but still doesn't give you an answer
Only random info and questions
Some of the dialogues were totally out of my interest so i just have a rapid look at the page and skip it..
It made me often feel that it is a conversation between a group of friends that i can't fit in and even if i want to fit in, i am not always able to
I know that this is the idea of writing dialogues and neither the author nor Whitehead intended this to be well organized discussions like plato's dialogues but i didn't like it much
November 20, 2015
Very heavy, a bit difficult to get through but I feel very enlightened after reading it so if you can handle deep books go for it.
April 9, 2020
في الحقيقة لم أكمل الكتاب كاملا لذا لا تعتمد تقيمي :)، المقدمة أكثر شيء أعجبني في الكتاب لكني فقدت حماس القراءة عند الدخول في المحاورات
October 15, 2023
you have to really dig through the inanity to find the philosophical insights here. phrases like 'he smiled knowingly' really ruined the effect of anything said. also i had a real hard time believing this guy remembered 10 pages of conversation well enough to report them verbatim later. i'll try an actual book by whitehead next.
Read
December 21, 2010I picked up an old paperback of this years ago and it's been sitting in the philosophy case amongst the other books. It seemed like a good time to read the co-author of the Principia Mathematica.
May 11, 2013
Amazing.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews