Alfred North Whitehead

[Illuminaughty]

I've been doing a little reading on process philosophy and I've been really impressed so far. Whiteheads basic insight that we should move away from substance thinking to process and event thinking makes sense to me. I think coming across it has also helped solve some the dilemmas and roadblocks I've run into in my philosophical search. Roadblocks that have caused me to go back and forth between materialistic monism and idealistic monism on a regular basis. Maybe the very idea of "substance" be it material or mental isn't the right avenue of approach. I've found his thinking parallels certain aspects of Buddhist and Taoist thought that I've always been attracted too as well.

Can anyone recommend a good basic introduction to Whitehead? Kind of like a "A complete dummies guide" that a high school drop out like myself could make sense of lol ? Most of the direct quotes in the book I'm reading are pretty dense and I get the feeling that just jumping directly into his writings might not be that realistic on my part now.


Also, for the sake of discussion... What do you make of his philosophy?

 

[Illuminaughty]

Here is a quote from the book I've been reading :

Understanding Whitehead

"Events" not "things." The essential nature of reality is not material substance- it is organism in process. Very simply: process, not substance, is fundamental.

Nature feels all the way down. Universal process is necessarily sentient-it unfolds by feeling. Thus what we call "matter" and "mind" (both abstractions) are derived from fundamental actual events that are inherently experiential.

Fundamental interrelatedness. All events are mutually cocreating. They interfuse and interpenetrate each other so that it is a fallacy to speak of the reality of any actuality as an isolated, self contained entity."

 

[Paradoxum]

I don't really know anything about Whitehead's philosophy, but from what I can tell from a short read of Wiki it some somewhat like Spinoza's philosophy. Honestly it is hard to say what I think about without know it in more detail.

Would I be right in think that Whitehead's philosophy is that there is no material or mental, but both are abstractions from some common substance that can have the appearance of both material and mental? I could be totally wrong since that sounds just like a description of Spinoza.

 

[Illuminaughty]

From what I gather he thinks in terms of moments of experience (MOEs) rather than substances. Idealism seems to be the most likely framework for that but he actually doesn't deny the reality of matter either. He considers reality to have both a material and an inner subjective pole. The experiential pole is inherent to matter and goes all the down to atoms, quarks, etc.. It's the "what its like to be" of things. Obviously he isn't saying that every atom has consciousness of the same complexity as ours but only that it's there in a primitive less complex form . He rejects the idea of emergentism or that consciousness and subjectivity could come come into existence simply through material complexity. It was actually there all along. It's kind of hard to describe and I don't have a lot of time now but when tomorrow I will post some quotes from the book to help explain it better than I can. It's hard to get useful bullet heading descriptions though so I might have to type a lot.

 

[Paradoxum]

From what I gather he thinks in terms of moments of experience (MOEs) rather than substances. Idealism seems to be the most likely framework for that but he actually doesn't deny the reality of matter either. He considers reality to have both a material and an inner subjective pole. The experiential pole is inherent to matter and goes all the down to atoms, quarks, etc.. It's the "what its like to be" of things. Obviously he isn't saying that every atom has consciousness of the same complexity as ours but only that it's there in a primitive less complex form . He rejects the idea of emergentism or that consciousness and subjectivity could come come into existence simply through material complexity. It was actually there all along. It's kind of hard to describe and I don't have a lot of time now but when tomorrow I will post some quotes from the book to help explain it better than I can. It's hard to get useful bullet heading descriptions though so I might have to type a lot.

Ah I understand. I had pretty much the same thought when I was walking home one day after reading Spinoza. I don't know if it is true, but it seems like a nice way to explain how we have consciousness. It nevertheless seems quite weird to think that rocks have some element of the 'mental' about them.

 

[Illuminaughty]

I found this today. Looks like Process Philosophy and Whitehead are growing in popularity in China. Thought that was interesting.

China embraces Alfred North Whitehead

 

[juvenissun]

I found this today. Looks like Process Philosophy and Whitehead are growing in popularity in China. Thought that was interesting.

China embraces Alfred North Whitehead

What kind of problem could this idea solve?

 

[windy35]

I've been doing a little reading on process philosophy and I've been really impressed so far. Whiteheads basic insight that we should move away from substance thinking to process and event thinking makes sense to me. I think coming across it has also helped solve some the dilemmas and roadblocks I've run into in my philosophical search. Roadblocks that have caused me to go back and forth between materialistic monism and idealistic monism on a regular basis. Maybe the very idea of "substance" be it material or mental isn't the right avenue of approach. I've found his thinking parallels certain aspects of Buddhist and Taoist thought that I've always been attracted too as well.

Can anyone recommend a good basic introduction to Whitehead? Kind of like a "A complete dummies guide" that a high school drop out like myself could make sense of lol ? Most of the direct quotes in the book I'm reading are pretty dense and I get the feeling that just jumping directly into his writings might not be that realistic on my part now.


Also, for the sake of discussion... What do you make of his philosophy?

I go back and forth between materialism and idealism too. Combining them can work sometimes, but sometimes I cannot seem to get the two to go together.