The Concept of Nature (Great Books in Philosophy) [Paperback]

Alfred North Whitehead (Author)

Book Description

Series: Great Books in Philosophy | Publication Date: May 2004

Originally published in 1920 and based on the Tarner Lectures in the philosophy of science, this early work by Alfred North Whitehead made an important contribution to the development of philosophic naturalism. It also featured his assessment of the impact of Einstein's theories and the new findings of modern physics on the concept of nature.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Prometheus Books (May 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591022142
• ISBN-13: 978-1591022145
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,312,319 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Challenging and mind-expanding, June 12, 2005

By 

Pieter "Toypom" (Johannesburg) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Concept of Nature (Dover Books on Science) (Paperback)

This book from 1920 consists of the Tarner Lectures in the philosophy of science and features Whitehead's assessment of the impact of Einstein's theories on nature. He argues for taking events and the process of becoming as the starting points for analysing reality. This organic interpretation is not simple, but it does make more sense than the abstract concept of matter as assumed by scientists and philosophers for so long.

Whitehead criticizes the idea of nature as a mere aggregate of independent entities, each capable of isolation. According to this idea, by their accidental relations entities form the system of nature. In this theory space might exist without time, and time without space. The relational theory of space is an admission that space without matter or matter without space cannot exist.

But the seclusion of both from time is still accepted. Whitehead's alternative is that nothing in nature could be what it is except as an ingredient in nature as it exists. There cannot be time apart from space, because every event forms part of a whole and is significant in the whole. Likewise there can be no space apart from time.

Our knowledge of nature is an experience of activity or passage. Events are active entities; their relations with one another differentiate into space-relations and time-relations. But this differentiation is comparatively superficial, since time and space are each partial expressions of one fundamental relation between events, which is neither spatial not temporal. Whitehead calls this relation Extension: it is the relation of including and does not require spatio-temporal differentiation.

I found the book extremely challenging to read and had to go back constantly to re-read and properly assimilate previous passages in order to proceed. And Whitehead uses mathematical formulae that I am not familiar with. But people with a solid grounding in the natural sciences will have no such problem. A determination to understand at least some of this great man's ideas was certainly rewarded in reading and studying this book.

The chapters are titled: Nature and Thought; Theories of the Bifurcation of Nature; Time; The Method of Extensive Abstraction; Congruence; Objects; Summary, and The Ultimate Physical Concepts. The book concludes with an index.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Challenging but ultimately rewarding, June 27, 2008

By 

Pieter "Toypom" (Johannesburg) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Concept of Nature (Hardcover)

The great thinker Whitehead made contributions in the fields of education, logic, mathematics, metaphysics, philosophy of science, physics and theology. Whitehead's process philosophy was developed into process theology by Charles Hartshorne in works like The Divine Relativity.

This 1920 publication consists of the Tarner Lectures in the philosophy of science that feature Whitehead's assessment of the impact of Einstein's theories on nature. He argues for taking events and the process of becoming as the starting points for analyzing reality. This organic interpretation is not simple, but it does make more sense than the abstract concept of matter as assumed by the scientists of his time and many philosophers.

In his work of the previous year An Enquiry Concerning The Principles Of Natural Knowledge, Whitehead explains the method of extensive abstraction. This method of abstraction defines e.g. a formal element like a point in terms of a series of similar shapes encompassing and extending over one another. These and similar thoughts are further developed in The Concept of Nature.

Rejecting the dominant dualism, Whitehead defined nature as that which is disclosed in sense experience. This does not mean the simple awareness of particular sensations but instead a profound consciousness of a spatio-temporal passage occurring in nature. Within this passage or movement, he distinguished between events and objects.

Events are occurrences that, while they may overlap, are born and then pass away. Objects on the other hand are constant and may be considered as recurring patterns. Whitehead ascribed the uniformity of nature to pervasive patterns providing the quality of permanence.

He rejects the idea of nature as a mere aggregate of independent entities, each capable of isolation. According to this notion, entities form the system of nature by their accidental relations so space might exist without time and time without space. The relational theory of space is an admission that space without matter or matter without space cannot exist.

But the separation of both from time is still accepted. Whitehead's alternative is that nothing in nature could be what it is except as an ingredient in nature as it exists. There cannot be time apart from space, because every event forms part of a whole and is significant in the whole. Likewise there can be no space apart from time.

Our knowledge of nature is an experience of activity or passage. Events are active entities; their relations with one another differentiate into space-relations and time-relations. But this differentiation is comparatively superficial, since time and space are each partial expressions of one fundamental relation between events, which is neither spatial not temporal. Whitehead calls this relation Extension: it is the relation of including and does not require spatio-temporal differentiation.

The book was extremely challenging to read; I had to go back constantly to revisit and properly assimilate previous passages in order to proceed. And Whitehead uses mathematical formulae that I am not familiar with. But people with a solid grounding in the natural sciences will have no such problem. A determination to understand at least some of this great man's ideas was certainly rewarded in reading and studying this book.

The chapters are titled: Nature and Thought; Theories of the Bifurcation of Nature; Time; The Method of Extensive Abstraction; Congruence; Objects; Summary, and The Ultimate Physical Concepts. The book concludes with an index.

Whitehead's more accessible works include Religion in the Making with its beautiful definition of the Eternal Divine and Adventures of Ideas with his thoughts on inter alia history art, beauty, truth, freedom. He cautioned against complete certainty and rigidity of thought, warning that evil results when mankind transforms the partial truths that we are able to discern into whole truths. This came to mind as I was reading Chantal Delsol's The Unlearned Lessons Of the Twentieth Century that echoes Whitehead's insight.

For me, Whitehead's metaphysics resonate in the same way as that of Michael Polanyi and Frithjof Schuon. His economic and political persuasions, derived from his observations on force, slavery, persuasion and commerce, reflect the views of the great economists of classical liberalism such as Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek.