An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge (Western Philosophy & Religion Series) [Paperback]

Alfred Whitehead (Author)

Book Description

Series: Western Philosophy & Religion Series | Publication Date: September 1982

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Book Description

Originally published in 1919, and first republished in 1925 as this Second Edition, this text ranks among Whitehead's most important works; forming a perspective on scientific observation that incorporated a complex view of experience, rather than prioritising the position of 'pure' sense data. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 207 pages
• Publisher: Dover Pubns (September 1982)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0486243435
• ISBN-13: 978-0486243436
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,274,126 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Philosophy of Nature / Philosophy of Science, March 8, 2008

By 

Gary L. Herstein (So. IL USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge (Paperback)

This is an especially important text in the body of Whitehead's work. It is the first volume in a "triptych" of works Whitehead produced (the others being "The Concept of Nature" and "The Principle of Relativity") that both established Whitehead as a major philosopher, and laid the epistemological framework of natural science that would become the stepping off place for Whitehead's mature metaphysics.

One of the important aspects of this book is that it is the first attempt in English to found spatial reasoning upon mereological principles rather than set theory. (Lesniewski published a mereological theory as a general foundation for mathematics in 1916. But this was in Polish and was not introduced to the English speaking world until many years later.) Whitehead's motivations are very much in line with William James' notions of "Radical Empiricism": to whit, the full range of experience is the basis of our theories, but this full range includes many relational structures and not just the "sense data" that the Positivists asserted.

Consequently, this book is quite a bit more technical than "Concept of Nature" (which is relatively technical already). However, it presents a radical new and empirically sound theory of nature, abstract reasoning, and science.

This Cosimo edition is particularly welcome for a couple of reasons. First of all, it retains the pagination of the original Cambridge edition, so cross-referencing the two is extremely simple. Moreover, it includes the notes that Whitehead added in the 1924 second edition. This is especially helpful, as that second edition is rather difficult to find and extremely expensive to acquire.

Consequently, this is a valuable addition to any person's library who has an interest in Whitehead's philosophy, or in the philosophy of science. To this latter, Whitehead brings a nuanced understanding of both empiricism and realism to the table that deserves a much wider audience than it has currently received.