Alfred North Whitehead’s Process and Reality

Abstract

This book has good claims to be the greatest metaphysical treatise for many years, certainly since the beginning of the twentieth century. Process and Reality: A Study in Cosmology (hereafter: PR) is based on the Gifford Lectures that Whitehead gave in Edinburgh a few years ago. It is Whitehead’s foremost philosophical work and for importance its only peer among his works is the very different Principia Mathematica, co-authored of course with his former student Mr. Bertrand Russell. Remarkably, Professor Whitehead has been a professional philosopher for only a little over 5 years, yet this book clearly marks the culmination of his transformation from mathematician to metaphysician. That journey has taken more than 20 years: it began with his Royal Society memoir ‘On Mathematical Concepts of the Material World’ and progressed through the natural philosophy of An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge, The Concept of Nature, and Science and the Modern World, to this work. It is rapidly emerging as the undisputed chef d’oeuvre of what is becoming known as process philosophy, and Whitehead the principal prophet of that genre. Its admirers in North America and continental Europe defend it with a devotion that in some cases borders on the fanatical, while its detractors, principally from the new analytical tradition, and led as in so many things by Mr. Russell, consider Whitehead’s most recent work obscure, confused, woolly and mystical, not worth the effort of reading or trying to understand. We shall take issue with both extremes. We must first say something about the text. PR is long, rich, and difficult, and it gives up its secrets only through dogged persistence. It comes in five parts: I, The Speculative Scheme; II, Discussions and Applications; III, The Theory of Prehensions; IV, The Theory of Extension; V, Final Interpretation. Of these I and V are excessively compressed, while II and III are overly expansive. IV seems about right. The book is in general markedly more rhapsodic in style than the foregoing works of natural philosophy. Traversing similar ground from several perspectives in the different parts, it is repetitive, and could have benefitted from a sterner redaction than Whitehead seems to have been prepared to afford it. On the other hand, some crucial passages are terse to the point of near impenetrability. A comparison between the concurrent British and American editions reveals a slew of major and minor discrepancies, and it is clear that Whitehead’s evident disinterest in the mechanics of proofreading will leave a nasty legacy of misprints and inconsistencies. These will only be remedied by the heroic but as yet unpublished Corrected Edition of David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne. No other edition should be used, and our page references will be to this. Between the judgmental extremes about Whitehead in general and PR in particular, it is hard to find neutral ground from which to appraise his work critically, and impossible to please everyone when doing so. This review aspires to follow the critical but sympathetic Manchester tradition of Dorothy Emmet and Wolfe Mays, both of P. Simons (&) Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland e-mail: psimons@tcd.ie