Whitehead’s Categorial Scheme: The Framework

Abstract

If Nicolai Hartmann’s approach was described as the nonspeculative strain in contemporary categorial theory, signalling a return to a pre-Hegelian stage in the evolution of this theory, then Alfred North Whitehead’s approach must be viewed as a continuation of the speculative strain that originated in Hegelian logic. This does not mean that in establishing his scheme of categories Whitehead deliberately appropriated Hegel’s solution to the problem of categories. In one place he indeed notes that the ‘hierarchy of categories of feeling’ proposed by him is parallel to Hegel’s ‘hierarchy of categories of thought.’1 Yet, elsewhere, he reports that he read very little Hegel,2 and that he was indirectly influenced by speculative philosophy in the form of Absolute Idealism through the English branch of this school, that is to say, through Bradley.3 Therefore, if there is historical continuity in the move from Hegel’s theory of categories to Whitehead’s, it must be traced in a different way. We shall do so by analysis of those passages in Whitehead’s writings which can be viewed as general inquiries into the essence of speculative thought. This analysis will show that Whitehead’s conception of speculative philosophy is close to Hegel’s and that, like Hegel, he too tends to identify the central goal of philosophy as the establishment of a system of categories, one of the outstanding features of which is coherence.KeywordsDeductive SystemLogical FrameworkPhilosophical SystemDeductive MethodAbsolute IdealismThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.