Project Whitehead: Process and Reality, the Preface

(New Readers please read this first.)

"Disciples should be on their guard against the seductions of words and sentences and their illusive meanings, for by them the ignorant and dull-witted become entangled and helpless as an elephant floundering about in the deep mud." - the Buddha, in the Lankavatara Sutra.

The obvious place to begin, is ... the beginning. Thus, our examination of Alfred North Whitehead's Process and Reality will start with his preface. The preface of a work such as this should never be overlooked. If you are my age or younger, then you will barely recall an era when writing was a more linear process than it typically is now. Of course, there have always been revisions, insertions, rearrangements and recombinations, but once upon a time, an author typically started at the beginning and continued ad seriatim to the end. The preface, however, was typically written last, well after the completion of the main work.

An author's preface, then, often represents his or her latest thinking on the ideas presented in the book. It provides the author's own opinion and summary of his work. It gives clues as to what she really thinks is important -- to what he or she really wants the reader to pay attention. The preface may even occasionally contain improved language used to explain some of the big ideas found in the main work.

Whitehead's own preface to Process and Reality (Process and Reality will hereinafter be referred to as "PR") is short, but nonetheless covers much of this expected ground. In this section Whitehead describes his project in outline, indicates his primary influences, both antecedent and contemporary, outlines nine "habits of thought" or "myths" that PR seeks to repudiate, and gives the reader "four strong impressions" that come to his mind as he surveys his completed treatise. I will look at each of these aspects of the Preface in turn.

The following Preface quotes are taken from pages xi through xv of the Griffin/Sherburne edition of PR.

Whitehead begins:

“These lectures are based upon a recurrence to that phase of philosophic thought which began with Descartes and ended with Hume. The philosophic scheme which they endeavour to explain is termed the 'Philosophy of Organism.' There is no doctrine put forward which cannot cite in its defence some explicit statement or another of one of this group of thinkers, or of one of the two founders of all Western thought, Plato and Aristotle. But the philosophy of organism is apt to emphasize just those elements in the writings of these masters which subsequent systematizers have put aside. The writer who most fully anticipated the main positions of the philosophy organism is John Locke in his Essay, especially¹ in its later books.”

Immediately, Whitehead seeks to place his ideas into the stream of Western thought, with particular attention to the early modern era, and to that important chapter in modernism extending from the work of Rene Descartes to David Hume. He indicates his belief that all Western philosophy should be thought of as the offspring of Plato and Aristotle, and he signals the importance of John Locke's Essay on Human Understanding for what follows. While Whitehead's speculative scheme and its later intellectual descendants are usually termed "process philosophy" today, Whitehead himself describes his project as the "philosophy of organism." Throughout this examination of PR, we should endeavor to keep in mind a consideration of why Whitehead chose this name, and what the significance of the notion of "organism" has for his thinking.

Whitehead goes on to describe the organization of the book into five parts:

Part I ("The Speculative Scheme") will consist of an explanation of the author's philosophical method and a summary statement of scheme of ideas that forms the superstructure for the book.

Part II ("Discussions and Applications":) is where “an endeavour is made to exhibit this scheme [outlined in Part I] as adequate for the interpretation of the ideas and problems which form the complex texture of civilized thought. ... a careful examination of their exact statements disclosed that in the main the philosophy of organism is a recurrence to pre-Kantian modes of thought.”

Here, Whitehead reveals a little more on where he stands vis-a-vis the early modern writers he references. In particular, we see that Whitehead is engaging in a serious revision, if not repudiation, if certain Kantian conclusions. He continues:

“In the second part, the discussions of modern thought have been confined to the most general notions of physics and biology, with a careful avoidance of all detail. Also, it must be one of the motives of a complete cosmology to construct a system of ideas which brings the aesthetic, moral, and religious interests into relation with those concepts of the world which have their origin in natural science.”

The importance of encompassing all aspects of human experience is highlighted here. Whitehead will have quite a bit more to say about this as the work unfolds.

Parts III and IV ("The Theory of Prehensions" and "The Theory of Extension," respectively) are where “... the cosmological scheme is developed in terms of its own categoreal notions, and without much regard to other systems of thought. ... The lectures are intended to state a condensed scheme of cosmological ideas, to develop their meaning by confrontation with the various topics of experience, and finally to elaborate an adequate cosmology in terms of which all particular topics find their interconnections.”

Once again, Whitehead emphasizes that the purpose of speculative philosophy should be to unite all aspects of human experience into a cohesive and adequate whole.

At this point in his Preface, Whitehead pauses to acknowledge his indebtedness to “the English and American Realists,” for example, Professor T. P. Nunn. He also explicitly references Henri Bergson, William James and John Dewey, as well as the absolute idealist, Bradley. Quite a bit more will need to be said about these contemporaries and near antecedents, with which Whitehead has much in common.

Part V ("Final Interpretation") “... is concerned with the final interpretation of the ultimate way in which the cosmological problem is to be conceived. It answers the question, What does it all come to? In this part, the approximation to Bradley is evident. Indeed, if this cosmology be deemed successful, it becomes natural at this point to ask whether the type of thought involved be not a transformation of some main doctrines of Absolute Idealism onto a realistic basis.”

As we shall see, in many ways the final chapters of PR are the most interesting, in regard to the ultimate implications of Whitehead's scheme. It is at this point of the book that Whitehead deals most explicitly with religious and spiritual questions and the nature of God, as he sees it.

Having concluded his summary outline of the work, Whitehead next lays out a very interesting list of “prevailing habits of thought” which he repudiates, “in so far as concerns their influence on philosophy:”

Quoting Whitehead directly, the list is:

1. The distrust of speculative philosophy.
2. The trust in language as an adequate expression of prepositions.
3. The mode of philosophical thought which implies, and is implied by, the faculty-psychology.
4. The subject-predicate form of expression.
5. The sensationalist doctrine of perception.
6. The doctrine of vacuous actuality.
7. The Kantian doctrine of the objective world as a theoretical construct from purely subjective experience.
8. Arbitrary deductions in ex absurdo arguments.
9. Belief that logical inconsistencies can indicate anything else than some antecedent errors.

Whitehead claims that "[b]y reason of its ready acceptance of some, or all, of these nine myths and fallacious procedures, much nineteenth-century philosophy excludes itself from relevance to the ordinary stubborn facts of daily life.”

One of Whitehead's trademark phrases: "the stubborn facts of daily life," makes its first appearance in PR at this point. In seeking to repudiate this list, Whitehead identifies himself as realist, naturalist, empiricist, even, perhaps, pragmatist. He also shows the influence of his mathematical training, keen as he is to maintain a rigorous logical consistency in his work. This combination of mathematical logic with a willingness to confront all the "stubborn facts" of human life -- not only those facts typically most amenable to logical analysis -- is what creates the creative tension in Whitehead's scheme. He presents the tantalizing possibility of being able to explain, in some measure, those deep questions that at one point or another every philosophically inclined thinker has confronted. One might characterize this as courage on Whitehead's part, or abject foolishness, depending on one's own outlook. In his approach, one can find inspiration to tackle the questions that really matter -- and perforce break down the artificial, academic barriers between such diverse spheres of thought as science, religion, mathematics and ethics.

In reflecting upon these nine "habits of thought" (taken either together or separately, these "habits" may reflect what could be termed "mind-systems" or "worldviews"), one sees that points 8 and 9 concern themselves with methods of logical analysis; 2 and 4 lay a sharp critique on the belief held by some in the ability of language to adequately convey reality; 5 and 7 are related to each other in that they both stem from a preconception of the world of experience as split into object (outside) and subject (inside). Obviously, these two points also relate to Whitehead's critique of the "subject-predicate" form of linguistic expression. In point 6, Whitehead attacks the old, Newtonian notion of empty space (in keeping with the thinking and observation of twentieth century physics). Point 3 will require a more explicit teasing out of its significance, to be tackled soon in a separate post. In point 1, Whitehead emphasizes his desire to engage in speculative thought and his belief in its importance. The distrust of speculative thought in question was (and continues to be) partly the product of the ongoing rebellion of the empirical sciences against the tethering and strangulating influence of religious dogma.

Finally, toward the conclusion of his Preface, Whitehead shares with the reader "four strong impressions" gained through the course of putting his thoughts to paper. These are:

"First, that the movement of historical, and philosophical criticism of detached questions, which on the whole has dominated the last two centuries, has done its work, and requires to be supplemented by a more sustained effort of constructive thought. Secondly, that the true method of philosophical construction is to frame a scheme of ideas, the best that one can, and unflinchingly explore the interpretation of experience in terms of that scheme. Thirdly, that all constructive thought, on the various special topics of scientific interest, is dominated by some such scheme, unacknowledged, but no less influential in guiding the imagination. The importance of philosophy lies in its sustained effort to make such schemes explicit, and thereby capable of criticism and improvement. ... [fourth,] how shallow, puny, and imperfect are efforts to sound the depths of the nature of things. In philosophical discussion, the merest hint of dogmatic certainty as to finality of statement is an exhibition of folly."

So there you have it. Whitehead offers us his work as an exercise in "constructive philosophy" and urges us to take seriously this role of philosophy in interpreting human experience in all its many forms. He reminds us that there is a scheme -- a worldview or 'mind-system' at work whether we consciously recognize it or not. Better to examine our preconceptions and habits of mind than to remain unaware of them. Finally, he offers his construction in humility before the daunting complexity of the universe.

1 Whitehead's footnote: "Cf. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Bk. IV, Ch. VI, Section 11."