The Concept of Nature

First published in 1920, this classic series of Tarner Lectures by Whitehead represents an early attempt to get to grips with the new physics of relativity and its implications for philosophy of science. He thought that we needed a new concept pf nature given realism and the structure of our perceptual knowledge. He resisted the attempt to bifurcate nature into mind and matter as he worked towards his magnum opus Process and Reality that came out about ten years later. He distinguishes thought about nature from sense-perception of nature, remarking that nature is self-contained for thought. He begins with this relationship between nature and thought, moving on to a critique of theories of bifurcation of nature. He then conducts a philosophical analysis of the major concepts of time, space and motion and the nature of objects. The reader engages with a major philosopher formulating a complex new set of ideas that are then summarised in the extra chapters at the end. Whitehead introduces his own terminology such as 'observational present' and 'percipient event' as key elements of our experience, thus extending the reader's grasp and vocabulary – the book will be of particular interest to philosophers of physics and historians of philosophy.