A.N Whitehead's Thought through a New Prism

Is interesting that there is such widespread enthusiasm for the development of thought of Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) and his process philosophy. This book and the next are volumes three and four of European Studies in Process Thought. The two main sections are devoted to methodology and application related to physics, religion, education and psychology. Whitehead sought to reconcile the empirical and the rational and there is his brilliant definition of speculative philosophy in the first essay: 'the endeavour to frame a coherent, logical, necessary system of general ideas in terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted.' One overriding theme is the contradictory nature of fundamental concepts characterised by opposing features with mutual relatedness. One of these is the tension between the continuous and the discrete or succession and duration (based on the earlier work of Bergson). While the discussion here is illuminating, authors could have benefited from Iain McGilchrist's discussion of paradox in relation to left and right hemisphere thinking. The left hemisphere is unable to accommodate this, while the right hemisphere reconciles these apparent opposites. One of the most interesting essays is on the problem of harmony in classical Chinese religious thought, contrasting its expression in beauty and peace. Another discusses Whitehead's disaffection with dogmatic theology that banishes n novelty. Then there is an interesting contribution on Coleridge, Emerson and Whitehead, and a final stimulating essay by John Pickering on evolutionary metaphysics, which questions the computer metaphor and the disembodied vision of the future in transhumanism.