Frasi di Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
Data di nascita: 15. Febbraio 1861
Data di morte: 30. Dicembre 1947
Alfred North Whitehead è stato un filosofo e matematico britannico.
Si occupò di logica, matematica, epistemologia, teologia e metafisica. Insieme a Bertrand Russell fu autore dei tre volumi di cui si compongono i Principia Mathematica.
In La scienza e il mondo moderno , Processo e realtà e Avventure di idee , Whitehead tentò una mediazione tra l'istanza filosofica e la visione scientifica del mondo e formulò una metafisica organicistica, basata sulle idee di Leibniz e di Bergson.
Frasi Alfred North Whitehead
„One side makes process ultimate; the other side makes fact ultimate.“
— Alfred North Whitehead
Context: In all philosophic theory there is an ultimate which is actual in virtue of its accidents. It is only then capable of characterization through its accidental embodiments, and apart from these accidents is devoid of actuality. In the philosophy of organism this ultimate is termed creativity; and God] is its primordial, non-temporal accident. In [[monistic philosophies, Spinoza's or absolute idealism, this ultimate is God, who is also equivalently termed The Absolute. In such monistic schemes, the ultimate is illegitimately allowed a final, eminent reality, beyond that ascribed to any of its accidents. In this general position the philosophy of organism seems to approximate more to some strains of Indian, or Chinese, thought, than to western Asiatic, or European, thought. One side makes process ultimate; the other side makes fact ultimate.
Pt. I, ch. 1, sec. 2.
„In all philosophic theory there is an ultimate which is actual in virtue of its accidents.“
— Alfred North Whitehead
Context: In all philosophic theory there is an ultimate which is actual in virtue of its accidents. It is only then capable of characterization through its accidental embodiments, and apart from these accidents is devoid of actuality. In the philosophy of organism this ultimate is termed creativity; and God] is its primordial, non-temporal accident. In [[monistic philosophies, Spinoza's or absolute idealism, this ultimate is God, who is also equivalently termed The Absolute. In such monistic schemes, the ultimate is illegitimately allowed a final, eminent reality, beyond that ascribed to any of its accidents. In this general position the philosophy of organism seems to approximate more to some strains of Indian, or Chinese, thought, than to western Asiatic, or European, thought. One side makes process ultimate; the other side makes fact ultimate.
Pt. I, ch. 1, sec. 2.
„Some philosophers fail to distinguish propositions from judgments; … But in the real world it is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true.“
— Alfred North Whitehead
Context: Some philosophers fail to distinguish propositions from judgments; … But in the real world it is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true. The importance of truth is that it adds to interest.
p. 259.
Variant: It is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true. This statement is almost a tautology. For the energy of operation of a proposition in an occasion of experience is its interest, and its importance. But of course a true proposition is more apt to be interesting than a false one.
As extended upon in Adventures of Ideas (1933), Pt. 4, Ch. 16.
„Rightness of limitation is essential for growth of reality.“
— Alfred North Whitehead
Context: Rightness of limitation is essential for growth of reality.
Unlimited possibility and abstract creativity can procure nothing. The limitation, and the basis arising from what is already actual, are both of them necessary and interconnected.
Religion in the Making (February 1926), [http://www.mountainman.com.au/whiteh_4.htm Lecture IV: "Truth and Criticism"].
