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, fisica, epistemologia, teologia e metafisica. Insieme a Bertrand Russell fu autore dei tre volumi di cui si compongono i Principia Mathematica, opera che si proponeva l'ambizioso programma di fondare la matematica sulla logica.
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. Wikipedia
Frasi Alfred North Whitehead
„I greci hanno tramandato due figure le cui vite reali o mitiche esprimono queste due concezioni: Platone e Ulisse. Uno ha in comune la ragione con gli dèi, e l'altro l'ha in comune con le volpi.“
Origine: Citato in Gino Ditadi, Introduzione: L'animale buono da pensare, in I filosofi e gli animali, vol. 1, Isonomia editrice, Este, 1994, p. 51. ISBN 88-85944-12-4
„Arte è imporre un disegno all'esperienza, e il nostro godimento estetico sta nel riconoscere quel disegno.“
Origine: Da Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead.
„Il progresso della Scienza consiste nell'osservare le interconnessioni e mostrare con un paziente ingegno che gli eventi di questo mondo continuamente cangiante sono soltanto esempi di alcune relazioni generali, chiamate leggi. Vedere il generale nel particolare, e il permanente nel transitorio, è lo scopo del pensiero scientifico.“
Origine: Da Una introduzione alla Matematica.
„Una gran parte dell'esperienza maturata non può essere espressa con le parole.“
Origine: Citato in Focus n. 108, p. 204.
„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.“
— Alfred North Whitehead, libro Religion in the Making
Religion in the Making (February 1926), Lecture IV: "Truth and Criticism" http://www.mountainman.com.au/whiteh_4.htm.
1920s
„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.“
Origine: 1920s, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929), 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.
Contesto: 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.
„In all philosophic theory there is an ultimate which is actual in virtue of its accidents.“
Pt. I, ch. 1, sec. 2.
1920s, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
Contesto: 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.
„One side makes process ultimate; the other side makes fact ultimate.“
Pt. I, ch. 1, sec. 2.
1920s, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
Contesto: 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.
„Consciousness is only the last and greatest of such elements by which the selective character of the individual obscures the external totality from which it originates and which it embodies.“
Pt. I, ch. 1, sec. 6.
1920s, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
Contesto: Philosophy is the self-correction by consciousness of its own initial excess of subjectivity. Each actual occasion contributes to the circumstances of its origin additional formative elements deepening its own peculiar individuality. Consciousness is only the last and greatest of such elements by which the selective character of the individual obscures the external totality from which it originates and which it embodies. An actual individual, of such higher grade, has truck with the totality of things by reason of its sheer actuality; but it has attained its individual depth of being by a selective emphasis limited to its own purposes. The task of philosophy is to recover the totality obscured by the selection.
„More and more it is becoming evident that what the West can most readily give to the East is its science and its scientific outlook.“
Origine: 1920s, Science and the Modern World (1925), Ch. 1: "The Origins of Modern Science"
Contesto: More and more it is becoming evident that what the West can most readily give to the East is its science and its scientific outlook. This is transferable from country to country, and from race to race, wherever there is a rational society.
„The universities are schools of education, and schools of research.“
1920s, The Aims of Education (1929)
Contesto: The universities are schools of education, and schools of research. But the primary reason for their existence is not to be found either in the mere knowledge conveyed to the students or in the mere opportunities for research afforded to the members of the faculty. Both these functions could be performed at a cheaper rate, apart from these very expensive institutions. Books are cheap, and the system of apprenticeship is well understood. So far as the mere imparting of information is concerned, no university has had any justification for existence since the popularization of printing in the fifteenth century. Yet the chief impetus to the foundation of universities came after that date, and in more recent times has even increased. The justification for a university is that it preserves the connection between knowledge and the zest of life, by uniting the young and the old in the imaginative consideration of learning.
