A Precis on Chapter 1 of Process and Reality
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Process and Reality is the seminal work from Alfred North Whitehead that has influenced the philosophical world greatly, spawning off all sorts of secondary literature. Originally a lecture series given at the University of Edinburgh in the late 1920s, Process and Reality sets out his metaphysical musings and in Chapter one Whitehead focuses on setting the stage by discussing large picture views on the very nature of philosophy itself. He divides his chapter into six parts which I will individually discuss and look at the main themes he espouses and lays importance upon.
Like any good philosopher Whitehead begins his first section with a definition, and will continue to focus on defining his terms throughout the chapter. His first is of speculative philosophy which he sees as a “endeavor to frame coherent, logical, necessary system of general ideas in terms of every element of experience.” A definition that, may encompass it’s meaning, far from elucidates its underlying impact upon the discussion. I took it to mean a type of philosophy that looks at the world and attempts to draw generalized, logical, systems of explanation for everything that is around. This system includes both rational and empirical study and will face certain difficulties due to it’s intention to apply generally.
In the second section Whitehead explores just what generalization means. He says that philosophic generalization should be understood as a means to utilize specific notions, applying to a restricted group of facts, for the divination of generic notions which apply to all facts. These in their final form ought to be rationalistic ideals which bring coherence and logical perfection. This, however, is no simple task.
He writes in his third section that many philosophers attempt generalized theories but few successfully avoid two fallacies he points out. The fallacy of misplaced concreteness comes about when the philosopher forgets how much you can actually abstract the thing worked upon. This leads into the second which is a false estimate of the logical procedure in respect to certainty and in respect to the premises. Essentially what that can boil down to is by abstracting too far from those specific facts, philosophers are want to build large generalizations on weak foundations. This can compound when philosophers fail to heed his advice in section four in which he argues that in a similar way to how the Newtonian physics had to be updated as time continued, so too our foundational generalized principles should also be updated and changed. He says that one aim of philosophy should be to challenge this first principles of both science and previous philosophical thought.
In section five he discusses the tools of the philosopher, namely language. This he believes is a powerful tool but limited in that by using it in the form we have it we can allow language to hide complex diverse meanings in a simple subject predicate statement. This impact is most clearly felt when we forget that metaphysical systems should only be approximations of the general truths sought.
Finally he writes about philosophy in relation to science and religion. He has been referencing how philosophy and rationality can critique each other but now he puts a finer point on it by suggesting that philosophy should be the conjoining point between science and religion bringing those both into one rational thought.
Coming away from this chapter I feel excited by his focus on the problem of generalization. The first paper I wrote on philosophy, back at the start of my college career, was on the nature of truth and relativity and the largest problem I found there was the ability to generalize a position. To do a deep dive, then, with Whitehead into what problems generalization has for metaphysics at large will be gripping and help to elucidate some issues I have felt with the discipline in the past.