Alfred north whitehead (186 1- 1947), an English-American mathematician and philosopher, is famous for his achievements in mathematical logic, philosophy of science and metaphysics. Whitehead is considered as one of the greatest philosophers in the 20th century. It is generally believed that Whitehead's metaphysical system is the greatest metaphysical theory produced in the 20th century.

Chinese name: alfred north whitehead.

Alfrednos whitehead

Alias: whitehead

Nationality: USA

Place of birth: Kent, England

Date of birth: 186 1 February 15.

Date of death:1947 65438+February 30th.

Occupation: mathematician, philosopher

Major achievements: The largest metaphysical system in the 20th century was founded.

Masterpiece: Mathematical Principles

brief introduction

AlfredNorthWhitehead (English: alfred north whitehead, 186 1 February15-194712.30), OM, a British mathematician and philosopher. He was born in Kent, England, and died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. He once taught at Cambridge University1885-191and at Harvard University 1924- 1937. The Principles of Mathematics, which he co-authored with Russell, marks the great progress of human logical thinking and will always be one of the great academic works. At the same time, it also created the largest metaphysical system in the 20th century.

Curriculum philosophy

Whitehead's philosophy can of course be said to be due to the disintegration of Newtonian physics; He witnessed this with his own eyes, which shocked him greatly. His metaphysical views appeared in his Concept of Nature (1920). In his paper Science and Modern World (1925), his metaphysics has been structured. This book is also an important study of the history of thought and the role of science and mathematics in the prosperity of western civilization. Whitehead's metaphysics was influenced by Bergson's philosophy, but he was also a Platonist who believed that "the characteristics of events originated from the involution of entities".

1927 Whitehead was invited to give a lecture at the University of Edinburgh in Gifford. The lecture 1929 was published as the book "ProcessandReality", which laid the foundation of process philosophy and made great contributions to western metaphysics. In addition to Britain, process philosophy is followed all over the world, among which CharlesHartshorne and John Cobb Jr, a process theologian, are famous.

Curriculum and reality (mainland: process and reality) are known as guardian theism, but the God of Whitehead is essentially different from Abraham's Apocalypse God. Whitehead's organic philosophy created the course of theology, and besides hartson and Cobb, Griffin also contributed to it. Some Christians and Jews believe that process theology is an effective way to know God and the universe. Just as the whole universe has been changing, God, as the origin of the universe, is also considered to be growing and changing.

TheAdventureofIdeas, published in 1933, summarizes the main ideas of Whitehead's metaphysics and is his last and most readable book. The book also defines beauty, truth, art, adventure and peace. He believes that "there is no complete truth; All truths are half truths. The truth that they are all is to play the devil. "

Whitehead and Russell went to America after reading Principles of Mathematics. He moved away from the concept of formal philosophy and began to doubt-just like Wittgenstein-the whole western philosophical trend of thought. Later, Whitehead even thought that the purpose of philosophy was to rationalize mysticism, "express the infinity of the universe with limited language" and "have a direct insight into the unspeakable profundity". This is obviously not the language or emotion that the philosophical mathematician who co-authored Principles of Mathematics with Russell once had (Russell later admitted that he could not understand Whitehead's new philosophy at all).

According to Whitehead's new "process" philosophy, the patterns and metaphors used by most western traditional philosophers are eternal and infinite static metaphors; Only from the basis of mathematical logic and the universal fantasy that once grasped the eternal truth of early Greek philosophers can these metaphors be helped. Western philosophy has always been based on the categories of "entity", "essence" and "object", and its ideal is permanent logical inevitability; However, there is another metaphor in the history of western philosophy, a kind of anti-trend, which is a metaphor of change, progress and course. This metaphor can be found in Hera Cretors and even in Aristotle, Hegel, Darwin and Nietzsche.