Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead OM FRSwas an English mathematician and philosopher. He is best known as the defining figure of the philosophical school known as process philosophy, which today has found application to a wide variety of disciplines, including ecology, theology, education, physics, biology, economics, and psychology, among other areas...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionMathematician
Date of Birth15 February 1861
Alfred North Whitehead quotes about
philosophy effort romance
Philosophy is the product of wonder. The effort after the general characterization of the world around us is the romance of human thought.
philosophy danger chiefs
The chief danger to philosophy is narrowness in the selection of evidence.
philosophy science justify
Science repudiates philosophy. In other words, it has never cared to justify its truth or explain its meaning.
philosophy numbers people
There will be some fundamental assumptions which adherents of all the variant systems within the epoch unconsciously presuppose. Such assumptions appear so obvious that people do not know what they are assuming because no other way of putting things has ever occurred to them. With these assumptions a certain limited number of types of philosophic systems are possible, and this group of systems constitutes the philosophy of the epoch.
philosophy science secret
Every philosophy is tinged with the coloring of some secret imaginative background, which never emerges explicitly into its train of reasoning.
philosophy self excess
Philosophy is the self-correction by consciousness of its own initial excess of subjectivity.
philosophy philosophical doubt
Without doubt, if we are to go back to that ultimate, integral experience, unwarped by the sophistications of theory, that experience whose elucidation is the final aim of philosophy, the flux of things is one ultimate generalization around which we must weave our philosophical system.
philosophy simple asks
Philosophy asks the simple question: What is it all about?
philosophy errors chiefs
The chief error in philosophy is overstatement.
philosophy wonder products
Philosophy is the product of wonder.
philosophy done wonder
Philosophy begins in wonder. And, at the end, when philosophic thought has done its best, the wonder remains.
brutal courage firm force rather resolve true virtue vulgar
True courage is not the brutal force of vulgar heroes. Rather the firm resolve of virtue and reason.
analysis common-sense mind seldom simple solutions takes undertake unusual
Simple solutions seldom are. It takes a very unusual mind to undertake analysis of the obvious.
bother familiar mankind mind requires undertake unusual
Familiar things happen, and mankind does not bother about them. It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.