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 science justify
Science repudiates philosophy. In other words, it has never cared to justify its truth or explain its meaning.
philosophy science secret
Every philosophy is tinged with the coloring of some secret imaginative background, which never emerges explicitly into its train of reasoning.
future science merit
It is the business of the future to be dangerous; and it is among the merits of science that it equips the future for its duties.
inspirational truth science
There are no whole truths: all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays to the devil.
real knowledge science
In formal logic, a contradiction is the signal of defeat, but in the evolution of real knowledge it marks the first step in progress toward a victory.
science forget lost
A science which hesitates to forget its founders is lost.
science half creation
Aristotle discovered all the half-truths which were necessary to the creation of science.
angel science games
Without deductive logic science would be entirely useless. It is merely a barren game to ascend from the particular to the general, unless afterwards we can reverse the process and descend from the general to the particular, ascending and descending like angels on Jacob's ladder.
science aim particular
The aims of scientific thought are to see the general in the particular and the eternal in the transitory.
fall science simple
The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanation of complex facts. We are apt to fall into the error of thinking that the facts are simple because simplicity is the goal of our quest. The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be ``Seek simplicity and distrust it.''
wisdom math science
Everything of importance has been said before by somebody who did not discover it.
science ideas innovation
Almost all new ideas have a certain aspect of foolishness when they are first produced.
learning science being-different
It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.
creativity science simplicity
Seek simplicity, and distrust it.