A Key to Whitehead's Process and Reality

by Donald W. Sherburne

Overview

Whitehead's magnum opus is as important as it is difficult. It is the only work in which his metaphysical ideas are stated systematically and completely, and his metaphysics are the heart of his philosophical system as a whole. Sherburne has rearranged the text in a way designed to lead the student logically and coherently through the intricacies of the system without losing the vigor of Whitehead's often brilliant prose.

"The Key renders Process and Reality pedagogically accessible for the first time."--Journal of Religion

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226752938
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	09/15/1981
Edition description:	University of Chicago Press Edition
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Donald W. Sherburne is professor of philosophy at Vaderbilt University.

Table of Contents

Purpose and Design of This Book
1. The Actual Entity
I. The Actual Entity
II. Prehensions
1. Datum
2. Subjective Form
III. Satisfaction, Superject, and Objective Immortality
IV. The Ontological Principle
2. The Formative Elements
I. Eternal Objects
II. God
1. God and Subjective Aim
2. Coherence of the Concept "God"
3. Summary and Transition to Creativity
III. Creativity
3. The Phases of Concrescence
I. Introductory Statement
II. Phase I-Conformal Feelings
1. Three Categoreal Obligations
2. Three Categoreal Obligations Illustrated
III. Phase II-Conceptual Feelings
1. Conceptual Reversion
2. Reversion, God, and Subjective Aim
3. Valuations and Further Categoreal Obligations
IV. Phase III-Simple Comparative Feelings
1. Physical Purposes
2. Propositions and Propositional Feelings
3. Physical Purposes versus Propositional Feelings
V. Phase IV-Complex Comparative Feelings
VI. Satisfaction
4. Nexus and the Macrocosmic
I. Transmutation
II. Nexus and Order
III. Psychological Physiology
5. Perception
I. Causal Efficacy
II. Presentational Immediacy
III. Symbolic Reference
IV. Perception, Causation, and Whitehead's Rebuttal of Hume
6. Whitehead and Other Philosophers
I. Descartes (and Hume)
II. Locke (and Hume)
III. Kant
IV. Newton
V. Newton and Plato
VI. Modern Science
1. Substance
2. Philosophy and Science
7. God and the World
I. The Ideal Opposites
II. God and the World
1. Traditional Concepts of God
2. The Primordial Nature of God
3. The Consequent Nature of God
4. Resolution of the Cosmological Problem
Appendix - In Defense of Speculative Philosophy
Glossary
Process and Reality—Passages quoted in this book
Index