Whitehead's Metaphysics of Power: Reconstructing Modern Philosophy

by Pierfrancesco Basile

Overview

At the beginning of Process and Reality (1929), Alfred North Whitehead condemns a list of beliefs, which he thinks are widely held by contemporary philosophers, as dangerously mistaken. Pierfrancesco Basile looks at these myths: where they came from and why they are rejected. In doing so, he makes it possible to grasp the main concepts of Whitehead's process metaphysics - especially the crucial notion that being and power are one and the same - and how it is rooted in the modern philosophical tradition.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474437400
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	08/12/2018
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x (d)

About the Author

Pierfrancesco Basile is a lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Bern, Switzerland.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations

Part I. In Search of a New Metaphysics
1. Introduction: Metaphysics, Science, Common Sense
2. Speculative Metaphysics: Defining the Ideal

Part II. From Permanence to Process
3. Deconstructing Tradition: Substance Revisited
4. The Flowing Self: From Monads to Actual Occasions
5. Overcoming the Cartesian Legacy: The Process Concept of Substance

Part III. From Process to Permanence
6. Changing Shapes of Reality: Understanding Nature under a Social Analogy
7. Theological Afterthoughts: A Neo-Platonic God for a Darwinian Universe?

8. Conclusion: The Ethics of Creativity - A Deweyan Critique

Appendix: The Making of a Metaphysician - a Biographical Note

Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

Whitehead’s speculative cosmology and willingness to reform language in its service set him against the philosophical trends of his time. Pierfrancesco Basile’s discerning study eschews adulation, revealing a carefully revolutionary Whitehead grappling with matter, mind and metaphysics, a tempered rationalist indebted to Leibniz, whose philosophy "escapes any easy judgment."

Peter Simons

Whitehead’s speculative cosmology and willingness to reform language in its service set him against the philosophical trends of his time. Pierfrancesco Basile’s discerning study eschews adulation, revealing a carefully revolutionary Whitehead grappling with matter, mind and metaphysics, a tempered rationalist indebted to Leibniz, whose philosophy "escapes any easy judgment."

Editorial Reviews

Whitehead’s speculative cosmology and willingness to reform language in its service set him against the philosophical trends of his time. Pierfrancesco Basile’s discerning study eschews adulation, revealing a carefully revolutionary Whitehead grappling with matter, mind and metaphysics, a tempered rationalist indebted to Leibniz, whose philosophy "escapes any easy judgment."

Peter Simons