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Lucas treats Whitehead within the framework of major themes in current Anglo-American "analytic" philosophy, viewed against the backdrop of significant historical trends in European and American thought since the Enlightenment. This most misunderstood of twentieth-century philosophers is critically interpreted here.
Whitehead had developed 50 years ago some ideas only now emerging in analytic philosophy. Lucas examines the significance of Whitehead's thought for current epistemology of science, for the anti-foundationalism debate, and more generally, for modal logic, action, theory, philosophical psychology, and the philosophy of mind. He shows how some recent analytic philosophy is now developing ideas concerning language, personal identity, and other topics that are found in Whitehead.
Lucas concludes with recent problems in relativity theory and quantum mechanics, indicating how these bear on the philosophy of science and on the task of forging a comprehensive understanding of nature. He examines the debates concerning Einstein and Whitehead on relativity and analyzes the work of Bohm, Prigogine, and others who have found Whitehead's categories useful for their own success.
Whitehead is shown to be a historical figure of great importance, not an idiosyncratic thinker, isolated along with a few enthusiastic followers from the mainstream of contemporary philosophy. With Russell, Whitehead participated in the same philosophical world that gave rise to analytic philosophy.
"Lucas' book competently brings Whitehead's philosophy into dialogue with "analytic" philosophy. This is a topic of great originality and considerable potential importance for the field of philosophy. The writing is forceful, concise, and clear." — George L. Kline, Bryn Mawr College
Preface
I. Systematic Philosophy and the Rehabilitation of Whitehead
Systematic Philosophy of the "Death of Philosophy"
Systematic Philosophy as Public Philosophy
The Relevance of Whitehead
The Rehabilitation of Whitehead
PART ONE: Philosophy Before Whitehead
II. Evolution and the Emergence of Process Metaphysics
On the Advantages and Disadvantages of History for Life
The Structure of Philosophic Revolutions
Evolution and Revolution
German Idealism and Romantic Naturphilosophie
The Convergence of Post-Hegelian Idealism and Later Evolutionary Cosmology
Summary
III. Realism, Idealism, and the Development of Whitehead's Philosophy
The Realist Revolt
The Significance of Whitehead's Philosophy
Concluding Summary
PART TWO: Whitehead and the Historical Tradition
IV. Whitehead and Evolutionary Cosmologies
The Importance of Evolutionary Cosmology
Historical Reprise of Evolutionary Cosmology
The Influence of Evolutionary Cosmology on Whitehead
Whitehead's Philosophical Differences from Evolutionary Cosmology
Whitehead's Distinctive Contributions to Speculative Metaphysics vis-a-vis Evolutionary Cosmology
Conclusion
V. Whitehead's Understanding of Kant
Whitehead's Aversion to Idealism
Whitehead and the Problem of Kant
The Misappropriation of Kant
Whitehead's Significant Innovations
Conclusion
VI. Whitehead, Hegel, and the Philosophy of Nature
Whitehead's Theory of Organic Mechanism
Hegel's Philosophy of Nature
The Later Discussion of Nature in Hegel's Encyclopedia
Conclusion
VII. Whitehead and Russell
Some Important Differences
Some Important Similarities
Substantive Philosophical Comparisons
Conclusion
PART THREE: The Future of Process Philosophy
VIII. Analytic and Post-Analytic Themes in Whitehead's Metaphysics
Whitehead's Exclusion from the Philosophic Mainstream
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
The Logic of Scientific Discovery
Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature
Possible Worlds
Mind, Body, Agency, and Personal Identity
The Reconception of Experience
IX. Recent Developments in Process Metaphysics
Process Metaphysics and the Problem of Freedom
Freedom and the Problem of Human Agency
Freedom and Enduring Substance
Substance, Causality, and Identity
Theism and Naturalism
The Causal Objectification of the Past
Becoming and Being
The Compositional Analysis of Whitehead's Writings
Conclusion
X. Philosophy of Science and Philosopy of Nature
The Theory of Relativity
Bell's Theorem and Causal Explanations in Quantum Mechanics
David Bohm: Physics and the "Implicate Order"
From Physics to a Systematic Philosophy of Nature
Conclusion: The Future of Philsophy and of Process Philosophy
Notes
Index