Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-tj2md Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-17T06:50:53.268Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Analytical Critiques of Whitehead's Metaphysics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2016

LEEMON B. MCHENRY
Affiliation:
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGEleemon.mchenry@csun.edu
GEORGE W. SHIELDS
Affiliation:
UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLEgeorge.shields@kysu.edu

Abstract:

Analytic philosophers have criticized A. N. Whitehead's metaphysics for being obscure, yet several such philosophers have espoused positions in metaphysics and philosophy of mind that were advanced by Whitehead in the 1920s. In this paper, we evaluate the merits and demerits of these criticisms by Bertrand Russell, W. V. Quine, Karl Popper, and others and then demonstrate the affinities and contrasts in the positions advanced by Galen Strawson, David Chalmers, Thomas Nagel, and Whitehead regarding so-called ‘analytic panexperientialism’.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © American Philosophical Association 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bruentrup, Godehard. (2009) ‘Natural Individuals and Intrinsic Properties’. In Honnefelder, Ludger et al. (eds), Unity in Time as a Problem in Metaphysics (Berlin: De Gruyter), 237–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chalmers, David. (1996) The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dombrowski, Daniel. (1994) ‘Thomas Nagel as a Process Philosopher’. American Journal of Theology and Philosophy, 15, 163–80.Google Scholar
Glock, Hans, ed. (1996) The Rise of Analytic Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Griffin, David R. (1998) Unsnarling the World-Knot: Consciousness, Freedom, and the Mind-Body Problem. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Griffin, David R. (2001) Reenchantment without Supernaturalism: A Process Philosophy of Religion. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Hartshorne, Charles. (1935) ’On Some Criticisms of Whitehead's Philosophy’. The Philosophical Review, 44, 323–44.Google Scholar
Hartshorne, Charles. ([1937] 1975) Beyond Humanism: Essays on the New Philosophy of Nature. Glouchester, MA: Peter Smith.Google Scholar
Hartshorne, Charles. (1977) ‘Physics and Psychics: The Place of Mind in Nature’. In Cobb, John and Griffin, David (eds.), Mind in Nature: Essays on the Interface of Science and Philosophy (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America), 8996.Google Scholar
Hartshorne, Charles. (1983) Insights and Oversights of Great Thinkers: An Evaluation of Western Philosophy. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Holmgren, Christine, and McHenry, Leemon. (2012) ’Quine and Whitehead on Ontological Reduction: Properties Reconsidered’. Process Studies, 41, 261–86.Google Scholar
Katzko, Michael. (2010) ‘The Interpretation and Integration of the Literature on Consciousness from a Process Perspective’. In Weber, Michel and Weekes, Anderson (eds.), Process Approaches to Consciousness (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press), 201–17.Google Scholar
Lango, John. (1972) Whitehead's Ontology. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Martin, Richard M. (1974) ‘An Approximate Logical Structure for Whitehead's Categoreal Scheme’. In Martin, R. M. (ed.), Whitehead's Categoreal Scheme and Other Papers (The Hague, Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff), 126.Google Scholar
McGinn, Colin. (1982) The Character of Mind. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McHenry, Leemon, B. (1986) ‘The Axiomatic Matrix of Whitehead's Process and Reality ’. Process Studies, 15, 172–80.Google Scholar
McHenry, Leemon B. (1997) ’Quine and Whitehead: Ontology and Methodology’. Process Studies, 26, 212.Google Scholar
McHenry, Leemon B. (2015) The Event Universe: The Revisionary Metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Moore, G. E. (1903) ‘The Refutation of Idealism’. Mind, 12, 433–53.Google Scholar
Moore, G. E. (1925) ‘A Defense of Common Sense’. In Muirhead, J. H. (ed.), Contemporary British Philosophy: Personal Statements. Second Series (London: Allen & Unwin), 182200.Google Scholar
Nagel, Thomas. (1974) ‘What Is It Like to Be a Bat?Philosophical Review, 83, 435–50.Google Scholar
Nagel, Thomas. (1986) The View from Nowhere. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nagel, Thomas. (2008) Mind and Cosmos. Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian View of Nature is Almost Certainly False. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Passmore, John. (1968) A Hundred Years of Philosophy. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Popper, Karl. ([1945] 1950) The Open Society and its Enemies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Popper, Karl. (1977) ‘Replies to my Critics: Grünbaum on Time and Entropy’. In Hahn, Lewis (ed.), The Philosophy of Karl Popper (LaSalle, IL: Open Court), 1140–42.Google Scholar
Pred, Ralph. (2005) Onflow: Dynamics of Experience and Consciousness, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Quine, W. V. (1934) A System of Logistic. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quine, W. V. (1941) ’Whitehead and the Rise of Modern Logic’. In Schilpp, Paul Arthur (ed.), The Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead (La Salle, IL: Open Court), 125–64.Google Scholar
Quine, W. V. (1960) Word and Object. Cambridge, MA: The M.I.T. Press.Google Scholar
Quine, W. V. (1981) Theories and Things. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Quine, W. V. (1986) ‘Autobiography of W. V. Quine’. In Hahn, Lewis Edwin and Schilpp, Paul Arthur (ed), The Philosophy of W. V. Quine. (La Salle, IL: Open Court), 346.Google Scholar
Quine, W. V. (1997) ‘Response to Leemon McHenry’. Process Studies, 26, 1314.Google Scholar
Quinton, Anthony. (1985) ‘The Right Stuff’. The New York Review of Books, 32, 52.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Gregg. (2004) A Place for Consciousness: Probing the Deep Structure of the Natural World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Gregg. (2009) ‘The Carrier Theory of Causality’. In Weber, Michel and Weeks, A. (eds.), Process Approaches to Consciousness (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press), 273–91.Google Scholar
Russell, Bertrand. ([1914]1956) Our Knowledge of the External World. New York: Mentor Books.Google Scholar
Russell, Bertrand. (1921) The Analysis of Mind. London: George Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Russell, Bertrand. ([1927]1954) The Analysis of Matter. New York: Dover Publications.Google Scholar
Russell, Bertrand. ([1944]1971) ‘Replies to Criticisms’. In Schilpp, Paul Arthur (ed.), The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell. (La Salle, IL: Open Court), 679–41.Google Scholar
Russell, Bertrand. (1956) Portraits from Memory and Other Essays. London: George Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Russell, Bertrand. ([1959]1995) My Philosophical Development. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Russell, Jeffrey Stanford. (2008) ’The Structure of Gunk: Adventures in the Ontology of Space’. In Zimmerman, Dean W. (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, vol. 4 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 248–74.Google Scholar
Rusu, Bogdan, and Desmet, Ronny. (2012) ‘Whitehead, Russell, and Moore: Three Analytic Philosophers’. Process Studies, 41, 214–34.Google Scholar
Seager, William. (1995) ‘Consciousness, Information, and Panpsychism’. The Journal of Consciousness Studies, 2, 272–88.Google Scholar
Searle, John. (1984) Minds, Brains, and Science. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Shields, George W., ed. (2003) Process and Analysis: Whitehead, Hartshorne, and the Analytic Tradition. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Simons, Peter. (2003) ‘Review of Shields, (ed.), Process and Analysis ’. Transactions of the C. S. Peirce Society, 39, 663–66.Google Scholar
Sprigge, Timothy. (2011) The Importance of Subjectivity: Selected Essays in Metaphysics and Ethics. Edited by McHenry, Leemon B.. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Stebbing, L. Susan. (1930) ’Review of Alfred North Whitehead’s Process and Reality. Mind, 39, 466475.Google Scholar
Stengers, Isabelle. (2011) Thinking with Whitehead. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Strawson, Galen. (2006) ‘Realistic Monism: Why Physicalism Entails Panpsychism’. In Freeman, Anthony (ed), Consciousness and Its Place in Nature (Exeter, UK: Imprint Academic), 331.Google Scholar
Urmson, J. O. (1967) Philosophical Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Weitz, Morris. (1967) ‘Analysis, Philosophical’. In Edwards, Paul (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 1 (New York: Macmillan), 97105.Google Scholar
Whitehead, Alfred North. (1919) An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Whitehead, Alfred North. (1920) The Concept of Nature. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Whitehead, Alfred North. (1925) Science and the Modern World. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Whitehead, Alfred North. ([1929] 1978) Process and Reality. Corrected Edition. Edited by Griffin, David Ray and Sherburne, Donald W.. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Zimmerman, Dean. (1996) ’Indivisible Parts and Extended Objects: Some Philosophical Episodes from Topology's Prehistory’. Monist, 79, 148–80.Google Scholar