Concept of Nature

North Whitehead Alfred

Description

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. The contents of this book were originally delivered at Trinity College in the autumn of 1919 as the inaugural course of Tarner lectures. The Tarner lectureship is an occasional office founded by the liberality of Mr Edward Tarner. The duty of each of the successive holders of the post will be to deliver a course on 'the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Relations or Want of Relations between the different Departments of Knowledge.' The present book embodies the endeavour of the first lecturer of the series to fulfil his task.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Forgotten Books
• Date de parution: 27 novembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780243660872
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

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contents of this book were originally delivered at Trinity ollege in the autumn of the inaugural course of Tarner lectures The Tarner lectureship is an occasional offiy ofthe liberali ce founded by Mr dward Tarner The duty of each of the successive holders of the post will be to delive a course on the hilosophy of the Sciences and the R elations or Want of R epartments ofelations between the di erent nowledge The present book embodies the endeavour of thefirst lecturer of the series to fulfil his task The chapters retain their original lecture form and remain as delivered with the exception of minor changes designed to remove obscurities of expression The lecture form has the advantage of s ggesting an audience with a definite mental background which it is the purpose of the lecture to modif y in a specific way In the presentation of a novel outlook with wide rami fica ions a single line of communications from premises to conclusions is not su cient for intelligibility Your audience will construe whatever you into conformity with their pre existing outlook F or this reason thefirst two chapters and the last two chapters are essential for intelligibility though they hardly add to the formal completeness of the ex osition Their function is to prevent the reader from bolting up S ide tracks in pursuit of misunderstandings The same reason dictates my avoidance of the existing technical terminolo y of

PREFACE philosophy The modern natural philosophy is shot through and through with the fallacy of bifurcation which is discussed in the second chapter of this work ccordingly all its t chnical terms in some subtle way presuppose a misunderstanding of my thesis It is perhaps as well to state explicitly that if the reader indulges in the facile vice of bifurcation not a word of what I have here written will be intelligible The last two chapters do not properly belong to the special course hapter V I I I is a lecture delivered in the spring of before the hemical Society of the students of the Im erial ollege of Science Technology It has been appended here as conveniently summing up and applying the doctrine of the book for an audience with one defioutlooknite type of This volume on the oncept of N ature forms a companion book to my previous work ither book can be read independently but they supplement each other In part the present book suppl es points of view which were omitted from predecessor in part it traverses the same ground with an alternative exposition F mathematical notation hasor one thing been carefully avoided and the results of mat ematical deductions are assumed Some of the explanations have en improved and others have been set in a new light O ousn the other hand important points of the prev work have been omitted where I have had nothing fresh to say about them O the formern the whole where s work based itself chiefly on ideas directly drawn from

PREFACE mathematical physics the present book keeps closer to certainfields of philosophy and physics to the e x lusion of mathematics The works m eet in their dis c ussions of some det ils of space and time I am not conscious that I have in any way altered my v Thosedevelopments have been made iews Some that are capable of a non mathematical exposition have been in c the text The athematical orporated in de are alluded to in the last c h apters They concern the adaptation of the principles of ma hemati c al physics to the form of relati v ity principle which here maintained instein s method of using the theory of tensors is adopted but the application is worked out on di erent lines and fro m assumptionsdi erent Those of his results which have been verified by experience are obtained also by my met ods The divergence c hiefly arises from the fa c t that I do not accept theory of non unifor m space or tion as to the peculiar fundamental character of light sign ls I would not however be misunderstood to be acking in appre c iation of the v alue of his recent work on general relati v ity which the high merit offirst disclosing way in which ma h ematical physi c s should proceed in the light of the principle of relativity in my judgment he has cra m ped the development of his brilliant mathematical m ethod in the narrow bounds of a very doubtful philosophy The object of the present volume and of its pre de c losophy whicha natural p essor is to lay the basis of is the necessa y presupposition of a reorganised

PREFACE lative physics The general assimilation of space and time which dominates the constructive thought can claim the independent support of Minkowski from the S ding relatiof succe science and also ide of v onists while the side of philosophers it was I believe one theme of rof exander s Gi ord lectures delivered some few years ago but not yet published H e also summarised his conclusions on this question in a lecture to the ristotelian Society in the uly of Since the publication of I have had the advantage of reading Mr road s amb U niv ress This valuable book has assisted me in my discussion in hapter I I though I am unaware as to far Mr road would assent to any of my arguments as there stated It remains for me to thank the sta f of the U niversity ress its compositors proof readers its clerks and its managing o cials not only for the technical ex of their work but for the they have operated so as to secure my con v enience

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subj ect matter of the Tarner lectures is defined by the founder to be the hilosophy of the Sciences and the R elations or Want of R ferentelations betw en the di epart m isnowledge It ents of fitting at thefirst lecture of this new foundation to dwell for a moments on the intentions of the donor as expressed in this defiI shallthe more willingly as I do nition and th eby be enabled to introduce the topics to which the present course is to be devoted We are justifitaking the second clauseed I think in of the defithe earliernition as in part explanatory of clause What is the philosophy of the scien e It is not a bad answer to that it the study of the rela tions between the di erent departments of knowledge Then with admirable solicitude for the freedom of learning there is inserted in the definition after the W want of relationsord relations the phrase or disproof of elations between sciences would in itself consti ute a philosophy of the sciences could not dispense either with the earlier or the later clause It is not every relation between sciences w ch enters into their philosophy F or examp e biology and physics are connected by the use of the microscope Still I may safely assert that a technical description of the uses of the microscope in biolo y is not part of the philosophy of the sciences gain you cannot abandon the later W N