Whitehead's The Function of Reason

By Alfred North Whitehead

Whitehead presented these three lectures at Princeton University in 1929. Although 85 years have passed, his central thesis and his analysis remain remarkably current. The scientific materialism that Whitehead opposed with such vigor continues to dominate in academic circles, and even now those who question that worldview are often accused of being anti-scientific. This is especially true in discussions of the nature of the human mind and its relation to the body (particularly the brain). It is hard to find a contemporary thinker with a better perspective on the nature and role of natural science than Whitehead who, with Bertrand Russell, published the "Principia Mathematica" in 1910; who taught logic and mathematics at Trinity College of Cambridge University; who taught philosophy of science at University College London; and who was professor of philosophy at Harvard University beginning in 1924. Whitehead's cosmology is far from anti-scientific, but he does explain why scientific method and technological practice alone are not able to provide a comprehensive understanding of the full range of human thought and experience. This work explains what we must do to achieve such a comprehensive understanding.-

• Language: English
• Publisher: SAGA Egmont
• Release date: Jul 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9788726627633

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Alfred North Whitehead

Whitehead’s The Function of Reason

SAGA Egmont

Whitehead’s The Function of Reason

Copyright © 1929, 2020 Alfred North Whitehead and SAGA Egmont

All rights reserved

ISBN: 9788726627633

1. e-book edition, 2020

Format: EPUB 2.0

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrievial system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor, be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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Editor’s preface

Whitehead presented these three lectures at Princeton University in 1929. Although 85 years have passed, his central thesis and his analysis remain remarkably current. The scientific materialism that Whitehead opposes with such vigor continues to dominate in academic circles, and even now those who question that worldview are often accused of being anti-scientific. This is especially true in discussions of the nature of the human mind and its relation to the body (particularly the brain).

It is hard to find a contemporary thinker with a better perspective on the nature and role of natural science than Whitehead who, with Bertrand Russell, published the PrincipiaMathematica in 1910; who taught logic and mathematics at Trinity College of Cambridge University; who taught philosophy of science at University College London—with special emphasis on the conceptual impact of contemporary physics; and who was professor of philosophy at Harvard University. Whitehead’s cosmology is far from anti-scientific, but he does explain why scientific method and technological practice alone are not able to provide a comprehensive understanding of the full range of human thought and experience.

The Function of Reason was out of print for many years, so it has not contributed to this vital discussion at it should. For that reason we are publishing it not only as a text but also as an audio performance.

The content of these lectures is unabridged, although we have made a few changes in the language to facilitate oral presentation and to conform to contemporary usage (especially by avoiding the kind of sexist language that prevailed in the early decades of the 20th century).

Whitehead’s introduction and summary

History discloses two main tendencies in the course of events. One tendency is exemplified in the slow decay of physical nature. With stealthy inevitability there is a degradation of energy. The sources of activity sink downward and downward. Their very matter wastes. The other tendency is exemplified by the yearly renewal of nature in the spring, and by the upward course of biological evolution. In these lectures I consider reason in its relation to those contrasted aspects of history. Reason is the self-discipline of the originative element in history. Apart of the operations of reason, this element is anarchic.

Lecture one

The topic I am considering—the function of reason—is one of the oldest topics for philosophical consideration. What is the function of reason amid the welter of our mental experiences, amid our intuitions, our emotions, our purposes, and our decisions of emphasis? In order to answer such a question, we have to consider the nature of reason, its essence. Of course this is a hackneyed theme. Its discussion stretches back to the very beginnings of philosophic thought. But it is the business of philosophers to discuss such fundamental topics, and to set them on the stage illuminated by our modern ways of thinking.

Various phrases suggest themselves, which recall the special controversies depending on the determination of the true function of reason:

Faith and reason

Reason and authority

Reason and intuition

Criticism and imagination

Reason, agency, purpose

Scientific methodology

Philosophy and the sciences

Rationalism, skepticism, dogmatism

Reason and empiricism

Pragmatism

Each of these phrases suggests the scope of reason and the limitation of that scope. Also the variety of topics included in them shows that we will not exhaust our subject by the help of a neat little verbal phrase.

Yet despite this warning to avoid a mere phrase, I will start with a preliminary definition of the function of reason, a definition to be illustrated, distorted, and enlarged as this discussion proceeds.

The function of reason is to promote the art of life.

In the interpretation of this definition, I must at once join issue with the evolutionist fallacy suggested by the phrase the survival of the fittest. The fallacy does not consist in believing that in the struggle for existence the fittest survive to eliminate the less fit. The fact is obvious and stares us in the face. The fallacy is the belief that fitness for survival is identical with the best exemplification of the art of life.

In fact, life itself is comparatively deficient in survival value. The art of persistence is to be dead. Only inorganic things persist for great lengths of time. A rock survives for eight hundred million years, whereas the limit for a tree is about a thousand years; for a human being or an elephant it is about fifty or a hundred years, for a dog about twelve years, and for an insect about one year. The problem set by the doctrine of evolution is to explain how complex organisms with such deficient survival power ever evolved. They certainly