Whitehead's Metaphysics of Power : Reconstructing Modern Philosophy

Basile, Pierfrancesco

Edinburgh University Press（2018/08発売）

• 製本 Paperback:紙装版/ペーパーバック版／ページ数 160 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9781474437400
• DDC分類 110.92

Full Description

At the beginning of his magnum opus, Process and Reality (1929), Whitehead lists a series of beliefs which he thinks are widely held by contemporary philosophers. They are all condemned as dangerously mistaken.
What are these myths? Why are they rejected? In the works of which modern thinker did they arise? What precisely went wrong? At what stage in the development of Western thought did this happen?
By tackling these questions, Pierfrancesco Basile 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 appreciate the complex way this is rooted in the modern philosophical tradition.

Contents

PrefaceAcknowledgementsAbbreviations

Part I. In Search of a New Metaphysics1. Introduction: Metaphysics, Science, Common Sense2. Speculative Metaphysics: Defining the Ideal

Part II. From Permanence to Process3. Deconstructing Tradition: Substance Revisited4. The Flowing Self: From Monads to Actual Occasions5. Overcoming the Cartesian Legacy: The Process Concept of Substance

Part III. From Process to Permanence6. Changing Shapes of Reality: Understanding Nature under a Social Analogy7. 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

BibliographyIndex