Whitehead's metaphysics of power : reconstructing modern philosophy / Pierfrancesco Basile.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Basile, Pierfrancesco, author.

Contributor:

Christine Hikawa Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Whitehead, Alfred North, 1861-1947.

Whitehead, Alfred North.

Power (Philosophy).

Metaphysics.

Physical Description:

xiv, 145 pages ; 24 cm

Other Title:

Metaphysics of power : reconstructing modern philosophy

Place of Publication:

Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press Ltd, [2017]

Summary:

How Whitehead's metaphysics developed out of his reading of the history of philosophy, 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 thinkers did they arise? What precisely went wrong? At what stage in the development of Western though 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 - as well as to appreciate the complex way this is rooted in the modern philosophical tradition. Book jacket.

Contents:

Part I. In search of a new metaphysics

Introduction: metaphysics, science, common sense

Speculative metaphysics: defining the ideal

Part II. From permanence to process

Deconstructing tradition: substance revisited

The flowing self: from Monads to actual occasions

Overcoming the Cartesian legacy: the process concept of substance

Part III. From process to permanence

Changing shapes of reality: understanding nature under a social analogy

Theological afterthoughts: a neo-platonic God for a Darwininan universe?

Conclusion: the ethics of creativity - a Deweyan critique.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Christine Hikawa Fund.

ISBN:

9781474404143

1474404146

OCLC:

980363649