NOTES ON WHITEHEAD

In December 2018 I adopted Alfred North Whitehead’s term “concrescence” into my system without having read any works by Whitehead, as opposed to secondary commentary. All I really knew of Whitehead was that his major work PROCESS AND REALITY was based on the notion that many if not all philosophies before his own were far more focused on seeing the universe as a “product” rather than an ongoing “process.”

I’ve now read the first two chapters of PROCESS AND REALITY, and while I don’t see the “product/process” dichotomy as yet, the idea of reality as an ongoing process seems central to his thought. To be sure, I find Whitehead tough going in that he tosses out terminology as complicated as Kant’s, but with less explication. His diction is at least less convoluted than that of Hegel, but I suspect I might have been better off if I’d started out with one of his earlier, less ambitious works. Possibly, as he begins going into more detail about the distinctions between his system and those of earlier philosophers, I’ll be better able to place him in context.

Given that I liked his adaptation of the medical term “concrescence,” I am pleased to see that this was not just some random toss-off, but a central aspect of Whitehead’s system, allowing one to see how “any one actual entity involves the other actual entities among its components.” I’m reasonably sure that he doesn’t approach his schemes about reality and actuality from the Jungian/Kantian standpoint I favor, and though he views literature as part of that reality, it’s clearly not going to be one of his principal concerns. But so far I am satisfied that his project aligns to some degree with the principles of pluralism that I’ve expoused here. However I may disagree with him, I currently think that he’s more an ally than an opponent.