Resource Guide for Physics
and Whitehead
Timothy E. Eastman and Hank Keeton, editors, Albany: State University of
New York Press, 2004
This Process Studies Supplement provides a scholarly resource for studies
in Whitehead and modern science and serves as a complement to our book
Physics and Whitehead: Process, Quantum and Experience [Timothy
E. Eastman and Hank Keeton, editors, Albany: State University of New York
Press, 2003].
http://www.sunypress.com
Why focus on Whitehead?
Whitehead’s academic career spanned more than five decades from
1880 well into the 20th century, covering a variety of fields from mathematics
and symbolic logic, to philosophy of nature and philosophy of science,
to epistemology, cosmology and metaphysics. During his early work in mathematics
and logic (1880-1912--generally the years at Trinity College, Cambridge)
he clearly enlarged his specific concentration on mathematics to include
applications for other more physical sciences. As he gradually generalized
those early investigations more into the foundations of broader science,
he began expressing his evolving insights using more philosophical language
and categories (1912-1924--generally the years in London at University
College and the Imperial College of Science and Technology). This more
philosophical discourse led to even broader categorical investigations
that resulted in the challenging cosmology of his mature thinking (1924-1947--generally
the years at Harvard University’s philosophy department, and retirement).
Whitehead began at a place quite foreign to most scientists during the
early part of the century. Rather than focus on the “things” which
were being measured and tested (whether massive objects or massless objects),
Whitehead choose to focus on the “events” which constituted
or included those “things” instead. Other thinkers (e.g., Alexander,
Bergson, James, Pierce) track parallel paths through similar issues, and
together help constitute an emerging field within philosophy focusing on
relationality and the process nature of the universe. This philosophical
field was described as process philosophy by the 1960s and found institutional
support at Harvard and the University of Chicago.
Whitehead is unique among
major process philosophers in terms of his in-depth knowledge of science,
mathematics, and logic. Although process thought
generally has developed many fruitful strands other than Whitehead’s,
our focus on Whitehead’s work and its progeny is warranted by both
his impacts on science and the current relevance of his work for inspiring
new approaches to numerous topics in science and the humanities.
Resource Guide Description
First Section
Mutual impacts of Whitehead on science and mathematics are first presented,
which demonstrate why Whitehead is a worthy subject of contemporary research.
Then we list a broad array of internet resources. After that, we provide
a comprehensive bibliography of physics and process thought, and an extensive
bibliography in other areas of science and process thought. This includes
papers and books that address scientific issues to some extent and that
are not focused exclusively on philosophical issues. A glossary of terms
completes this first phase of the resource guide.
Second Section
This section provides materials complementary to our book Physics and
Whitehead, published by SUNY press, including book information, bibliographic
sketches for major contributors, and complete dialogues. Due to length
limitations, the book contains only part of the dialogue from the Physics
and Whitehead Workshop held in 1998 as part of the International Whitehead
Symposium in Claremont, California. This PSS entry now contains the entire
dialogue material subject only to the limits of the recording and transcribing
process.
Appendices
We conclude with several Appendices containing items of special relevance
to our topic. Appendix A contains notes on process-oriented physics developments,
with a special focus on possibilities for generating basic physics from
information. Many contemporary physicists use process-oriented language
in their work and some specifically call attention to linkages with process
philosophy. For example, Reginald Cahill refers to his approach as “Process
Physics.” Appendix B contains reprints from special focus sections
of Process Studies published in 1997 and 1998 and edited by Timothy Eastman
on the topic of “Process Thought and Natural Science.” Appendix
C provides a reprint of the special Process Studies issue, edited by Dean
R. Fowler, on Whitehead and Natural Science (Process Studies 11/4, 1981).
Appendix D features a previously unpublished paper by Christoph Wassermann
on C. F. von Weizsacker’s work on quantum theory and lays out several
fundamental connections between process thought and von Weizsacker’s
interpretations. Appendix E provides previously unpublished material by
Robert Russell and Christoph Wassermann on converting Whitehead’s
Theory of Relativity into modern notation, on how Whitehead’s theory
meets all the basic observational tests for a general theory of relativity,
and then raises some questions about how Whitehead’s formalism
may yield some advanced results previously thought to be unique to Einstein’s
approach. Appendix F features a paper by Lawrence Fagg that emphasizes
the importance of electromagnetism
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