Introduction to the Anisa Model

1. Introduction to the Anisa Model Dan Jordan July 1981 Lecture 4B Introduction to Whitehead

2. Alfred North Whitehead • b. 1861, d. 1947 • Whiteheads were school masters and clergy and local administration • Grandfather was well-known Quaker, George Whitehead • Father was educator and Anglican priest • Attended Trinity College, Cambridge • Remained until 1910 (30 years) • Lectured in applied math

3. Alfred North Whitehead • Preeminent mathematician of early 20th century • Three major philosophical works • Hegel – Logic • Kant – Critique of Pure Reason • Whitehead – Process and Reality • Anisa model built on cosmology of Whitehead • 1920 – joined Apostle’s club • 1890 -- Mar. Evelyn Wilby Wade • Wife had major impact on his thought

4. Alfred North Whitehead • Began first book at age 30 • Bertrand Russell was Whitehead’s student • Published Principia Mathematica • See: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/principia-mathematica/ • 1911, University College in London; Imperial College of Science and Technology, Kensington • 1924-1937 Harvard University (age 63)

5. Alfred North Whitehead • 1929 – Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology • See: Process Philosophy --http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/process-philosophy/ • See: Donald Sherman: A Key to Whitehead’s Process and Reality (1981, reprint) • Note: Philosophy of the paradigm shift • Newton – focus on mechanics of matter • Einstein – focus on relationship of energy and matter (relativity) • Quantum mechanics – focus on process, impact of the observer on what is observed

6. Alfred North Whitehead • Charles Hartshorne • Whitehead’s cosmology is so profound that it will take 10,000 years of concerted effort on the part of scholars to tease out its fundamental implications • Anisa Model • Takes the Whiteheadian thesis and looks at it as the foundation for a new paradigm for a system of education

7. Alfred North Whitehead • Major works • Science in the Modern World • Modes of Thought (last book; most readable) • Aims of Education • Adventure of Ideas • Philosophy of Science • Process and Reality

8. Why Is Whitehead Difficult • Speculative philosopher’s task is to create a logical, necessary, coherent frame of reference within which every item of experience can be interpreted • New thinking requires new vocabulary • See Quantum Philosophy: http://www.fortunecity.com/emachines/e11/86/qphil.html • Whitehead: • My deepest thinking is not in verbal form, and thus my struggle was to translate the deepest thoughts into appropriate words.

9. Why Is Whitehead Difficult • You can use old words and endow them with new meaning, in which case you will confuse everybody or you can invent entirely new words in which case you put everybody off. • Whitehead did a little of both • Mostly used older words endowed with new meanings closer to the original intent of the word • Latin and Greek scholar allowed this to be possible

10. Why Is Whitehead Difficult • Whitehead’s emphasis on coherence lead people to certain kinds of expectations in terms of the coherence of its exposition • Whitehead’s presentation on cosmology did not do that • See: Donald Sherman: A Key to Whitehead’s Process and Reality (1981, reprint) • See: Michael Epperson, Quantum Mechanics and the Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead (2004) • Timothy Eastman and Hank Keeton (Eds.), Physics and Whitehead: Quantum, Process, and Experience (2003)

11. Why Is Whitehead Difficult • Mixture of systematic and non-systematic use of words • Example: system and systematic • Feeling – specific definition only remotely connected to common usage; however, uses term in its common usage infrequently

12. Why Is Whitehead Difficult • To achieve ideal of comprehensiveness or adequacy, one has to be general; to be general means to be abstract. The more abstract, the more difficult it is to connect the thing with actuality • For most people that is difficult