Whitehead's Metaphysics of Power: Reconstructing Modern Philosophy - Softcover

Basile, Pierfrancesco

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1474437400 ISBN 13: 9781474437400

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press, 2018

Synopsis

Shows how Whitehead's metaphysics developed from his reading of early modern philosophy

About this title

About the Author

Pierfrancesco Basile is a lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Bern, Switzerland.

From the Back Cover

'Whitehead's speculative cosmology and willingness to reform language in its service set him against the philosophical trends of his time. Pierfrancesco Basile's discerning study eschews adulation, revealing a carefully revolutionary Whitehead grappling with matter, mind and metaphysics, a tempered rationalist indebted to Leibniz, whose philosophy "escapes any easy judgment."' Peter Simons, Trinity College Dublin 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 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 - as well as to appreciate the complex way this is rooted in the modern philosophical tradition. Pierfrancesco Basile is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Bern and at the KSA Luzern, Switzerland. Cover image: (c) iStockphoto.com Cover design: [EUP logo] edinburghuniversitypress.com ISBN Barcode

From the Inside Flap

Whitehead s speculative cosmology and willingness to reform language in its service set him against the philosophical trends of his time. Pierfrancesco Basile s discerning study eschews adulation, revealing a carefully revolutionary Whitehead grappling with matter, mind and metaphysics, a tempered rationalist indebted to Leibniz, whose philosophy escapes any easy judgment. Peter Simons, Trinity College DublinHow Whitehead s metaphysics developed out of his reading of the history of philosophyAt 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 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 as well as to appreciate the complex way this is rooted in the modern philosophical tradition.Pierfrancesco Basile is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Bern and at the KSA Luzern, Switzerland.Cover image: © iStockphoto.comCover design:[EUP logo]edinburghuniversitypress.comISBNBarcode

Edition details

• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1474437400
• ISBN 13: 9781474437400
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160