Science and the Modern World

work by Whitehead

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July 13, 2026

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Science and the Modern World is a 1925 book by Alfred North Whitehead. It critiques the prevailing scientific materialism of the time, which viewed nature as solely composed of matter and energy. Whitehead argued that this perspective was an oversimplification, mistaking abstract mathematical models for concrete reality.1

He contended that a more comprehensive understanding of nature must incorporate the richness of concrete experience and broader philosophical ideas. Whitehead's work emphasizes the importance of process, change, and the integration of diverse elements in understanding the universe. The book also highlights the value of aesthetics and humanistic feelings, appealing to poets like Wordsworth and Shelley against the exclusion of values from scientific inquiry.1

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Alfred North Whitehead
Career in the United States of Alfred North Whitehead
…earliest writing about God) as Science and the Modern World. In it he dramatically described what had long engaged his meditation; namely, the rise, triumph, and impact of “scientific materialism”—i.e., the view that nature consists of nothing else but matter in motion, or a flux of purely physical energy. He…
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…earliest writing about God) as Science and the Modern World. In it he dramatically described what had long engaged his meditation; namely, the rise, triumph, and impact of “scientific materialism”—i.e., the view that nature consists of nothing else but matter in motion, or a flux of purely physical energy. He…
Read More

Western philosophy
Bergson, Dewey, and Whitehead
…toward which his great trilogy—Science and the Modern World (1925), Process and Reality (1929), and Adventures of Ideas (1933)—was directed.
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…toward which his great trilogy—Science and the Modern World (1925), Process and Reality (1929), and Adventures of Ideas (1933)—was directed.
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