A.N. Whitehead and Process Thought: An Overview to Facilitate Transdisciplinary Applications within Social and Human Sciences

Stenner, Paul (2024). A.N. Whitehead and Process Thought: An Overview to Facilitate Transdisciplinary Applications within Social and Human Sciences. Human Affairs, 34(3) pp. 325–339.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/humaff-2024-0072

Abstract

This contribution offers a sense of the scope and transdisciplinary relevance of the philosophy of British mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead by providing an overview of the three main phases of his career. The contribution goes on to distinguish process thought from the substance thought which dominated modern philosophy, and to outline some of the ways in which Whitehead has influenced thought from across the full spectrum of academic disciplines.

Plain Language Summary

This paper provides an overview of the career of the philosopher and mathematician A.N. Whitehead. The overview is designed to help those who wish to pursue their research in a transdisciplinary manner, or at least to take into account how their own knowledge claims relate to those from other disciplines (e.g. interdisciplinarity). The paper identifies three key phases in Whitehead's work. It spells out how each phase builds on those prior to it, leading to Whitehead's mature philosophy of process. This philosophy has been fundamental to interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary scholarship, but needs to be better known.

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