Alfred North Whitehead Critical Essay | Critical Essay by John Dewey

Critical Essay by John Dewey

SOURCE: “Whitehead's Philosophy,” in Problems of Men, Philosophical Library, 1946, pp. 410-18.

In the following essay, originally published in 1937, Dewey examines the basic method of Whitehead's philosophy.

Mr. Whitehead's philosophy is so comprehensive that it invites discussion from a number of points of view. One may consider one of the many special topics he has treated with so much illumination or one may choose for discussion his basic method. Since the latter point is basic and since it seems to me to present his enduring contribution to philosophy, I shall confine myself to it.

Mr. Whitehead says that the task of philosophy is to frame “descriptive generalizations of experience.” In this, an empiricist should agree without reservation. Descriptive generalization of experience is the goal of any intelligent empiricism. Agreement upon this special point is the more emphatic because Mr. Whitehead is not afraid to use the term “immediate experience.”...
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