Process and Reality

...in which the philosophy of organism establishes its own theory regarding this problem. It must be clearly understood that the theme of these lectures is not a separate look at various traditional philosophical problems that happen to be important in specific historical systems of thought. Instead, these lectures are intended to present a concise framework of cosmological cosmological: relating to the nature and structure of the universe as a whole ideas, to develop their meaning by testing them against various aspects of experience, and finally to build a complete system in which every specific topic reveals its connection to everything else.

Therefore, the unity of this work should be found in the steady growth of this framework—in its meaning and relevance—rather than in a step-by-step discussion of individual subjects. For instance, the theories regarding time, space, perception, and causality are revisited repeatedly as the cosmology unfolds. In each instance, these topics either clarify the overall framework or are clarified by it. By the end—insofar as this project is successful—there should be no remaining problems regarding space-time, epistemology epistemology: the branch of philosophy that studies the nature and limits of human knowledge, or causality left over for separate discussion. The system should have developed all the general concepts necessary to describe any possible way that things can be interconnected.

Among modern schools of thought, my debts to the English and American Realists Realists: philosophers who generally believe that the physical world exists independently of our minds are obvious. In this connection, I would like to specifically mention Professor T. P. Nunn of the University of London. His early work in the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, which predicted some of the doctrines of modern Realism, does not seem to be as well-known as it deserves to be.

I am also greatly indebted to Henri Bergson, William James, and John Dewey. One of my main concerns has been to defend their style of thought from the charge of "anti-intellectualism," which has been linked to them, whether rightly or wrongly. Finally, although I disagree sharply with F. H. Bradley F. H. Bradley: a famous British philosopher known for "Idealism," the view that reality is ultimately mental or spiritual throughout the main body of this work, our final conclusions are not actually that different. I am particularly indebted to his chapter on the nature...