ABSTRACT

CHAPTER I. SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY

SECTION
I. Speculative PhilosophyA method of philosophy that attempts to create a comprehensive and logical system of ideas to explain every element of our experience.; A coherent, logical, and necessary system of ideas; the interpretation of experience.
II. Failures of insight and language; conditions for observation; strict reliance on experience (empiricism), the role of imagination, and the process of generalization; the nature of coherence and incoherence; CreativityThe "ultimate" principle for Whitehead, representing the drive of the universe to produce new, unified occasions of experience. as the fundamental reality.
III. Rationalism and dogmatism; the philosophical scheme as a "matrix" or framework; the nature of false and true statements; how to use this framework; philosophy as an experimental adventure of the mind.
IV. The relationship between philosophy and science; different levels of generality; the dogmatic influence of mathematics on thought; the historical progress of philosophy.
V. The failures of language; propositions and their underlying context; metaphysical assumptions; the dangers of trusting language too much; the relationship between metaphysics and practical life; metaphysics and how we express ourselves through words.
VI. Speculative philosophy and the danger of overambition; how overambition and dogmatism affect progress; the relationship between interpretation and metaphysics; higher levels of experience; the role of subjectivity and correcting metaphysical errors; how philosophy connects morality, religion, and science; the contrast between religion and science; conclusion.

CHAPTER II. THE CATEGOREAL SCHEME

I. Four primary notions: Actual EntityThe final, real things that make up the world—the smallest units of reality, also called "actual occasions.", PrehensionThe process by which an actual entity "grasps" or perceives other entities and incorporates them into itself., NexusA collection or network of actual entities linked together by their prehensions., and the Ontological PrincipleThe rule that "no actual entity, then no reason"; everything must be explained by something that is actually real.; the influence of philosophers Descartes and Locke; why philosophy explains abstractions rather than concrete reality.
II. The four sets of categories; the Category of the Ultimate; joining together (conjunction) and pulling apart (disjunction); Creativity, the principle of novelty and the creative advance of the world; togetherness and ConcrescenceThe process of "growing together," where various components of the universe combine to form a new, single actual entity.; the eight Categories of Existence; the twenty-seven Categories of Explanation.
III. The nine Categoreal Obligations These are the fundamental rules that govern how actual entities "grow together" during the process of concrescence..
IV. Preliminary notes; why complete abstraction is self-contradictory; the principles of unrest and relativity; why actual entities themselves never change; the perishing of occasions and their Objective ImmortalityThe concept that even when an event "perishes" or ends, it remains real because it becomes a permanent part of the foundation for all future events.; the difference between final causes (purpose) and efficient causes (mechanical force); multiplicities; the concept of substance.