Skip to main content
Log in

Alfred North Whitehead's Informal Philosophy of Education

  • Published:
Studies in Philosophy and Education Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The objective of this article is to show that Whitehead had a very important philosophy of education both on the formal level. The consistency found is well worth noting. I researched many of Whitehead's major works for his formal views and Lucian Price's Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead. In my opinion Price's book is the best available for the purpose of getting Whitehead's candid informal view of education. The paper is divided into sections according to the particular subject matter. Since Whitehead describes education as the study of “life and all of its manifestations”. It is appropriate to cover some of these areas: the purpose of education, the role of science and speculation, education and civilization, and both the process of education and process education are reviewed. Whitehead's philosophy of education is sweeping in scope. In his philosophy we find the importance of experience, imagination, speculation, generalization, factual knowledge, specialization, relevance, intuition, novelty, curiosity, theory, practice, pleasure, harmony, freedom, discipline, technical and liberal education and unification. He, in fact, unifies all these seemingly different areas into a coherent philosophy of education.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

REFERENCES

  • Johnson, A.H.: 1947, The Wit and Wisdom of Alfred North Whitehead, Beacon Press.

  • Johnson, A.H.: 1962, Whitehead's Philosophy of Civilization, Dover Publishing Co.

  • Johnson, A.H.: 1962, Whitehead's Theory of Reality, Dover Publishing Co.

  • Price, Lucien: 1954, Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead, The Atlantic Monthly Press Book, Little Brown & Co.

  • Schulpp, Paul Arthur: 1951, The Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, Open Court Publication.

  • Whitehead, Alfred North: 1925, Science and the Modern World, McMillan.

  • Whitehead, Alfred North: 1927, Symbolism, McMillan.

  • Whitehead, Alfred North: 1929, The Aims of Education and Others Essays, McMillan Co.

  • Whitehead, Alfred North: 1933, Adventures of Ideas, McMillan.

  • Whitehead, Alfred North: 1938, Modes of Thought, McMillan Co.

  • Whitehead, Alfred North: 1978, Process and Reality, (Corrected edition), The Free Press.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Blasius, F.R. Alfred North Whitehead's Informal Philosophy of Education. Studies in Philosophy and Education 16, 303–315 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1004930032195

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1004930032195

Keywords

Navigation