Abstract

A sympathetic, fully detailed account, interpretive and critical as well as expository, of Whitehead's major publications before 1929. Whitehead's thought, it is argued, shows a clear development in these early works, away from exclusive preoccupation with the philosophy of natural science, towards a wider, more metaphysical outlook, comprehending values. Mr. Lawrence focuses especially on the epistemological aspects of the Whiteheadian philosophy, distinguishing conflicting "realistic" and "conceptualistic" strains. This and other inconsistencies, however, are exhibited less as deficiencies than as a fruitful source of progress and growth in Whitehead's thinking, culminating in the grand synthesis of Process and Reality. The book, one of the best on Whitehead yet to appear, nicely combines scholarship and philosophy.--V. C. C.