Abstract

Whitehead's attempt to formulate the relationship between science (categories) and experience is central to his philosophy. Thus, a critical examination of the path followed by modern science and philosophy is necessary in order to understand development of science and philosophy from the 17th century onward so as to find the causes of their success and their limitations. Here we can isolate a major vice, that of mistaking the abstract for the concrete: the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. Certain cognitive processes, e.g., the reduction of reality to quantitatively provable and controllable categories, which are valid if we regard them in their abstractive function, have lost sight of their own meaning in the concealment of their origin. Although they are abstract, they appear only as concrete. The how of their origin is lost in the confident certainty of their demonstrated usefulness in mathematical-quantitative terms.