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From: alan@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Alan Algustyniak)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: What DID Whitehead say???
Message-ID: <2280@sdcrdcf.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 23-Aug-85 16:02:31 EDT
Article-I.D.: sdcrdcf.2280
Posted: Fri Aug 23 16:02:31 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 27-Aug-85 01:00:08 EDT
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Reply-To: alan@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Alan Algustyniak)
Organization: System Development Corp. R+D, Santa Monica
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Summary: 

[ I know that i know that i shouldn't try to argue with Ken... ]

Excuse me for continuing this discussion on .origins, but this is the last
i have to say on the subject.

Synopsis: Ken A. says that Alfred Whitehead said, in effect, that science as
we know it rose only UNDER the Christian world-view. I replied that he said
that it rose AGAINST the Christian (rationalist) world-view.  I mangled my
reference, but it was, as Ken notes, SCIENCE AND THE MODERN WORLD. Ken then
quoted from the book quotes indicating that he idea is right and mine wrong.

Needless to say, this note is not an admission my idea is wrong.

Ken, your out-of-context quotes are convincing (the main reason i am replying
is to not leave our readers with the wrong idea they give).  The reason they
are so convincing is that Whitehead doesn't see history as black-and-white
[surprise!] and is not trying to present a completely one-sided arguement. So,
the book is strewn with seemingly contradictory stmts. He is trying to give
the whole picture.  To understand what he is trying to say, you (dear
net-readers) must, unfortuately, read the book and not exerpts.

I have succumbed to providing my own set of quotes from the book, at the end
of this article; but, Ken, with Whitehead we can throw quotes at each other
forever without getting anywhere.  The fact is that while i read the book and
afterwards, it was clear to me that one of his main reasons for writing it
was to convince us that science rose AGAINST the rationalist world-view. That
world view was created by Aristotle and carried by the Christian religion,
reaching its culmination with St. Thomas Aquinas.  In my opinion, the
Christian world-view is still primarily rationalism.

I love talking about these things, but hate writing; i don't have the time.
Also, access to the usenet is now an inconvinience for me.  I will continue
reading several of the newsgroups, but cannot afford to carry on dialogues
on the net.      My quotes follow:

----------
From SCIENCE AND THE MODERN WORLD

chapter: The Origins of Modern Science
[ Whitehead describes Aristotle's world-view ]

  The Greek view of nature...was essentially dramatic...It conceived nature
as articulated in the way of a work of dramatic art. Nature was a drama in
which each thing played its part...[This] was the view which subsequent
Greek thought extracted from Aristotle and passed on to the Middle Ages.

chapter: Science and Philosophy
[ Whitehead states that Aquinas was an Aristotelian ] (p.s. everyone should
already know this)

  The reason why I have put Descartes and James in close juxtaposition is
now evident...[T]hey are both to be contrasted with St. Thomas Aquinas, who
expressed the culmination of Aristotelian scholasticism.

[ In the rest of the quotes Whitehead states that science rose AGAINST
  rationalism ].

chapter: The Origins of Modern Science

  [In 'Dialogues on the Two Systems of the World] Galileo keeps harping on
how things happen...It is a great mistake to conceive this historical
revolt as an appeal to reason. On the contrary, it was through and through
an anti-intellectualist movement. It was a return to the contemplation of
brute fact; and it was based on a recoil from the inflexible rationality
of medieval thought.

later in the chapter:

  Science has never shaken off the impress of its origin in the historical
of the later Renaissance. It has remained predominantly an anti-retionalistic
movement...

later in the chapter:

  The popularity of Aristotelian Logic retarded the advance of physical
science throughout the Middle Ages.  If only the schoolmen had measured
instead of classifying...

Chapter: The Century of Genius (first page):

  ...the unbridled rationalism of the thought of the later Middle Ages. By
this rationalism I mean that the believe that the avenue to truth was
predominantly through a metaphysical analysis of the nature of things,
which would thereby determine how things acted and functioned. The historical
revolt was the definite abandonement of this method in favor of the study
of emperical facts...

---------
PS: One last comment: I don't agree with Whitehead's ideas on these matters;
i just want to set the record straight about his views.

	alan