Alfred North Whitehead

Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) was a British mathematician and philosopher who moved from mathematical foundations toward an account of nature, experience, and process. An Introduction to Mathematics explains central ideas for general readers and shows his early clarity. Principia Mathematica, written with Bertrand Russell, represents the project of deriving mathematics from formal principles. An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge and The Concept of Nature turn to the relation between scientific concepts and experienced nature. The Principle of Relativity addresses physical theory, while Science and the Modern World traces how scientific ideas reshaped Western thought. An Introduction to Mathematics is the gentlest entry; The Concept of Nature reveals the transition in his thinking, and Science and the Modern World gives the broadest route into the vision that became process thought.