Work Classification Layer
Compare Works
Pick two or more works to set their attribute fingerprints, dimension-by-dimension passages, and shared school embodiments side by side. Especially useful for author-stage comparisons (Wittgenstein early vs late) and for setting a single tradition's foundational texts against each other.
Science and the Modern World
The "fallacy of misplaced concreteness" — Whitehead's critique of scientific materialism and the proximate prelude to process philosophy
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Science and the Modern World (Mid (the major statement of philosophical-cultural critique, preceding the technical metaphysics of Process and Reality)) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Relational |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Non-Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Linear |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Infinite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Relational |
| Space · Curvature | Curved |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Non-local |
| Matter · Extent | Infinite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Emergent |
| Matter · Conservation | Conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | Local |
| Observer · Time Instance | Multiple |
| Observer · Space Instance | Multiple |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Partial |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Both |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Personal |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Reason |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Infinite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Irreversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Continuous |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
Science and the Modern World
Process time — the temporal flow of actual occasions of experience as the basic temporal reality.
Space
Science and the Modern World
Process space — the relational structure of actual occasions; classical space is an abstraction.
Matter
Science and the Modern World
Material reality as emergent from concrescent process; the "fallacy of misplaced concreteness" critiques the materialist misreading.
Observer
Science and the Modern World
The actual occasion of experience — plural, embodied, both active and passive in concrescence. God as personal-persuasive agency.
Energy
Science and the Modern World
The energies of creative concrescence; physical energy as a derivative concept.
Information
Science and the Modern World
The eternal objects preserved in the consequent nature of God; civilisational information preserved through cultural transmission.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The relation between Science and the Modern World's accessible critique and the technical metaphysics of Process and Reality (1929) is itself an interpretive question. Whitehead's critique of scientific materialism has been engaged appreciatively by scientists open to philosophical reflection and critiqued by strict naturalists as unnecessary metaphysics. The relation between process philosophy and twentieth-century philosophy of physics (especially the engagement with relativity and quantum mechanics) remains an active area of work.