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Work #216 · Early-mid (preceding Science and the Modern World, 1925) period

The Concept of Nature

Whitehead's 1920 Tarner Lectures — the early statement of his philosophy of nature, against the "bifurcation of nature" into primary and secondary qualities

Alfred North Whitehead · 1920 (the Tarner Lectures, Trinity College Cambridge) · English · Lectures in eight chapters

Tradition: Process philosophy / philosophy of nature

Against the "bifurcation of nature" into primary and secondary qualities — Whitehead's 1920 philosophy of nature as a single integrated event-process

The Concept of Nature is one of Whitehead's three pre-process-philosophical lecture series (with An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge, 1919, and The Principle of Relativity, 1922) and the most philosophically accessible. The book's central polemic is against the "bifurcation of nature" — the post-Galilean separation of nature into the mathematically-physically real (primary qualities of extension, motion, etc.) and the merely subjective-secondary (colour, sound, beauty). Whitehead argues that this bifurcation is philosophically untenable: the colour of the sunset is as much in nature as the wavelength of light, and any adequate philosophy of nature must include both. The constructive proposal is a metaphysics of events: nature is a continuous process of events with relations of extension over one another. The book is the early philosophical-physical statement that develops into the mature process metaphysics of Process and Reality (1929). The Concept of Nature has been the central reference for subsequent engagement with Whitehead's philosophy of science.

Author

Editions cited

  • The Concept of Nature (Cambridge University Press, 1920; reprinted Cosimo, 2007)
Compare this work

School Embodiments

Process Philosophy · 30%
Realism · 15%
Naturalism · 15%
Phenomenology · 10%
Analytic Metaphysics / Logical Atomism · 10%
Critical Realism · 10%
Idealism · 5%
Pragmatic Realism · 5%
Process Philosophy 30%

The Concept of Nature is the early-philosophical-statement of the process framework that develops into the mature metaphysics of Process and Reality.

"Nature is a structure of evolving processes." (Concept of Nature, paraphrasing)
Realism 15%

Whitehead's philosophy of nature is realist — there is a real natural world with real qualities (both primary and secondary), discovered rather than merely constructed.

"Nature's real qualities include both what science measures and what perception discloses." (Concept of Nature, paraphrasing)
Naturalism 15%

A complicated relation: Whitehead is naturalist in taking nature as the relevant subject of his philosophy, while critiquing reductive scientific naturalism's bifurcation of nature.

"Nature including its qualities is the relevant subject of natural philosophy." (Concept of Nature, paraphrasing)
Phenomenology 10%

A retrospective affinity: Whitehead's attention to lived perception of nature, against abstract scientific categories, has phenomenological structure that subsequent process-phenomenological dialogue has developed.

"The lived perception of nature as the starting point of philosophy." (Concept of Nature, paraphrasing)
Analytic Metaphysics / Logical Atomism 10%

A complicated relation: Whitehead's analytic-mathematical training shapes the rigorous-conceptual analysis of Concept of Nature, even as the metaphysical conclusions go beyond analytic limits.

"The rigorous analysis of natural-philosophical concepts." (Concept of Nature, paraphrasing)
Critical Realism 10%

A retrospective affinity: Whitehead's realism about real natural structures with emergent properties has structural overlap with subsequent critical realism.

"The real layered structure of nature." (Concept of Nature, paraphrasing)
Idealism 5%

A complicated relation: Whitehead draws on the British Hegelian-idealist tradition (Bradley, McTaggart) for the critique of the bifurcation of nature.

"The idealist critique of materialist reduction." (Concept of Nature, paraphrasing)
Pragmatic Realism 5%

A retrospective affinity: Whitehead's attention to the practical-scientific success of theories combined with their philosophical interpretation has pragmatic-realist structure.

"Practical-scientific success and philosophical interpretation must both be respected." (Concept of Nature, paraphrasing)

Internal Tensions

The Concept of Nature's critique of the bifurcation of nature has been engaged appreciatively by philosophers (Bruno Latour, Isabelle Stengers in the recent French process-philosophical revival) and critiqued by strict scientific naturalists. The relation between the 1920 Concept of Nature, the 1922 Principle of Relativity, and the 1929 Process and Reality is itself an interpretive question — is the philosophy of nature smoothly developmental, or are there real shifts in Whitehead's metaphysical project?

⧖

I. Time

Process time — the durations of events as the basic temporal reality, against the mathematical instants of classical physics.

Attributes
Extent: Infinite Ontological Status: Relational Grain: Continuous Freedom: Non-Deterministic Traversability: Linear Direction: Uni-directional Dimensionality: One
✦

II. Space

Relational extensional space — the relations of extension between events constitute spatial structure.

Attributes
Extent: Infinite Ontological Status: Relational Curvature: Flat Dimensionality: Three Locality: Local
◉

III. Matter

Material reality as emergent from events and their qualities; the bifurcation of nature rejected.

Attributes
Extent: Infinite Ontological Status: Emergent Conservation: Conserved Dimensionality: Three Locality: Local
◎

IV. Observer

The perceiving observer as part of nature; the lived perception of nature is itself a natural event.

Attributes
Time Instance: Multiple Space Instance: Multiple Knowledge Extent: Partial Knowledge Retainment: Total Physicality: Embodied Agency: Both Number: Plural Metaphysical Agency: None
⚡

V. Energy

Process energy as the dynamic content of events; not separable from the events themselves.

Attributes
Extent: Infinite Ontological Status: Substantival Conservation: Conserved Dispersibility: Irreversible
⧉

VI. Information

The structured relations of events preserve the natural information; lived perception discloses qualities that scientific abstraction omits.

Attributes
Ontological Status: Substantival Cosmic Conservation: Conserved Personal Conservation: Non-conserved Granularity: Continuous

Personas that cite this work

Alfred North Whitehead

Personas with the nearest attribute fingerprint

Historical figures whose own classification on the same six-dimensional grid lands closest to this work's. Computed by attribute-agreement on coordinates both address.

85%
Ernst Mach
29/34
82%
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
28/34
82%
Graham Harman
28/34
82%
John Stuart Mill
28/34
80%
Epicurus
24/30
79%
Bruno Latour
27/34

Computed school proximity

The work's attribute fingerprint scored against all schools using the same quiz scorer. Useful as a sanity check on the hand-curated embodiments above.

55%
Madhyamaka
14/26
53%
Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO)
18/26
52%
Process Theology
15/26
50%
Relativism
16/26
50%
Virtual Realism
18/26
50%
Process Philosophy
16/26
48%
Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism
15/26
48%
Vedanta
14/26

How The Concept of Nature resolves each dilemma

51 resolved positions across 4 dimensions, including 17 distinctive where the majority of schools go the other way · 6 unaligned.

Each dimension is sorted so minority positions come first. Mainstream positions are folded into an expandable list.

Time · 9 dilemmas · 3 distinctive

Persistence, the future, and the direction of becoming.

Distinctive · only 15% of schools agree (31/202)
Is the universe running out of usable energy?
The heat death of the universe — entropy maxed out, no further work possible — is among the more sobering implications of mainstream physics. Whether it is structurally inescapable depends on what kind of finitude the cosmos has.
Both time and matter are unbounded; 'running out' is misframed.
On this view, the cosmos has neither a temporal horizon nor a material exhaustion point. The framing of running out presupposes bounds that the cosmos doesn't have. Energy gradients perpetuate; new configurations emerge; the categories that make heat-death scary don't apply at the cosmic scale.
Roads not taken Time is unbounded but matter is finite; usable energy can fail without time failing. (47%) · Time both has and lacks bounds depending on the level you ask at; finitude is conventional. (26%) · The cosmos has bounds; heat death is a real horizon. (12%)
Distinctive · only 15% of schools agree (31/202)
Are natural resources fundamentally finite, or only practically so?
Whether we can grow our way out of resource constraints — or whether the cosmos sets limits the economy ultimately must obey — depends on what kind of finitude matter has.
Resources are practically inexhaustible on cosmic scales; terrestrial limits are engineering.
On this view, matter and time are both unbounded at the largest scales. Terrestrial resource limits are real engineering and political constraints but not metaphysical ones; the cosmos can in principle support whatever expansion intelligence is capable of.
Roads not taken Time goes on but matter is bounded; we are eventually constrained even with infinite time. (47%) · The finitude question is level-dependent; resource ethics happens at the level that constrains us. (26%) · Resources are finite in the strict sense; living well requires accepting the limit. (12%)
Distinctive · only 15% of schools agree (31/202)
Could we owe future generations more than is materially possible to provide?
If we owe future people a habitable planet and the material means to flourish, and the cosmos is bounded in ways that make those obligations impossible at some scale, the obligation and the possibility come apart. Where they come apart turns on what kind of finitude we live in.
Both time and matter are unbounded; we cannot in principle owe more than is possible.
On this view, the cosmos has the resources to support whatever flourishing future generations are capable of, given sufficient time and intelligence. The impossibility concern is misplaced; the real questions are about trajectories and choices, not about resource ceilings.
Roads not taken Time is unbounded but matter is not; we can owe more across long time than the matter can provide. (47%) · The owing-and-possibility question is level-dependent; we owe what is appropriate at the level we act on. (26%) · The cosmos is bounded; our obligations to future generations are bounded with it. (12%)
6 mainstream positions
Do you really choose? The future is open and you are a genuine origin of it. 69% Are addicts responsible for their addiction? The addict could have chosen otherwise — that's why recovery is real. 69% Should we hold AI systems responsible for what they do? An AI without a free will is not the kind of thing that can be responsible. 69% How much weight do future people deserve? Time arises from events or from a deeper substrate — the future is not yet. 32% Is regret rational? The past is not a thing now; regret is the present holding what is no longer. 32% Do we owe extinct species something we cannot give them? Past species no longer exist; what we owe is to the present and the future. 32%

Matter · 7 dilemmas · 3 distinctive

What stuff is — fundamental, relational, or appearance.

Distinctive · only 23% of schools agree (47/202)
Is the world created from nothing?
Creatio ex nihilo is one of the most distinctive Western-theological claims. Whether matter was created from nothing, eternally exists, or is sustained moment-by-moment turns on what kind of thing matter is.
Matter is real but emerges from something deeper — neither bedrock nor created-from-nothing.
On this view, matter is genuinely there, but it isn't the floor of reality. It depends on something more fundamental — dependent origination, mind, divine sustaining act, computational substrate, or the structure of conditions — and is conserved only at its own level of description. …
Roads not taken Yes — matter was created and is conserved as a real substance. (55%) · Matter is constituted by relations; the question of 'from what?' presupposes substance. (16%) · Matter arises and dissolves through cosmic rounds; neither created from nothing nor eternal. (4%)
Distinctive · only 23% of schools agree (47/202)
Is the physical world fully real?
Realists, idealists, and relationalists divide on whether matter exists mind-independently, derivatively, or as a pattern of relations. The split runs deeper than any single scientific question.
Real but sustained — not mind-independent in the strict realist sense.
On this view, the physical world is real enough — it has its own laws, its own conservation principles, its own resistance to wish — but it is not the floor of being. It is sustained by something else: mind, divine attention, computational substrate, or …
Roads not taken Yes — the physical world is fully real, mind-independent, persisting. (55%) · Real as relations — neither pure substance nor pure construction. (16%) · Real for this cycle — the deepest reality cycles through creation and dissolution. (4%)
Distinctive · only 23% of schools agree (47/202)
Does matter have intrinsic moral standing?
Do rocks, soil, rivers, and stuff in general deserve moral consideration — or only the living, the conscious, the human? The answer turns on what matter is.
Matter is morally considerable derivatively — through what it sustains.
On this view, matter doesn't have standing on its own; it has standing through what it makes possible. Soil matters because it grows food; water matters because it sustains life and mind and practice. Asking whether the rock as such has moral standing slightly misreads …
Roads not taken Matter is morally considerable insofar as it is created or conserved good. (55%) · Matter has intrinsic moral standing as part of the relational fabric. (16%) · Matter is in flux; standing is impermanent and ritual-mediated. (4%)
4 mainstream positions
What is money? Money is a real institution with intrinsic features. 54% What is a nation? A nation is a real moral community with intrinsic character. 54% What makes someone male or female? Sex is a real biological kind with given content. 54% Should we edit the human germline? Human nature is a real biological kind given by reproductive biology or by creation; editing the germline transgresses what is given. 54%

Observer · 37 dilemmas · 5 distinctive

Mind, agency, and the knower's relation to the known.

Distinctive · only 9% of schools agree (18/202)
What makes someone the same person over time?
When dementia hollows out memory, when a coma resolves with no recall, when you imagine being uploaded — the question of whether the surviving person is still you turns on what kind of thing the 'you' was to begin with.
You span moments — identity is a pattern that need not be located at a single now.
On this view, the observer is not bound to a single present. Identity is something that exists across moments — as a pattern, an ancestral line, a trans-temporal structure. Uploading, in this picture, is not a metaphysical impossibility but an engineering question; ancestors are real …
Roads not taken You are your body — continuity is bodily continuity. (36%) · You are a soul — what persists through change is the non-bodily aspect. (29%) · There was never a fixed self to either preserve or lose. (14%)
Distinctive · only 9% of schools agree (18/202)
Is the late-stage dementia patient still the person their spouse married?
Loss of memory, of recognition, of the cognitive patterns that made the person — does this end the person, or merely the person you knew? The answer turns on what makes someone who they are.
The person is the pattern across moments — diminished pattern, diminished person.
On this view, the person is constituted by a pattern extending across moments — memory, narrative, characteristic ways of being. As dementia erodes the pattern, the person is correspondingly diminished. What remains is real but is less than what was; the marriage to the person …
Roads not taken Same body, same person — even when the cognitive pattern has changed. (36%) · The soul persists; the cognitive change is the body's, not the person's. (29%) · There was no fixed person to lose; care is owed to whoever is here. (14%)
Distinctive · only 9% of schools agree (18/202)
If a teleporter copied and destroyed you, would you have survived?
The Star Trek transporter problem: a machine scans your body atom by atom, transmits the pattern, builds an exact duplicate at the destination, and dismantles the original. Whether you arrive at the destination or die in the scanner is the question; the answer depends on what you are.
You are the pattern; the pattern survives the substrate change. You arrive.
On this view, you are the trans-temporal pattern that has shown up in this body up to now. The teleporter preserves the pattern — destroys one instance, builds another — and the pattern is what matters. You step in and you step out. The fact …
Roads not taken Different body, different person — you died in the scanner. (36%) · The soul accompanies the person; engineering can't transfer it. (29%) · There was no fixed you to either survive or fail to; the question is malformed. (14%)
Distinctive · only 13% of schools agree (26/202)
Are the dead morally present to the living?
Ancestor veneration, intercession with saints, the moral weight of a promise made to someone now gone — these all presuppose that the dead are present in some sense beyond memory. Whether they are turns on whether an observer is the kind of thing that exists in a single moment or across many.
Observers span moments; the dead are present in a real (not merely metaphorical) way.
On this view, an observer is not located at a single moment but extends across moments. The dead, on this signature, are not gone — they are elsewhere on the same trans-temporal structure that you yourself occupy. Ancestor veneration, intercession with saints, the moral weight …
Roads not taken Observers are bounded by their own moment, and no further agency makes the dead present. (44%) · The dead are present through divine memory, communion of saints, or ancestor presence. (35%) · From the standpoint of the One, the distinction between living and dead is conventional. (8%)
Distinctive · only 13% of schools agree (26/202)
Is divine omniscience compatible with human freedom?
If God knows what you will do tomorrow, does your tomorrow-self choose freely? The classical problem of foreknowledge turns on whether the divine vantage stands outside time or inside it.
An observer can occupy multiple times at once; foreknowledge is not foreordering.
On this view, observers can in principle exist in more than one moment simultaneously — and divine omniscience is exactly the case of an observer occupying all moments at once. The future actions God 'foresees' aren't foreseen at all in the temporal sense; God simply …
Roads not taken The observer is in time; foreknowledge across times raises real freedom problems. (46%) · The human observer is in time, but God's vantage is not — and foreknowledge is not foreordering. (33%) · Distinction of the One and observed time is itself conventional; the question dissolves. (8%)
26 mainstream positions
Does meditation reveal something genuinely timeless? Meditation accesses a trans-temporal level the ordinary observer doesn't ordinarily reach. 13% Does prayer change God's mind? Prayer participates in a trans-temporal liturgy or communion; the question of 'changing the mind' misses the trans-temporal mode. 13% What is our place in nature? Nature is partly what we make of it — concepts, practices, and minds shape the world. 15% Should we colonize space? The 'space frontier' is partly what we make of it. 15% Is genetic engineering of food stewardship or domination? What counts as a 'natural' genome is itself a construction. 15% What happens to "you" when you die? You were always a pattern. The pattern propagates. 18% Could causation work backwards? Causation runs one way — the arrow of time is real and structural. 68% Is the asymmetry between memory and anticipation a real feature of time, or just of us? The asymmetry is real because time itself has a real direction. 68% Is the arrow of time a real feature of the cosmos, or only of how we describe it? The arrow is real and structural; the asymmetry isn't an artifact of description. 68% Is environmental damage ever truly permanent? Damage is real and permanent on the relevant timescales. There is no recovery; there is only limitation. 66% Can a civilization recover from collapse? Civilizational complexity is hard to build and easy to lose; recovery is at best partial. 66% Does the second law of thermodynamics mean something morally? Entropy is what time is. The moral weight, if any, is the weight of working against the current. 66% When does a person begin? A person exists from conception — when a new being comes into existence. 54% What is marriage? Marriage has a given form — it’s a kind of thing we recognize, not make. 54% Does environmental harm in another country bind me morally? Moral obligation tracks the relations one is in; distance does matter, structurally. 50% Can prayer for someone far away affect them? Prayer changes the pray-er, not the prayed-for. 49% Are coincidences ever more than coincidence? Coincidence is exactly what the math says it is. The pattern is in the noticer. 49% Is reality fundamentally digital? No — continuous fields, classical limits, analog deep structure. 37% Are there indivisible units of experience? No — continuous Jamesian stream, phenomenological lived time. 37% Is memory stored or reconstructed? Reconstructed — continuous re-narrating, no fixed engrams. 37% Should we trust expert testimony when we can't verify it? Trust expertise whose conclusions a competent mind can in principle reproduce. 32% Is religious revelation a real source of knowledge? Revelation is evaluable by reason — and not above it. 32% Does an LLM 'know' the things it correctly produces? An LLM can produce correct outputs but not reason to them; useful, not knowing. 32% Could an AI have a mind that matters? Yes — mind is a pattern, not a substrate. 9% Do animals have moral standing comparable to humans? If the pattern of mind is there, the standing is there — regardless of species. 9% Could a fetal brain organoid in a petri dish be conscious? If the pattern is present at sufficient complexity, the experience is present too. 9%
6 unaligned
Does history have a direction or meaning? Schools split: 37% / 23% / 19% — How is knowledge of reality produced? Schools split: 25% / 17% / 13% — Is salvation, liberation, or fulfillment individual or communal? Schools split: 15% / 14% / 4% — Is truth universal, tradition-bound, situated, or constructed? Schools split: 65% / 16% / 10% — What kind of religious-theological authority does the tradition recognize? Schools split: 44% / 16% / 14% — Who is the moral primary — the individual, the community, the cosmos, the class, or the species? Schools split: 40% / 28% / 14% —
Information · 4 dilemmas, all mainstream
Is anything truly lost when someone forgets? Information is lost when a mind forgets; matter and energy continue, but the pattern is gone. 51% Does deleting your data online destroy something real? Information is genuinely lost when the substrate that hosted it goes; deletion really destroys. 51% Could the dead, in principle, be brought back? The information dissipates with the substrate; restoration is in principle impossible. 51% Is forgiveness ontologically possible? The offense is locally constituted by its substrate; when the substrate dissolves, the offense genuinely passes away. 51%
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