Thought, and civilized modes of appreciation, can affect the issue. THE TASK of a University is the creation of the future, so far as rational Even his most abstract ideas are, to some extent, conditioned by what is or is not known in the time when he lives.Modes of Thought Lecture Nine: The Aim of Philosophy Alfred North Whitehead Table of Contents | It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil.Įvery philosophy is tinged with the colouring of some secret imaginative background, which never emerges explicitly into its train of reasoning.Ī philosopher of imposing stature doesn't think in a vacuum. There are no whole truths all truths are half-truths. Wisdom alone is true ambition's aim, wisdom is the source of virtue and of fame obtained with labour, for mankind employed, and then, when most you share it, best enjoyed. But of course a true proposition is more apt to be interesting than a false one. It is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true. And, at the end, when philosophic thought has done its best, the wonder remains. It is the business of the future to be dangerous and it is among the merits of science that it equips the future for its duties. Periods of tranquility are seldom prolific of creative achievement. The wise and confident acknowledge this help with gratitude.Įverything of importance has been said before by somebody who did not discover it. No one who achieves success does so without acknowledging the help of others. The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be, Seek simplicity and distrust it.Īlfred North Whitehead (The Concept of Nature, 1926) The deepest definition of youth is life as yet untouched by tragedy.įools act on imagination without knowledge, pedants act on knowledge without imagination. The chief danger to philosophy is narrowness in the selection of evidence. Speak out in acts the time for words has passed, and only deeds will suffice. Life is an offensive, directed against the repetitious mechanism of the Universe.Īlfred North Whitehead ( Adventures of Ideas, 1933) It takes an extraordinary intelligence to contemplate the obvious.Ī science which hesitates to forget its founders is lost.Īlfred North Whitehead ( Quoted in Nature Magazine, 1916)Īlmost all new ideas have a certain aspect of foolishness when they are first produced. Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance is the death of knowledge. Ninety percent of our lives is governed by emotion.Īlfred North Whitehead ( Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead, 1954)Įducation is the acquisition of the art of the utilisation of knowledge.Īlfred North Whitehead (The Aims of Education, 1929) The art of progress is to preserve order amid change.Īrt flourishes where there is a sense of adventure. It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.Īlfred North Whitehead (Science and the Modern World, 1925) We think in generalities, but we live in detail.Īlfred North Whitehead (Quoted in The Atlantic Monthly, 1926) The chief error in philosophy is overstatement.Īlfred North Whitehead (Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology, 1929)Ī clash of doctrines is not a disaster-it is an opportunity. The future belongs to those who can rise above the confines of the earth.
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