Alfred North Whitehead’s Career in Mathematics and Philosophy

Alfred North Whitehead was a British philosopher and mathematician who developed prominent theories in metaphysics, mathematics, and the philosophy of science. Born in 1861, Whitehead was homeschooled for most of his life and did not attend public schooling until he was fourteen years old. When he was enrolled in a highly reputable school in Dorset, he showed an early talent for mathematics. After graduating from Trinity College in Cambridge in the mid-1880s, Whitehead developed a career in academia, working as a professor at Trinity College, University College London, and eventually Harvard University. Whitehead passed away in 1947.

Whitehead’s work has garnered him a reputation for having one of the most influential minds in mathematical theory, such as the logic of pure mathematics, which paved the way for many modern-day contributions to subjects like algebra and metaphysics. Whitehead is one of the central figures who developed process philosophy (or process studies) which posits that “change” or the “process of becoming” drives the universe. His philosophical theories have influenced the way many other academics in their fields consider their own subjects, such as philosopher Charles Hartshorne and theologian John B. Cobb.

Throughout his academic career, Alfred Whitehead crafted new philosophical theories and mathematical concepts that impacted the evolution of major areas of science and mathematics. Here is an overview of his career in mathematics.

• 1880s: In 1880, Whitehead enrolled at Trinity College, Cambridge, on a mathematics scholarship. Though he only officially attended courses on mathematics, Whitehead frequently engaged in discussions about politics, religion, and philosophy. Four years later, he joined an elite discussion club called the Apostles. Whitehead excelled at his honors exams, won a Trinity fellowship, and was appointed to the mathematical staff of Trinity.
• 1890s: In 1890, Whitehead began collaborating with Bertrand Russell, one of his students at Trinity. Together, they wrote three volumes of Principia Mathematica (published in 1910, 1912, and 1913), a central mathematics text. After writing A Treatise on Universal Algebra, Whitehead was elected to the Royal Society, an organization focused on promoting specific academic disciplines.
• 1900s: Whitehead was given a ten-year appointment as senior lecturer in mathematics at Trinity College, but only completes a few years before deciding to resign early and move to London.
• 1910s: In 1911, Whitehead penned An Introduction to Mathematics, a book on the subject of mathematics aimed at a mass audience. After joining the University College London (UCL), Whitehead became a professor of applied mathematics at the Imperial College of Science and Technology in 1914. Over the next two years, he observed the way mathematics was being taught to pupils, and as the president of the Mathematical Association, gave an address titled “The Aims of Education: A Plea for Reform.”

Though Whitehead’s formal education and career were primarily in mathematics, he eventually branched out into other subjects like philosophy. In 1920, he published a book titled The Concept of Nature, which detailed Whitehead’s view on the relationship between science and philosophy. A year later, he met Albert Einstein, and in 1922, was appointed president of the Aristotelian Society. By 1924, Whitehead was hired as a professor of philosophy at Harvard University. In 1925, he wrote Science and the Modern World, in which he examined the history of modern scientific thought beginning in the sixteenth century and connected it with culture.

Whitehead’s ideas became the basis for his later theories on metaphysics, culminating in his most important work, “Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology” (1929). The philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead was initially referred to as the philosophy of organism—or ontology, the nature of being. He determines that life is composed of individual moments, rather than a continuous one and that all the moments are related to one another. This would be a huge basis for the formulation of later iterations process philosophy. After retiring from teaching in 1937, he published a compilation of his lectures entitled Modes of Thought (1938).

Whitehead’s influential works have been translated into dozens of languages. Beyond his influence in the fields of philosophy and mathematics, here are a few ways in which his work has influenced the theoretical and academic worlds.

• Philosophy: While previous philosophies (such as substance philosophy) saw the universe as an unchanging entity, Whitehead adopted and popularized process philosophy. Whiteheadian process philosophy argues that everything is always in a state of changing, giving philosophers a new perspective on existence.
• Metaphysics: Whitehead influenced many process theories, such as how individuals consider existence and themselves and the acts of “becoming and being.” Whitehead’s metaphysics lectures at Harvard between 1924 and 1925 express the beginning workings of the philosophical implications of the development of physics.
• Ecology: Whitehead’s modes of thought are often cited in studies of human ecology such as human beings reintegrated in nature, or plant biology, in terms of dynamic morphism. Today, the Toward Ecological Civilization Series uses the works of Whitehead to conceive of more organic methods of supporting the earth and its inhabitants.
• Medicine: Whitehead has also influenced the field of medicine in terms of healing and pain management, and psychology in terms of the limits and possibilities of the imagination. Some people in the field of holistic medicine see Whitehead’s theory of how aspects of human existence such as emotions and environment can affect an individual’s well-being.

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