The Harvard Lectures of Alfred North Whitehead, 1925-1927: General Metaphysical Problems of Science

By Brian G. Henning, Joseph Petek, and George Lucas (editors)
January 19, 2021
Edinburgh University Press

This second volume in the critical edition reproduces more than 170 lectures delivered by Alfred North Whitehead at Harvard during his second and third years.

For the first time, readers will be able to see the development of Whitehead’s philosophy during the crucial period between the publication of Science and the Modern World and his delivery of the Gifford lectures that would become Process and Reality, as he tests his theories in a classroom setting.

These student notes provide the long-missing window into critical developments in Whitehead’s thinking during this time. They challenge longstanding speculations about when exactly Whitehead developed some of his most famous metaphysical concepts, as well as how those concepts are to be properly interpreted against the wider backdrop of his life and thought.

Also included is a transcript of the only known lecture Whitehead delivered on the topic of ethics, two mid-year exams given to his students, and nearly 2,000 footnotes that provide additional context for the lectures and alternative student accounts of key passages.

Get a Copy of The Harvard Lectures of Alfred North Whitehead, 1925-1927: General Metaphysical Problems of Science

About the Author(s)

Brian G. Henning

Dr. Brian Henning is Professor of Philosophy at Gonzaga University and Executive Director of the Whitehead Research Project. Dr. Henning holds a M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in philosophy from Fordham University. He has published three books and has published articles in Process Studies, International Philosophical Quarterly, The Modern Schoolman, and Ethics & the Environment. His 2005 book, The Ethics of Creativity, won the 2007 Findlay Book Prize from the Metaphysical Society of America for the best work of metaphysics published between 2001 and 2006. He is co-editor of the Contemporary Whitehead Studies book series through Lexington Books.

Joseph Petek

Dr. Joseph Petek is the Director of Research and Publication for the Whitehead Research Project and Executive Editor for the Critical Edition of Whitehead at Gonzaga University. He has co-edited three books on Whitehead: Rethinking Whitehead’s Symbolism (2017), Whitehead at Harvard, 1924–1925 (2020), and The Harvard Lectures of Alfred North Whitehead, 1925–1927: General Metaphysical Problems of Science (2021). His latest book is Unearthing the Unknown Whitehead (2022), which examines the significance of Whitehead’s Harvard lectures and other previously unknown archival materials.

George Lucas

Dr. George Lucas is newly-appointed A.N. Whitehead Visiting Professor and Director of the CPS Archives at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, IL. He is Professor emeritus at the U.S. Naval Academy, and recently retired after 10 years as General Editor of the Critical Edition of Whitehead. He wrote his doctoral dissertation at Northwestern University on Hegel and Whitehead in 1978, and subsequently wrote several books and articles on various kinds of process philosophy and their histories, culminating in The Rehabilitation of Whitehead: An Analytic and Historical Assessment of Process Philosophy (State University of New York Press, 1990). He was thereafter the Editor of the SUNY series in Philosophy for 18 years. In 2023, his recent book, The Ordering of Time: Meditations on the History of Philosophy (Edinburgh University Press, 2020) was awarded the J.N. Findlay prize for the best title in the field of metaphysics, 2019-2023, by the Metaphysical Society of America.