Science and the modern worldWhitehead, Alfred North
Religion
Science and the modern world
Whitehead, Alfred North
Science
In outline, my procedure is to start from the analysis of the status of
space and of time, or in modern phraseology, the status of space-time.
There are two characters of either. Things are separated by space, and
are separated by time: but they are also together in space, and together
in time, even if they be not contemporaneous. I will call these
characters the ‘_separative_’ and the ‘_prehensive_’ characters of
space-time. There is yet a third character of space-time. Everything
which is in space receives a definite limitation of some sort, so that
in a sense it has just that shape which it does have and no other, also
in some sense it is just in this place and in no other. Analogously for
time, a thing endures during a certain period, and through no other
period. I will call this the ‘_modal_’ character of space-time. It is
evident that the modal character taken by itself gives rise to the idea
of simple location. But it must be conjoined with the separative and
prehensive characters.
For simplicity of thought, I will first speak of space only, and will
afterwards extend the same treatment to time.
The volume is the most concrete element of space. But the separative
character of space, analyses a volume into sub-volumes, and so on
indefinitely. Accordingly, taking the separative character in isolation,
we should infer that a volume is a mere multiplicity of non-voluminous
elements, of points in fact. But it is the unity of volume which is the
ultimate fact of experience, for example, the voluminous space of this
hall. This hall as a mere multiplicity of points is a construction of
the logical imagination.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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