There's some of what came later in Whitehead's work to be found in The Concept of Nature, written while he was still in England. Am I correct that he would have had fairly little chance to have run into Peirce's work at that point?
-- Brian Burtt > On Aug 6, 2014, at 8:39 PM, Kelly Parker <[email protected]> wrote: > > Jack: > > When I took a Whitehead seminar with Donald Sherburne in grad school I was > likewise struck by the similarities between Peirce and Whitehead, and asked > him about it. The fact that ANW was at Harvard was especially > interesting--Peirce had to be in the air, at least, but as far as I know, ANW > scarcely mentions CSP by name. > > Sherburne told me a story from the time Hartshorne and Weiss were editing > Collected Papers. They brought some manuscripts to ANW to get his advice on > their meaning, or their importance, to determine whether they ought to be > included in the edition. I was under the impression these were some of > Peirce's writings on synechism and cosmic evolution, but I'm not sure that's > a correct impression--it's what I was working on at the time so I may have > heard what I expected to hear. Sherburne said that Whitehead looked over the > pages, set them down, and asked Hartshorne and Weiss to tell the world that > this was the first time he had ever seen these papers. He recognized the > similarity to his own thought, and how it might look to posterity. Some > others at the recent Peirce Congress said they had heard versions of this > same story. > > A similar story, which I heard at the Congress, tells that H & W had brought > a Peirce manuscript to ANW for his advice, but he was not in. They left it on > his desk assuming he would know what it was and why they had left it. When > ANW came in he mistook it for a student paper, read it, and got very excited > to think that some undetected genius in one of his classes had written it! > > I don't know whether either of these stories is documented anywhere--though I > hope they are, and that they are related better than I can do, by somebody > closer to the source. > > My own conclusion on the matter, after long consideration, was that the > similarities between ANW and CSP are real, but that there was no > unacknowledged influence from CSP to ANW. ANW was brilliant, knowledgeable, > and original in his own right, and he was no plagiarist. I think both > philosophers were seeking to solve some similar problems using similar > resources, at about the same historical time. As a result of this they > arrived at very similar solutions. Peirce actually remarks on this kind of > simultaneous discovery in science, and considers it as supporting his view > that knowledge belongs to the community rather than the isolated individual > inquirer. > > -- > Kelly A. Parker, Ph.D. > Professor of Philosophy, Environmental Studies, & Liberal Studies > Grand Valley State University phone (616) 331-3257 > Allendale, MI 49401 [USA] fax (616) 331-2601 > http://agora.phi.gvsu.edu > ________________________________________ > From: Jack Curtis [[email protected]] > Sent: Sunday, August 03, 2014 6:30 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce Trumps Whitehead? > > On reading a collection of Peirce's writings in parallel with Whitehead's > "Process & Reality" I'm struck with the similarities between them, even to > the point of suspecting Whitehead cribbed most of his ideas from Peirce, > perhaps desperate to salvage his reputation after the "Principia Mathematica" > fiasco with Russell, altho his only reference to Peirce in P&R is to dismiss > the idea that we think in symbols as "absurd" & diss Peirce as a pea-brained > logician who can only see the world in black & white, rather than the > colorful rainbow emerging out of a myriad of miniscule relationships that it > is. Recognizing that the similarities I see may, at least in part, be a > result of reading the 2 in parallel, interpreting what Whitehead says in the > light of my interpretation of what Peirce has just said, & vice-versa, I'm > wondering what you all might think of Peirce v Whitehead? > > ----------------------------- > PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON > PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected] > . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected] > with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at > http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm . > > > >
----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected] . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected] with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
