Table Of ContentWhitehead,
Process Philosophy,
and Education
Robert S. Brumbaugh
DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY
YALE UNIVERSITY
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS
ALBANY
SUNY Series in Philosophy
Robert C. Neville, Editor
WHITEHEAD, PROCESS PHILOSOPHY, AND EDUCATION
Published by
State University of New York Press, Albany
© 1982 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced
in any manner whatsoever without written permission
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in
critical articles and reviews.
For information, address State University of New York
Press, State University Plaza, Albany, N.Y., 12246
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Brumbaugh, Robert Sherrick, 1918-
Whitehead, Process Philosophy, and Education.
(SUNY series in philosophy)
Includes index.
1. Plato. 2. Education—Philosophy.
3. Reality. I. Title. II. Series.
LB85.P7B78 370’.1 81-14329
ISBN 0-87395-574-9 AACR2
ISBN 0-87395-575-7 (pbk.)
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 41
Contents
Acknowledgments vi
Introduction /
Chapter One
Education and Reality: Two Revolutions 7
Chapter Two
Space: Neither Void nor Plenum = 2/
Chapter Three
Sequence and Pattern 37
Chapter Four
Logicand Time 49
Chapter Five
Time Passes: Platonic Variations 6/
Chapter Six
On Teaching and Learning: What It Is Like to Learn 75
Chapter Seven
On Concrete Seeing 685
Chapter Erght
Teaching 97
Introduction 9/7
Motivation: Plato’s Socrates 99
CONTENTS
Precision: St. Thomas’ Angel /08
Presence: An Adventure of a Yale Lecturer //4
Chapter Nine
Knowing: Whitehead’s Third Stage //7
Chapter Ten
Importance and Cosmology /2/
Chapter Eleven
Immortality: Whitehead’s Lecture and Plato’s Phaedo 125
Notes /29
Index /37
Acknowledgments
In addition to thanks for permissions to reprint material, I would
like to make the following acknowledgments. Nathaniel Lawrence and
I have written in collaboration and shared ideas about educational
theory for over two decades. It would, in fact, be impossible to separate
ideas which were originally my own from ideas which are the result of
many productive conversations with him during our long association.
A conference on Whitehead’s philosophy in relation to education, held
in 1980 at the Center for Process Studies in Claremont, California, was
stimulating and valuable in clarifying and discussing relevant ideas.
An invitation to spend a month at the Rockefeller Foundation Study
and Conference Center at Bellagio, Italy in 1981 provided leisure that
was not only welcome but essential for finally bringing the parts of this
study together. As before, I want to acknowledge my wife’s support,
including our discussions of ideas and her comments on points of style.
Vil
Introduction
After his retirement from Cambridge, Whitehead came to the
United States to work on philosophy and education. He had developed
a project, in outline, for revising American educational theory and
practice, and in 1925 he offered a brief sketch of what he had in mind
(Sczence and the Modern World, Ch. 13, “Requisites for Social Progress’).
Earlier, in 1922, he had published a pamphlet, The Rhythm of Education,
which offered another suggestion. The ideas involved are radical
departures from the standard thinking of that date, and of the present,
and they are grounded firmly in Whitehead’s highly technical specu-
lative philosophy. Unfortunately, Whitehead himself never completed
his projected work and left most of its applications to be filled in by
later scholars.
On current reexamination, Whitehead’s ideas seem to me extremely
relevant, and their proper development and appreciation may be
critical if we are to have a balanced view of the current stylish return to
basics theme of educational discussion. ‘This project is one I have been
trying to carry out, both in metaphysics and in education, over a
considerable time. A number of my chapters are based on lectures and
articles developing partial insights into both education and reality.
By and large, Whitehead’s educational ideas were developed early in
his career, and marked important stages in the development of his
mature philosophy. That philosophy, in turn, with its criticisms of
current common sense and philosophy of science had important
potential implications for education. It is an obvious but important
theme in his writings that if education—or anything else—is to be
realistic, it must rest on a correct notion of reality. If Whitehead’s
1
WHITEHEAD, PROCESS PHILOSOPHY, AND EDUCATION
philosophy is right, that has not been the case for three hundred years
and is not the case now. On the contrary, misguided assumptions
about the character of location, space, time, and causality are built
into the educational system. However, after he came to the United
States Whitehead returned only briefly to the theme of education, in
the final chapter of Sczence and the Modern World. For the rest he went on
developing his cosmology.
The influence of process metaphysics has been strong in American
religion and theology, but not comparably so in aesthetics, social
science, or educational theory. My present study started as an exten-
sion and application of ideas from Whitehead’s work to current edu-
cation. At first what I intended to do was simply to develop the
application of key ideas from Whitehead to the educational field. As I
worked on this project, however, I found other ideas in the Platonic
tradition that seemed as relevant and helpful as Whitehead’s so the
scope of the ideas being applied widened. I have finally, I think,
worked out my study in the tradition of Platonic metaphysics that
includes the new emphasis on the concrete introduced by process
thought. In fact, my first chapter examines two insights into reality
which have shaped Western education; one of these is a classical
formalism, which in an extreme form would be very like the principle
of limitation in Plotinus; the other is the principle of plenitude with a
return to temporality which would lead to modern Platonisms close to
Whitehead’s. My final chapter brings together, I think without incon-
sistency or incongruity, Whitehead’s lecture “Immortality” and
Plato’s Phaedo. In between there are discussions of ways in which
education can be brought into better agreement with reality. A natural
but still mistaken over-generalization of 17th-century physics, is the
main target of proposed revisions.
The next two decades promise to be critical for American education.
Not satisfied with the present system, advocates of a return to basics are
calling for concentration on language skills and computation. I think
that this is a misunderstanding of the options that are realistic and
open, and would make the situation worse.
Whitehead diagnosed some of the causes for our dissatisfaction with
current education, and with ourselves, correctly. One of his insights
