History of Philosophy Commons^™

3. Whitehead's Philosophical Synthesis, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XXII: Philosophical Meaning

In Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) we meet a philosopher who was born an Englishman and died an American, and whose thought combined the major recent philosophical contributions of both countries in a radically new and startling metaphysical synthesis. Unlike both Dewey and Russell, he sees in philosophy neither the individual nor the social creation of meaning, but rather adventurous exploration in the discovery of meaning. His approach, like Russell's, is individualistic and, like Dewey's, total rather than partial or limited. He drew both on the English analytical interest in psychology and sociology, while at the same time maintaining his own …