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Alfred North Whitehead Quotes about Science

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It is the business of the future to be dangerous; and it is among the merits of science that it equips the future for its duties.

It is the business of the future to be dangerous; and it is among the merits of science that it equips the future for its duties.

Alfred North Whitehead
Future, Science, Merit
Alfred North Whitehead (1997). “Science and the Modern World”, p.207, Simon and Schuster

There are no whole truths: all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays to the devil.

Alfred North Whitehead
Inspirational, Truth, Science
Dialogues prologue (1954)

In formal logic, a contradiction is the signal of defeat, but in the evolution of real knowledge it marks the first step in progress toward a victory.

Alfred North Whitehead
Real, Knowledge, Science
Alfred North Whitehead (1997). “Science and the Modern World”, p.187, Simon and Schuster

Everything of importance has been said before by somebody who did not discover it.

Alfred North Whitehead
Wisdom, Math, Science
"The Organization of Thought" (1917)

There is a tradition of opposition between adherents of induction and of deduction. In my view it would be just as sensible for the two ends of a worm to quarrel.

Alfred North Whitehead
Math, Science, Views
Alfred North Whitehead (1929). “The Aims of Education & Other Essays”

The vitality of thought is in adventure. Idea's won't keep. Something must be done about them. When the idea is new, its custodians have fervour, live for it, and, if need be, die for it. Their inheritors receive the idea, perhaps now strong and successful, but without inheriting the fervour; so the idea settles down to a comfortable middle age, turns senile, and dies.

Alfred North Whitehead
Strong, Adventure, Science
Alfred North Whitehead, Lucien Price (2001). “Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead”, p.98, David R. Godine Publisher

The aims of scientific thought are to see the general in the particular and the eternal in the transitory.

Alfred North Whitehead
Science, Aim, Particular

The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanation of complex facts. We are apt to fall into the error of thinking that the facts are simple because simplicity is the goal of our quest. The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be ``Seek simplicity and distrust it.''

Alfred North Whitehead
Fall, Science, Simple
Alfred North Whitehead (1964). “The Concept of Nature: Tarner Lectures”, p.163, Cambridge University Press

Order is not sufficient. What is required, is something much more complex. It is order entering upon novelty; so that the massiveness of order does not degenerate into mere repetition; and so that the novelty is always reflected upon a background of system.

Alfred North Whitehead
Science, Order, Doe
Alfred North Whitehead, David Ray Griffin (1978). “Process and reality: an essay in cosmology”, Free Pr

Almost all new ideas have a certain aspect of foolishness when they are first produced.

Alfred North Whitehead
Science, Ideas, Innovation
Alfred North Whitehead (1997). “Science and the Modern World”, p.47, Simon and Schuster

Aristotle discovered all the half-truths which were necessary to the creation of science.

Alfred North Whitehead
Science, Half, Creation
Alfred North Whitehead (1954). “Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead”

Seek simplicity, and distrust it.

Alfred North Whitehead
Creativity, Science, Simplicity
The Concept of Nature ch. 7 (1920)

The progress of Science consists in observing interconnections and in showing with a patient ingenuity that the events of this ever-shifting world are but examples of a few general relations, called laws. To see what is general in what is particular, and what is permanent in what is transitory, is the aim of scientific thought.

Alfred North Whitehead
Art, Science, Law
Alfred North Whitehead (1939). “An introduction to mathematics”

It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.

Alfred North Whitehead
Learning, Science, Mind
1925 Science and the Modern World.

Science repudiates philosophy. In other words, it has never cared to justify its truth or explain its meaning.

Alfred North Whitehead
Philosophy, Science, Evidence

The true method of discovery is like the flight of an aeroplane. It starts from the ground of particular observation; it makes a flight in the thin air of imaginative generalization; and it again lands for renewed observation rendered acute by rational interpretation.

Alfred North Whitehead
Airplane, Science, Discovery
Alfred North Whitehead (2010). “Process and Reality”, p.5, Simon and Schuster

To come very near to a true theory, and to grasp its precise application, are two different things, as the history of science teaches us. Everything of importance has been said before by someone who did not discover it.

Alfred North Whitehead
Science, Discovery, Two
"The Organization of Thought" (1917)

Without deductive logic science would be entirely useless. It is merely a barren game to ascend from the particular to the general, unless afterwards we can reverse the process and descend from the general to the particular, ascending and descending like angels on Jacob's ladder.

Alfred North Whitehead
Angel, Science, Games
Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Aims of Education”, p.52, Simon and Schuster

Every philosophy is tinged with the coloring of some secret imaginative background, which never emerges explicitly into its train of reasoning.

Alfred North Whitehead
Philosophy, Science, Secret
ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD (1925). “SCIENCE AND THE MODERN WORLD”

In the conditions of modern life the rule is absolute, the race which does not value trained intelligence is doomed. Not all your heroism, not all your social charm, not all your wit, not all your victories on land or at sea, can move back the finger of fate. To-day we maintain ourselves. To-morrow science will have moved forward yet one more step, and there will be no appeal from the judgment which will then be pronounced on the uneducated.

Alfred North Whitehead
Education, Moving, Science
Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Aims of Education”, p.14, Simon and Schuster

A science which hesitates to forget its founders is lost.

Alfred North Whitehead
Science, Forget, Lost
Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Aims of Education”, p.108, Simon and Schuster

Without adventure civilization is in full decay. ... The great fact [is] that in their day the great achievements of the past were the adventures of the past.

Alfred North Whitehead
Adventure, Science, Past
Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Adventures of Ideas”, p.279, Simon and Schuster

The point of mathematics is that in it we have always got rid of the particular instance, and even of any particular sorts of entities. So that for example, no mathematical truths apply merely to fish, or merely to stones, or merely to colours. So long as you are dealing with pure mathematics, you are in the realm of complete and absolute abstraction. . . . Mathematics is thought moving in the sphere of complete abstraction from any particular instance of what it is talking about.

Alfred North Whitehead
Moving, Science, Talking
1925 Science And the Modern World.

No man of science wants merely to know. He acquires knowledge to appease his passion for discovery. He does not discover in order to know, he knows in order to discover.

Alfred North Whitehead
Passion, Knowledge, Science
Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Aims of Education”, p.48, Simon and Schuster

Mathematics as a science, commenced when first someone, probably a Greek, proved propositions about "any" things or about "some" things, without specifications of definite particular things.

Alfred North Whitehead
Math, Science, Greek
Alfred North Whitehead (1958). “An Introduction to Mathematics”, p.7, New York : Oxford University Press, 1958 [c1948]

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