The Place of Reason in Human Experience According to A.N. Whitehead

Abstract

During the course of the adventure from which this e ssay forms an abstract, the question arose as to why a student of physical science such as I should devote such an important part of his studies as the senior individualized project is, intended to be, to the study of a philosopher such as Alfred North Whitehead. When the question was first broached, I was unprepared to answer it in any more than an intuitive way. Briefly stated, my feelings were that among the purposes of a liberal education, an important one is the broadening of perspectives of life and of the universe, and that, though physics provides one important perspective, there are, to paraphrase Whitehead, "more ideas in heaven and on earth than were thought of ..... " within its bounds. T am now prepared to defend my decision more specifically, if not more convincingly.