Science and the Modern World is Alfred North Whitehead’s influential philosophical analysis of how modern scientific thinking emerged, how it transformed Western civilization, and why it now requires a reformed metaphysics that overcomes the reductionist, materialist picture associated with early modern science. Beginning with a historical account of Western thought from the medieval period through Galileo, Newton, and the 19th century, Whitehead argues that the modern worldview has been distorted by what he calls the “bifurcation of nature”: a split between the world of measurable, scientific entities and the world of lived experience, value, and qualities. He criticizes mechanistic materialism and the notion of a nature composed of externally related bits of matter, contending that modern physics itself points instead to a more organic, processive conception of reality. Whitehead develops the outlines of his “philosophy of organism,” an alternative metaphysical scheme in which events, processes, and relations are primary, and in which nature, mind, and value belong to one continuous reality. He explores the implications of this view for the relationship between science and philosophy, the understanding of life and evolution, the role of God in the universe, and the place of science within the broader spiritual and aesthetic life of civilization.

At a Glance

Quick Facts

Author: Alfred North Whitehead
Composed: 1924–1925
Language: English
Status: copies only

Key Arguments

•The modern scientific worldview, rooted in early modern physics, rests on a misleading “bifurcation of nature” that separates the world of scientific objects (particles, motions, and measurable quantities) from the world of experienced qualities (colors, sounds, values); this dualism undermines a coherent account of reality and must be overcome.
•Classical materialism and mechanistic conceptions of nature are philosophically inadequate: they treat reality as inert, externally related matter in motion, but modern developments in physics (notably relativity and field theory) indicate that nature is fundamentally relational, dynamic, and more akin to an organism than to a machine.
•A satisfactory metaphysics for modern science must be a “philosophy of organism” or process philosophy: the basic constituents of reality are events or occasions of experience rather than static substances, and these occasions are internally related in a continuous web of processes that integrates physical, mental, and value dimensions.
•Science, philosophy, religion, and art are not isolated domains but interdependent dimensions of human culture; the health of civilization requires that scientific rationality be integrated with aesthetic, ethical, and religious insight rather than opposed to them or elevated as a narrow, excluding authority.
•God must be reconceived in relation to an evolving, processive universe: rather than an external, immutable creator imposing order from outside, God is an essential pole of reality that grounds order, value, and the drive toward novelty within the world while remaining intimately related to the temporal process of nature.

Historical Significance

Science and the Modern World is one of Whitehead’s most influential works and a foundational text of 20th‑century process philosophy. It marks the first mature statement of his “philosophy of organism” and sets the stage for his later, more systematic metaphysical writings in Process and Reality and related works. The book helped to shape Anglo‑American philosophy of science by questioning mechanistic materialism, highlighting the conceptual revolutions in modern physics, and insisting on the metaphysical presuppositions of scientific practice. It has been especially significant in theology and religious studies, where it inspired process theology and contributed to new models of the God–world relationship compatible with evolution and modern cosmology. Its cultural critique of scientism and its call for integrating science with aesthetics, ethics, and religion continue to influence debates about the role of science in modern civilization, education, and public life.

Famous Passages

The ‘bifurcation of nature’ passage(Chapter II, “Mathematics as an Element in the History of Thought,” especially the middle sections where Whitehead contrasts primary and secondary qualities and criticizes the notion that colors, sounds, and values exist only in the mind.)

Critique of materialism and ‘nature lifeless’(Chapter V, “The Romantic Reaction,” where Whitehead diagnoses the modern conception of a dead, value‑less nature and highlights the Romantic protest against this view.)

Statement of the ‘philosophy of organism’(Chapter V, “The Romantic Reaction,” and Chapter VIII, “Nature and Life,” where he first explicitly names and sketches the ‘philosophy of organism’ as an alternative to mechanistic materialism.)

Science as self‑corrective and limited(Chapter I, “The Origins of Modern Science,” and Chapter XIII, “Requisites for Social Progress,” where Whitehead emphasizes the provisional, revisable nature of scientific concepts and warns against scientism.)

Key Terms

Bifurcation of Nature: Whitehead’s term for the modern split between nature as described by science (quantities, particles, motions) and nature as experienced (colors, sounds, values), which he argues is philosophically untenable.

[Philosophy](/topics/philosophy/) of Organism: Whitehead’s alternative metaphysical system in which the basic units of reality are interrelated processes or events, akin to an organism, rather than inert, isolated bits of [matter](/terms/matter/).

Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness: The error of mistaking abstract scientific or conceptual models for the concrete fullness of reality itself, thereby ignoring aspects of experience not captured by the abstraction.

Actual Occasion (Actual Entity): A fundamental processive unit of reality in Whitehead’s later terminology, roughly anticipated in this work as event-like ‘drops of experience’ that compose the world rather than enduring substances.

Primordial Nature of God: Whitehead’s term for God’s aspect as the non-temporal source and ordering of possibilities or ‘eternal objects,’ providing coherence and value to the evolving universe.

1. Introduction

Science and the Modern World (1925) is Alfred North Whitehead’s most widely read philosophical work and a landmark in early twentieth‑century reflections on science and culture. Developed from a series of public lectures, it addresses how modern scientific practices and theories have reshaped human self‑understanding, conceptions of nature, and the structure of Western civilization.

Whitehead combines historical narrative, conceptual analysis, and metaphysical speculation to examine the emergence of modern science from medieval and early modern thought, the consolidation of a mechanistic worldview in the eighteenth century, and its gradual transformation under nineteenth‑ and early twentieth‑century developments such as field theory, evolution, and relativity. He uses this historical survey to argue that scientific inquiry rests on often‑unexamined metaphysical assumptions and that changes in science call for corresponding revisions in philosophy.

Central to the book is Whitehead’s critique of a picture of nature as inert, meaningless matter and his proposal of a “philosophy of organism”, in which reality is understood as fundamentally processive and relational. The work is written for an educated audience rather than technical specialists and has been interpreted by commentators both as an accessible introduction to Whitehead’s mature metaphysics and as a major contribution in its own right to debates about science, religion, and modernity.

2. Historical Context and Intellectual Background

2.1 Early 20th‑Century Science and Culture

Whitehead composed Science and the Modern World in the aftermath of World War I and amid rapid transformations in physics and biology. Einstein’s theories of relativity, the rise of quantum theories (which Whitehead mentions only tangentially), and ongoing debates over Darwinian evolution were widely seen as unsettling the Newtonian, deterministic cosmos.

At the same time, European and North American intellectuals were re‑evaluating Enlightenment faith in progress. Some commentators describe the period as marked by a crisis of meaning, in which scientific success coexisted with skepticism about traditional religion, ethics, and political authority.

2.2 Philosophical and Theological Background

Whitehead’s analysis is shaped by several strands of nineteenth‑ and early twentieth‑century thought:

Background current	Relevance to the book
British empiricism and logical analysis (e.g., Hume, Russell)	Emphasized sense‑experience and logical clarity; informs Whitehead’s concern with the relation between experience and scientific abstractions.
German idealism and Romanticism	Stressed mind, value, and organic unity; provides a foil and partial inspiration for his critique of mechanism.
Liberal Protestant theology and natural theology	Sought to reconcile religious belief with evolutionary science; shapes his attempt to rethink God in an evolving universe.

Whitehead was also reacting to positivist and materialist currents that presented science as self‑sufficient and value‑neutral. He argues instead that science depends on metaphysical presuppositions and that these presuppositions have a history.

3. Author and Composition of the Work

3.1 Alfred North Whitehead’s Intellectual Trajectory

Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) was initially known as a mathematician and logician, co‑author with Bertrand Russell of Principia Mathematica (1910–1913). Around 1910–1920 he gradually shifted from technical work in logic and the foundations of mathematics to broader philosophical questions, including the nature of space, time, and relativity.

By the early 1920s, Whitehead had moved from London to the United States, taking up a position at Harvard University. Many scholars view this period as the beginning of his mature work in metaphysics, culminating in Science and the Modern World and later Process and Reality.

3.2 Lowell Lectures and Publication

Science and the Modern World grew out of the Lowell Lectures Whitehead delivered in Boston in early 1925. The lectures were intended for a broad, educated audience and had to balance accessibility with philosophical depth.

Stage	Approximate date	Features
Preparation of Lowell Lectures	1924	Whitehead adapts earlier reflections on science, history, and metaphysics into a lecture format.
Delivery of lectures	Feb–Mar 1925	Public presentations emphasizing clarity and historical narrative.
Book publication	Late 1925	Macmillan (New York) and Cambridge University Press issue a revised, expanded prose version.

Commentators note that, although the book derives from lectures, Whitehead reworked the material substantially, adding more explicit metaphysical formulations and sharpening his terminology (e.g., “bifurcation of nature”, “philosophy of organism”). The dedication “To My Wife” appears in early printings, reflecting the personal significance he attached to this accessible statement of his new philosophical direction.

4. Structure and Organization of the Text

Science and the Modern World is organized into thirteen chapters that move from historical exposition to conceptual analysis and then to broader cultural and religious themes. The structure has often been described as spiral or cumulative, with later chapters revisiting and deepening earlier ideas.

4.1 Overview of Chapters

Chapter(s)	Main focus
I–IV	Historical survey of the rise of modern science from medieval thought through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
V–VIII	Thematic analyses of Romanticism, the impact of nineteenth‑century developments, relativity, and the relation between nature and life.
IX	Methodological reflection on abstraction and the “fallacy of misplaced concreteness.”
X	Systematic exposition of a revised concept of God within Whitehead’s metaphysical scheme.
XI–XIII	Examination of the relations between religion and science and the implications of scientific thinking for social and cultural life.

4.2 Narrative and Argumentative Strategy

The book’s narrative begins with concrete historical episodes and then increasingly turns to systematic metaphysical claims. Many interpreters suggest that Whitehead uses history as a testing ground for philosophical ideas: accounts of Galileo, Newton, Romantic poets, and nineteenth‑century scientists serve to illustrate shifts in underlying conceptions of nature.

The organization also reflects a progression from the analysis of science as a practice (its origins and conceptual tools) to the proposal of a comprehensive metaphysical framework intended to situate science alongside religion, art, and ethics.

5. Central Arguments and Key Concepts

5.1 Bifurcation of Nature and Critique of Mechanism

Whitehead identifies what he calls the “bifurcation of nature”: a division between the world described by physics (particles, motions, measurable quantities) and the world as experienced (colors, sounds, values). He argues that this split, inherited from early modern thinkers distinguishing primary from secondary qualities, leads to conceptual difficulties about how mind and value relate to nature.

Proponents of traditional mechanistic materialism interpret the success of classical physics as evidence that reality is fundamentally inert matter in motion, with consciousness and value seen as derivative or illusory. Whitehead contends that newer physical theories (e.g., field theory, relativity) complicate this image by emphasizing relations, processes, and spatiotemporal structure rather than isolated bits of matter.

5.2 Philosophy of Organism and Processive Reality

As an alternative, Whitehead sketches a “philosophy of organism”, later elaborated as process philosophy. In this view, the basic units of reality are interrelated events or “drops of experience” rather than enduring substances. Nature, life, and mind are seen as degrees or expressions of a single processive order.

Several key notions introduced or anticipated in the book include:

Concept	Brief characterization in this work
Actual occasions / events	Elementary occurrences that constitute reality, roughly analogous to “units of process” rather than static things.
Internal relations	The idea that entities are what they are through their relations to others, not as self‑contained atoms.
Eternal objects (hinted at)	Abstract possibilities or forms that can be realized in events, grounding order and intelligibility.

5.3 Abstraction, God, and the Scope of Science

Whitehead argues that scientific concepts are abstractions—selective emphases on certain aspects of reality that are indispensable for inquiry but incomplete. He labels the error of taking such abstractions as the whole of what is real the “fallacy of misplaced concreteness.”

Within this framework, he proposes a revised conception of God as the ordering source of possibilities and value in an evolving universe, neither wholly external to nature nor reducible to it. This view is presented as one way to integrate scientific understanding with metaphysical and religious concerns, while acknowledging ongoing debates about the legitimacy and necessity of such a concept.

Overall, the book maintains that science both depends on and prompts reconsideration of deeper metaphysical assumptions about nature, experience, and value.

6. Legacy and Historical Significance

Since its publication, Science and the Modern World has been regarded as a key text in twentieth‑century philosophy of science, metaphysics, and philosophical theology. It is often cited as the first relatively systematic statement of Whitehead’s process metaphysics and as a bridge between his earlier mathematical work and later technical treatises.

6.1 Influence on Philosophy, Theology, and Science Studies

Field	Main lines of influence
Metaphysics and philosophy of science	Inspired the development of process philosophy; influenced discussions of scientific realism, the role of abstractions, and critiques of reductionism.
Theology and religious studies	Provided the basis for process theology, which reinterprets divine attributes in light of an evolving universe and seeks compatibility with modern science.
History and sociology of science	Anticipated later emphases on the historical and cultural embeddedness of scientific practice and on the metaphysical assumptions underlying scientific models.

6.2 Reception and Critique

Contemporary reviewers frequently praised the book’s breadth and literary quality while questioning some of its historical and scientific details. Later analytic philosophers have often viewed its speculative metaphysics as overly ambitious or insufficiently grounded in empirical data, whereas sympathetic interpreters argue that its systematic scope addresses questions neglected by narrowly methodological approaches.

The work’s sustained presence in discussions of science and religion, curricula in philosophy of science, and debates about the cultural role of scientific rationality has led many commentators to classify it as a classic text for understanding the intellectual shape of the modern world and the challenges of integrating scientific and humanistic perspectives.

How to Cite This Entry

Use these citation formats to reference this work entry in your academic work. Click the copy button to copy the citation to your clipboard.

APA Style (7th Edition)

Philopedia. (2025). science-and-the-modern-world. Philopedia. https://philopedia.com/works/science-and-the-modern-world/

MLA Style (9th Edition)

"science-and-the-modern-world." Philopedia, 2025, https://philopedia.com/works/science-and-the-modern-world/.

Chicago Style (17th Edition)

Philopedia. "science-and-the-modern-world." Philopedia. Accessed December 11, 2025. https://philopedia.com/works/science-and-the-modern-world/.

BibTeX

@online{philopedia_science_and_the_modern_world,
  title = {science-and-the-modern-world},
  author = {Philopedia},
  year = {2025},
  url = {https://philopedia.com/works/science-and-the-modern-world/},
  urldate = {December 11, 2025}
}