Whitehead’s Biological Turn

Abstract

Dennis Sölch discusses Whitehead’s perception that science was undergoing a paradigm shift (especially given the confusion in the field of physics at the time), and hoped to bridge the physical and biological sciences and create a more unified concept of nature. With Lawrence Henderson, Whitehead would emphasize the reciprocal relationship between organism and environment, counter to both the vitalist and reductive materialist theories. He believed that biology would become the dominant science of the coming era, providing the best hope for radical innovations in human understanding.