A. N. Whitehead and Social Theory Tracing a Culture of Thought

The contemporary importance of A. N. Whitehead (1861-1947) lies in his direct yet productive challenge to the culture of thought inherent in modernity that suffuses science, social theory and philosophy alike. Unlike the more destructive aspects of post-modernism and post-structuralism, Whitehead’s diagnosis of the conceptual fault-lines of the modern era does not entail a passive relativism, nor does it assign a negative role to thought. Instead, he calls for a renewal of critical thinking. Whitehead’s own, positive, philosophical approach is based on becoming, relativity, and a re-conception of subjectivity and the social. This book outlines Whitehead’s thought and uses it to re-orient a range of specific questions within contemporary social theory, namely: the relation of language and the body; the individual and society; sexual difference and conceptions of nature; the question of realism; the concept of the social; and viewing capitalism as process. It also provides detailed analyses and comparisons of Whitehead’s concepts with those of Judith Butler on materiality and the body, and those of Luce Irigaray on nature, essentialism and sexual difference.