Sunday, June 22, 2014

Whitehead's Lost Letter

Serendipity on the web or simply ADD of older people? I was trying to do something completely unrelated when I fell upon this very interesting link in the Library of the Congress (of 2011)
Symposium on Alfred North Whitehead Correspondence.
Now I feel like writing to the Library to get the transcript of the letter online. After all they say "The six-page letter was handwritten in 1936 by Whitehead to his former student and personal assistant, Henry S. Leonard. In the letter, Whitehead responds to and comments on an essay written by Leonard regarding the conflict between speculative philosophy and logical positivism. Whitehead comments on the relationship between philosophy and science, and also reveals his attitudes toward, and appraisals of, his collaborator Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and the father of logical positivism, Rudolf Carnap."
Maybe the letter is online somewhere? Wish I knew.

1 comment:

  1. hmm, my friend Ulrik send me the following email:
    Dear Valeria,
    I tried to post this as a comment on your blog, but it doesn't seem to work: I've found this file – www.ctr4process.org/publications/.../PSS/PSS_17_2011_Phipps.pdf – which has both the scanned letter (app. C) and a transcription (app. A). Looks very interesting! Thanks for mentioning your find!
    Best wishes,
    Ulrik

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