On November 12, 2022, the “International Academic Symposium Commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the Publication of Whitehead’s Principles of Relativity and the Contemporary Significance of Whitehead’s Process Philosophy” was held at BNBU, jointly organized by the School of General Education of Beijing Normal Hong Kong Baptist University (referred to as BNBU) and the Honors College of Beijing Institute of Technology, Zhuhai. The conference was conducted both online and offline and gathered nearly fifty scholars and guests from both China and abroad.
The symposium focused on Whitehead’s Principles of Relativity and related issues in natural philosophy, particularly the nature of spacetime, leading to in-depth academic discussions. Five key issues were addressed:
1. The Academic Status and Contemporary Value of Whitehead’s Principles of Relativity
A century ago, in response to the scientific revolution triggered by the advent of relativity and quantum mechanics, and the different philosophical interpretations of these theories, Whitehead published his natural philosophy trilogy: An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge (1919), The Concept of Nature (1920), and Principles of Relativity (1922).
However, as Professor Gary Herstein from the Process Studies Center at Williams College in the U.S. noted in his speech, the arguments and ideas in Principles of Relativity have been misinterpreted or ignored in many respects over the years. Both scientists and philosophers have been at fault, although the accusations of misinterpretation primarily fall on physicists who claimed to have read the work. However, the views Whitehead presented in this book posed challenges to both scientists and philosophers. As he stated in the book, "Philosophers are troubled by the application of mathematics, while mathematicians are troubled by philosophy, which is, of course, an annoying situation." Reading Whitehead's work is always a challenge. As a mathematician, Whitehead thought and dealt with problems in the way a mathematician would. Therefore, to approach his work, one must learn his “language,” which is a serious challenge for philosophers. Mathematicians typically focus solely on calculations, and even quantum mechanics practitioners often adhere to the “shut-up-and-calculate” principle, which means not to think about what one is doing, but just to let the math work. This has led to a so-called “model-centric” attitude, where mathematics is seen as the most important thing, while conceptual issues and empirical evidence are pushed aside as secondary. Herstein referred to this scientific approach as “pseudo-scientific methodology.” This is why Principles of Relativity was not well understood or recognized for many years, both by physicists and philosophers, particularly with respect to the measurement issues discussed in Chapter 3 of the book, which have been the most misunderstood.
He believed that Whitehead’s Principles of Relativity was a continuation and deepening of the natural philosophy issues discussed in An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge and The Concept of Nature, marking the peak of his natural philosophy trilogy. The nature that humans perceive through sensory perception is the truest nature, and the essence of nature is becoming—it is composed of dynamic, relational events rather than static, isolated matter. This affirms Einstein’s basic view that spacetime and matter are inseparable, but it differs from his claim that the geometric description of spacetime is equivalent to the physical nature of spacetime and the bending of spacetime. Whitehead proposed his own alternative, based on mathematical physics.
Professor Liu Wenbiao from the Department of Physics at Beijing Normal University pointed out that general relativity explains gravity as the curvature of spacetime, a geometric effect. He quoted Wheeler: “Matter tells spacetime how to curve; spacetime tells matter how to move.” This links time and space, energy and momentum, spacetime and energy, momentum inseparably together, greatly changing humanity’s “common-sense” view of the universe and nature. However, the debate over the nature of time sparked by relativity has not yet been resolved today.
Professor Guo Haipeng from the School of General Education at BNBU pointed out that the divergence between Whitehead and Einstein on relativity was primarily philosophical, with differences in their fundamental principles, their understanding and interpretation of gravity, spacetime, and the ether, as well as their cosmological foundations. For example, Whitehead argued that one should not conflate physics (gravitational effects) and geometry (spacetime curvature), while Einstein did not distinguish between the two.
2. Is Spacetime a Relational or Substantial Category?
Einstein’s relativity theory insists that spacetime and matter are inseparable, which was a revolution compared to Newton’s absolute spacetime view. However, through his scientific argument on the relativity of simultaneity, Einstein’s philosophical conclusion was that “time is an illusion,” and his theory of “spacetime curvature” implied a view that space is rigid.
Regarding this issue, Professor Yang Fubin from the Honors College at Beijing Institute of Technology, Zhuhai, compared the opposing focus of both thinkers on the nature of time: is spacetime relational or substantial? He argued that Whitehead clearly insisted on “discovering time in nature, rather than discovering nature in time,” which is the correct approach to understanding the nature of time. Based on the cosmological principle that the world is made up of events and using the abstract method of extension as the scientific methodology, he argued that “the ultimate facts of nature are events, and these events are connected through their spacetime relations.” Moreover, “time and space express the relationships between events.” In this way, Whitehead’s event-based view of spacetime is distinctly different from Einstein’s substantial view of spacetime: First, unlike Einstein, Whitehead did not consider space to be a physical entity, nor time an illusion; instead, he believed that spacetime is a physical fact of the world. Second, Whitehead believed that events are the ultimate existence of the universe, and the so-called “material entities” only manifest as objects within certain events. Without events, these objects cannot be known. Third, Whitehead argued that because events exist objectively in the world, the spacetime of events, as the extensiveness of events and the persistence of time, also exists objectively. While they are objective as objects of scientific research, they are subjective when constructed as scientific theories. Fourth, Einstein regarded spacetime as the relationship between matter, while Whitehead regarded spacetime as the relationship between events. Fifth, Einstein considered time to be reversible, while Whitehead believed that time is irreversible.
Guo Haipeng pointed out that while Whitehead admired and accepted Einstein’s mathematical theory of gravity, he rejected his explanation of gravity. According to Einstein, the gravitational motion of a free mass particle near a massive body is due to the curvature of spacetime caused by that mass. Whitehead, however, argued that the concept of spacetime curvature does not align with our measurement practices. The concepts of space and time are the simplest generalizations of experience, not something discovered at the end of differential equations. This means Whitehead treated physical fields and geometric spacetime separately, whereas Einstein did not distinguish between mathematical geometric concepts and physical concepts. Whitehead considered physics to be the science of contingent relationships in nature, while geometry expresses their consistent relatedness and belongs to a highly abstract science.
3. The Boundary Between Science and Philosophy and Their Relationship
On this issue, Dr. Andrew M. Davis from the Process Studies Center at Williams College, Professor Li Jianhui from the Department of Philosophy at Beijing Normal University, Professor Xiao Xianjing from the Institute of Science, Technology, and Society at South China Normal University, and Professor Tian Song from the Humanities Center at Southern University of Science and Technology explored the problem from different perspectives.
Davis examined Whitehead’s critique of philosophy and science, pointing out that in the development of traditional Western philosophy and science, some problems arose because they were arbitrarily committed to static concepts and extreme abstractions, maintaining a substantialist view of philosophy. Davis referred to this tradition as “a philosophical disease.” Whitehead’s process philosophy or organism philosophy, on the other hand, considers events to be the ultimate existence and believes that active relationships also exist objectively. Therefore, modern science and philosophy should undergo a paradigm shift: from mechanism to organism.
Li Jianhui, through examining the "century debate" on the nature of time between Einstein and Bergson, argued that the core of their dispute was actually the relationship between philosophy and science. For issues such as the nature of time and the nature of the world, one view might be that philosophy should completely give up competing with science and become purely critical and reflective. The other view is that philosophy should still seek an understanding of things themselves. Russell, logical positivists, and the scientific camp in the scientific wars followed the first path. Meanwhile, Bergson and his followers, including Whitehead, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Deleuze, followed the second path. Whitehead explicitly stated that philosophy or metaphysics is an important method for pursuing universal knowledge.
Xiao Xianjing, through examining the history of thought during the scientific revolution, proposed that the scientific revolution can be seen as a transition from “mythical science” in the late prehistoric era, to “philosophical science” in ancient Greece, to modern “mechanical science,” and to contemporary “organic science,” with a future shift toward “local science.” From the perspectives of ontology, epistemology, methodology, and specific methods and theoretical forms, the quantum mechanics revolution is not yet a capitalized scientific revolution but rather a “small scientific revolution.”
Tian Song argued that modern science assumes that scientific laws exist in advance, such as the law of universal gravitation existing long ago. It is like an inscription that has already been engraved. The basic idea of classical physics is to insist on the independent objective existence of the external world. However, was the construction of atomic models truly a process of approaching the truth? Relativity and quantum theory, these two meta-theories, follow completely different paths—rationally dominated and experience-driven. Many conclusions of quantum mechanics have never appeared in the Western philosophical tradition, such as the uncertainty principle and the complementarity principle. The problem of objective reality, in ontology, can only be answered through epistemology. The world is the world we see, and the world we see is the world we are capable of seeing, which is the world of sensory experience.
4. The Metaverse and Hegel's View of Spacetime in Relation to Whitehead's Cosmology
Professor Zan Ruili from the Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era Research Center at the National Defense University pointed out that drawing on Whitehead’s monistic cosmology has great significance for understanding the essence of the emerging metaverse in recent years and revealing its military value. The metaverse offers a new way of thinking to understand and discover the behaviors, states, and laws of complex systems in reality, as well as new means to explore objective laws and transform nature and society. Strengthening cognitive warfare research on the role of the metaverse and exploring its mechanisms will help enrich and promote the theoretical construction of cognitive warfare.
Dr. Yu Huailong from the Marxism College at Jiangnan University explored the consistency between special relativity and Hegel’s view of spacetime. He argued that special relativity provides empirical proof of the unity of spacetime, while Hegel’s philosophy provides conceptual proof. These two forms of proof are compatible, as Hegel’s conceptual proof of the unity of spacetime provides an internal basis for understanding the rationality of special relativity, while special relativity’s empirical proof offers concrete mechanisms and scientific validation for the rationality of Hegel’s view of spacetime.
Dr. John Cobb, Professor Emeritus at Claremont Graduate University and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, stated in the opening speech that a century ago, the advent of relativity marked a significant scientific advance. It not only brought a revolutionary change to the concept of spacetime, surpassing Newton’s classical absolute spacetime view, but also sparked intense philosophical debates. Whitehead, in his works such as Principles of Relativity, not only affirmed Einstein's major contribution of surpassing Newton's absolute spacetime view but also proposed a different relativistic formula and a relational view of spacetime based on events and relationships, asserting that time is irreversible, a concept that has been recognized in Prigogine’s theory of dissipative structures.
Dr. Fan Meijun, Director of the China Project at the American Process Studies Center, highly praised the gathering of scholars from both China and abroad in Zhuhai to jointly study Whitehead’s Principles of Relativity and its contemporary significance. Whitehead, who had been a professor at Harvard University, presented his organism philosophy in a series of lectures. Although Whitehead's organism philosophy has been marginalized in Europe and the U.S., it has been increasingly understood and accepted by scholars in China and around the world, becoming one of the important philosophical foundations for the concept of ecological civilization.
Professor Yang Fubin emphasized that the reason we need to continue to deepen our research into Whitehead’s natural philosophy and its contemporary significance is that it plays a crucial role in advancing the study of the Marxist philosophy of nature, revitalizing the study of dialectical materialism, and providing a solid philosophical foundation for ecological civilization and Chinese modernization.
Professor Xue Xiaoyuan from the Institute for Globalization and Cultural Development Strategy at Beijing Normal University argued that Whitehead’s theory of events and relational view of spacetime are intrinsically linked to Husserl’s phenomenology of time and his theory of the life-world. Delving into the organic connection between Whitehead’s process philosophy and Husserl’s phenomenology, and revealing their intellectual transformation from mathematicians to philosophers, is an important research topic.
Professor Han Ziqi from the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at BNBU, in his concluding remarks, highly praised the contemporary significance of Whitehead’s natural philosophy research, emphasizing its importance in promoting academic exchanges between East and West, as well as facilitating the integration and development of philosophy and science, Eastern and Western thought, Western-style modernization, and Chinese-style modernization.
(Yang Fubin from Beijing Institute of Technology, Zhuhai contributed to this report)
Source | China Social Sciences Network