They worked throughout the 1900s on what was to become their groundbreaking "Principia Mathematica". Near the end of 1900, after learning about the work done on the foundations of mathematics by the Italian mathematician Giuseppe Peano (1858 - 1932) at the 1900 International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris, Whitehead and Russell began to collaborate. He had become interested in pure mathematics and he started work on the "Treatise on Universal Algebra" in 1891, with Evelyn's encouragement, just weeks after his marriage (the work would take him seven years to complete, and was finally published in 1898).Īlthough his father was an Anglican vicar and he had been brought up as an Anglican, he began to move towards the Roman Catholic Church (perhaps due to his wife's influence), although in the end he chose neither and embraced Agnosticism around the mid-1890s (partly in view of the rapid developments in science during that time).īertrand Russell had entered Cambridge in 1890 and, as an examiner for the entrance examinations, Whitehead had immediately spotted Russell's brilliance, and took him on as his student and protegé. They were to have a daughter and two sons (one of the sons died in action during World War I). He was promoted to a full lectureship at Trinity in 1888, and took up additional teaching duties by accepting a teaching position at Girton College.Īt the end of 1890, he married Evelyn Wade, an active and outgoing Catholic Irish woman brought up in France. He had also developed a keen interest in physics, and his fellowship dissertation examined James Clerk Maxwell's views on electricity and magnetism. He was elected a Fellow in Mathematics in 1884 and then took up an assistant lectureship to teach applied mathematics. He won a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1880, where he studied mathematics. The syllabus was heavy on the classics, but Whitehead excelled in sports and mathematics in particular, and he was Head Boy and Captain of Games in his final year. From 1875, he attended Sherborne Independent School in Dorset, then considered one of the best public schools in the country, and where his oldest brother was a teacher. He was educated at home by his father until he was 14, because his over-protective parents thought that he was too delicate to go to school (in fact his health was quite robust). His family was firmly anchored in the Church of England (his father and uncles were vicars, while his brother would become Bishop of Madras). He was the youngest of four siblings, with two older brothers and an older sister. His father, also named Alfred Whitehead, was an Anglican clergyman his mother was Maria Sarah Buckmaster. Whitehead was born on 15 February 1861 in Ramsgate, Kent, England. He managed to combine a staggering complexity of thought with a literary but very readable quality of writing. In addition he made contributions to algebra, the foundations of mathematics, physics, Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Education. He also developed a fresh approach to Metaphysics, which he originally called Philosophy of Organism (or Organic Realism) and which has come to be known as Process Philosophy. He is considered one of the founding figures of Analytic Philosophy, and he contributed significantly to 20th Century Logic, especially the new symbolic type of Logic he developed in the epochal "Principia Mathematica", along with co-author Bertrand Russell. Whitehead) (1861 - 1947) was a British mathematician, logician and philosopher. By Individual Philosopher > Alfred North Whitehead
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