A. WHITEHEAD’S METAPHYSICAL ONTOLOGY AND I. PRIGOGINE’S SCIENTIFIC ONTOLOGY: FROM A POINT OF VIEW OF A THEORETICAL CONCEPTION OF SCIENCE
A. WHITEHEAD’S METAPHYSICAL ONTOLOGY AND I. PRIGOGINE’S SCIENTIFIC ONTOLOGY: FROM A POINT OF VIEW OF A THEORETICAL CONCEPTION OF SCIENCE

Summary/Abstract: Whitehead’s and Prigogine’s philosophies of science are similar in this respect that they both are interested in ontology built in the light of modern science. This kind of ontological approach, especially Whitehead’s metaphysical reasoning is usually regarded as speculative which should be avoided in philosophy of science. Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers appreciated, however, Whitehead’s metaphysics as cosmology in that being the most ambitious attempt to elaborate a philosophy of nature that, although speculative, is not directed against science or towards separation of philosophy from the actual science. Although Whitehead criticized the classical science, he did not identify it with science in general and did not acknowledge the respective domains and tasks of science and philosophy as distinct of principle from each other. According to Prigogine and Stengers Whitehead’s philosophy was somewhat the forerunner of Prigogine’s non-classical science which gives a new content to the speculations of Whitehead. Chemistry was a starting point of Prigogine’s non-classical physical theory. In the present paper Prigogine’s conception of non-classical science is examined from the point of view of a theoretical conception of science elaborated in the context of philosophy of chemistry. Prigogine and Stengers, as well as Whitehead, have not really presented a theoretical conception of science. It is argued that the latter, however, offers a key for examining various issues in philosophy of science and understanding science in general, including Prigogine’s non-classical science. Appreciating Prigogine’s optimism concerning the chances of science that has liberated itself from the myth, the author still finds that this optimism can also be misleading as it can create a false impression that this new science does not deal with idealizations any more, that it is not a means of inquiry resulting from special requirements and aims, but will really understand the world “as it is” to the point that the problems of so called human world, including those of, e.g., ethics would be, in principle, scientifically understandable. In fact, however, if non-classical science manages rid itself from the myth of classical science, the only change will be that it does not equate the scientific picture of world and scientifically modelled reality with the real world “as it is”.

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