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In 1924, at the age of 63, the English mathematician Alfred North Whitehead moved to Harvard as professor of philosophy. He had spent more than twenty-five years at Trinity College, Cambridge, where one of his pupils was Bertrand Russell; together they wrote Principia Mathematica (1910–1913), an attempt to derive arithmetic from logic that they expected to take a year and that took ten. At Harvard he wrote the books he is now best known for, from Science and the Modern World (1925) to Process and Reality (1929), which argue that the world is made of events and relations rather than lumps of matter. This guide covers his 12 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 12 key books · 1898–1938 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Alfred North Whitehead published about twenty books. The best known are Process and Reality (1929), Science and the Modern World (1925), Principia Mathematica (1910–1913, with Bertrand Russell) and Adventures of Ideas (1933). Start with Science and the Modern World: it began as eight public lectures and sets out, in readable prose, the ideas that Process and Reality later works out in full.
Where to Start with Alfred North Whitehead
If you want the best way in
→ Science and the Modern World (1925) — eight public lectures on science, philosophy and God.
If you want his ideas on teaching
→ The Aims of Education (1929) — essays against “inert ideas”.
If you want his ideas applied to history and culture
→ Adventures of Ideas (1933).
If you want the full system, and are ready for it
→ Process and Reality (1929) — his metaphysical masterwork.
12 Alfred North Whitehead Books, in Order
A Treatise on Universal Algebra
His first book, written while he taught mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge. It was the work on which he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1903. Research for a planned second volume merged with Russell’s work and grew into Principia Mathematica.
Principia Mathematica
Three volumes, published in 1910, 1912 and 1913, written with his former pupil Bertrand Russell to show that mathematics can be reduced to logic. The authors expected about a year of work and spent a decade; the book was first published at a loss. Kurt Gödel’s incompleteness theorem of 1931 showed its aims could not be fully achieved, but it shaped modern mathematical logic.
An Introduction to Mathematics
A short book for students and general readers on how mathematicians think: abstraction, variables and functions, and why they are so powerful and general. Unlike his other mathematical work, it has no research agenda.
The Concept of Nature
Based on his 1919 Tarner Lectures at Trinity College. Whitehead takes nature to be what we experience through the senses, and treats points of space and moments of time as abstractions from it. Here he argues against the “bifurcation” of nature: splitting the world into mind and matter, or into nature as perceived and nature as the cause of perception.
Science and the Modern World
Mostly a set of eight Lowell Lectures given in February 1925, with chapters on the seventeenth century, relativity, quantum theory, God, and religion and science. It attacks “scientific materialism”, the view that matter is the basic fact of reality, and names the “fallacy of misplaced concreteness”: mistaking abstractions for concrete things. It was hailed as an alternative to Cartesian dualism.
Religion in the Making
Based on his 1926 Lowell Lectures. Whitehead defines religion as “what the individual does with his own solitariness” and focuses on value and history. The theologian Shailer Mathews found the book baffling.
Symbolism
A short, relatively non-technical book on how symbols work in perception and thought. One of its examples is a puppy that sees a chair as a chair, not as a patch of colour.
Process and Reality
His Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh in 1927–28, in five parts. It sets out a system in which reality consists of “actual occasions”, momentary “drops of experience” that take in what came before them. It is the founding text of process philosophy and is widely counted among the most difficult books in Western philosophy; a corrected edition by David Ray Griffin and Donald Sherburne appeared in 1978.
The Aims of Education
Essays written between 1912 and 1927. Whitehead warns against “inert ideas”, facts taught with no connection to life, argues for teaching fewer ideas with real connections, and for a balance between liberal and technical education. It contains his line that “knowledge does not keep any better than fish”.
The Function of Reason
A short book that recasts Aristotle’s three classes of soul in terms of what they do. Whitehead argues that the function of reason is “to promote the art of life”.
Adventures of Ideas
Whitehead applies the process philosophy of Process and Reality to history and culture, surveying cultural forms in terms of relations. It was published by Cambridge University Press and Macmillan in 1933.
Modes of Thought
Published a year after he retired from Harvard, it argues that there are many modes of thought beyond the language-centred kind philosophers usually study, and ends with the claim that “philosophy is akin to poetry”.
In What Order to Read Alfred North Whitehead
Whitehead’s work falls into three periods: mathematics and logic at Cambridge (to 1913), the philosophy of nature in London (around 1919–1922), and metaphysics at Harvard (from 1924). You do not need the mathematics to read the philosophy.
Begin with Science and the Modern World, which was written for a lecture audience. Then read one of the shorter Harvard books, Adventures of Ideas or Modes of Thought, before Process and Reality. Its first audience at Edinburgh was reportedly baffled.
A reading path
1. Science and the Modern World (1925)
2. The Aims of Education (1929)
3. Adventures of Ideas (1933)
4. Modes of Thought (1938)
5. Process and Reality (1929)
Everything Else Alfred North Whitehead Published
Beyond the 12 key books: 7 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Mathematics and natural philosophy
3
3 books · 1907–1922
- 1907The Axioms of Descriptive Geometryan early mathematical work
- 1919An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledgepart of his early work on the philosophy of nature
- 1922The Principle of Relativitywith applications to physical science
Essays, lectures and posthumous editions
4
4 books · 1917–2017
- 1917The Organisation of Thoughteducational and scientific essays
- 1934Nature and Lifea short late work
- 1947Essays in Science and Philosophypublished the year he died
- 2017The Harvard Lectures of Alfred North Whitehead, 1924–1925edited by Bogaard and Bell
The years · 1861–1947
Quick facts about Alfred North Whitehead
- Known for
- Whitehead is known for co-writing Principia Mathematica with Bertrand Russell and for founding process philosophy, the view that reality is made of interrelated events rather than separate bits of matter.
- 1861
- Born in Ramsgate, Kent
- 1910
- Principia Mathematica, volume one
- 1947
- Dies in Cambridge, Massachusetts
- Born
- 15 February 1861, Ramsgate, Kent, England
- Education
- Trinity College, Cambridge (BA 1884)
- Taught
- Trinity College, Cambridge, 1884–1910; London, 1910–1924; Harvard, 1924–1937
- Married
- Evelyn Wade, in 1890; their son Eric was killed in action in the First World War, aged 19
- Honours
- Fellow of the Royal Society (1903), British Academy (1931), Order of Merit (1945)
- Died
- 30 December 1947, Cambridge, Massachusetts, aged 86
The red mark is 1929: Process and Reality, the book that founded process philosophy.
How Alfred North Whitehead Writes: From Clear Mathematics to New Words
Whitehead began as an expositor admired for clarity. An Introduction to Mathematics explains abstraction, variables and functions to readers with no research interest, and several of his Harvard books started as public lectures: Science and the Modern World as eight Lowell Lectures, Religion in the Making as another series, Process and Reality as the Gifford Lectures in Edinburgh.
His late metaphysics is a different matter. To describe a world made of events, he invented his own vocabulary — “actual occasions”, “prehension”, “concrescence” — and he distrusted ordinary subject-and-predicate grammar as a “high abstraction”. The result is dense and non-linear, which is why he is often quoted and seldom read in full.
Underneath runs one idea that links him to writing on unity and non-duality: do not split the world in two. In The Concept of Nature he argues against the “bifurcation” of nature into mind and matter, and in Process and Reality each thing is defined by its relations and has some degree of experience. His influence has been strongest in process theology, through Charles Hartshorne and John B. Cobb, and in environmental thought.
Frequently asked questions about Alfred North Whitehead’s books
How many books has Alfred North Whitehead written?
About twenty, counting the three-volume Principia Mathematica as one. This page covers 12 key books, from A Treatise on Universal Algebra (1898) to Modes of Thought (1938), and lists 7 more, including the posthumous Harvard Lectures (2017).
What are Alfred North Whitehead’s books in order?
A Treatise on Universal Algebra (1898), Principia Mathematica (1910–1913, with Bertrand Russell), An Introduction to Mathematics (1911), The Concept of Nature (1920), Science and the Modern World (1925), Religion in the Making (1926), Symbolism (1927), Process and Reality (1929), The Aims of Education (1929), The Function of Reason (1929), Adventures of Ideas (1933) and Modes of Thought (1938).
Where should I start with Alfred North Whitehead?
Science and the Modern World (1925). It began as eight public lectures, reads more easily than his later books, and introduces the ideas he develops in Process and Reality, including the “fallacy of misplaced concreteness”.
What is Alfred North Whitehead’s most famous book?
In philosophy, Process and Reality (1929), the founding text of process philosophy. In mathematics, Principia Mathematica, which he wrote with Bertrand Russell.
Did Whitehead and Bertrand Russell write Principia Mathematica together?
Yes. Russell came to Cambridge as a student in 1890 and was Whitehead’s pupil; the two wrote the three volumes of Principia Mathematica (1910, 1912, 1913) together. They drifted apart during the First World War, when Russell opposed the war and Whitehead lost his youngest son, but stayed on relatively good terms.
Is Process and Reality hard to read?
Yes. It is widely regarded as one of the most difficult books in Western philosophy, and the audience at his first Gifford Lecture in Edinburgh was reportedly baffled. Many readers start with Science and the Modern World or Adventures of Ideas first.
What is process philosophy?
Whitehead’s view that reality is made of interrelated events, or processes, rather than independent bits of matter. Things are defined by their relations, and every entity has some degree of experience and creativity. He also called it the “philosophy of organism”.
Where does the line “footnotes to Plato” come from?
From Process and Reality (1929): “The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.”
Is Whitehead linked to non-duality?
Only in a limited sense. He did not write about Eastern traditions, but he argued against splitting the world into mind and matter, the “bifurcation of nature”, and Science and the Modern World was hailed as an alternative to Cartesian dualism.
Why is so little known about Whitehead’s private life?
He left no personal archive. His family followed his instructions and destroyed his papers after his death in 1947, so Victor Lowe’s two-volume biography remains the main account of his life.
Footnotes
- Alfred North Whitehead — Wikipedia
- Alfred North Whitehead — Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Alfred North Whitehead — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Plato — Whitehead Research Project encyclopedia
- Science and the Modern World — Project Gutenberg
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.”
— Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality (1929)
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