As a supplement to the The Harvard Lectures of Alfred North Whitehead, 1925–1927: General Metaphysical Problems of Science (HL2), and in the interest of full editorial transparency, the Whitehead Research Project (WRP) is making its transcriptions of all original Whitehead lecture notes associated with this volume—as recorded by his various students, assistants, and colleagues—freely available for download on the Whitehead Research Library (WRL) at http://wrl.whiteheadresearch.org/.
- In cases where WRP does not own the original handwritten documents, only the WRP transcription of these documents is available.
- In cases where WRP does own the original handwritten documents, PDFs of these documents have been provided in addition to the WRP transcription.
Why provide these supplementary materials? What is their use?
In editing HL2, there were sometimes as many as five different sets of notes for the same lecture. HL2 reproduces the single most complete set of notes for each lecture, while providing footnotes that alert the reader to the most salient additions and differences present in the competing accounts.
However, readers may wish to examine for themselves these alternative sets of notes which were not reproduced in full in HL2.
For a detailed explanation of how these notes were edited, see the Introduction to HL2, pages xxxii–xxxvi.
Lecture notes are uncorrected
The transcriptions provided are “raw,” uncorrected transcriptions. This means that the transcriptions reflect what actually appears in each original document, with no corrections for spelling or other errors, and no expansions of shorthand.
The notes
Links to each individual set of notes are provided below. You may also see a listing of the notes by searching the “HL2 notes” tag on the WRL.
It is recommended that you download the Guide to the supplementary HL2 lecture notes, which contains further information on how the notes are organized.
1925–26, Philosophy 3b: Philosophy of Science
- Notes of Louise Robinson Heath
- Notes of Fritz Jules Roethlisberger
- Notes of Charles Hartshorne
- Notes of Edward Schouten Robinson
1926–27, Philosophy 3b: Philosophy of Science
- Notes of George Perrigo Conger
- Notes of Everett John Nelson
- Notes of Paul Weiss
- Notes of Lester Snow King
- Notes of Gardner Jackson
- Notes of George Bosworth Burch
1926–27, Philosophy 20h/i: Seminary in Metaphysics/Logic
1926, Social Ethics 20a: Fundamentals Underlying the Social Sciences
1927, Philosophy A: History of Philosophy
Copyright notice
Unpublished writings are under copyright for life of the author plus seventy years, and published writings for ninety-five years from date of publication. The Whitehead Research Project makes no warranty that your distribution, reproduction, or other use of these materials will be non-infringing. You are solely responsible for making legal assessments regarding the use of an item and securing any necessary permissions. The written permission of the copyright owners and/or holders of other rights (such as publicity and/or privacy rights) is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use of protected items beyond that allowed by fair use or other statutory exemptions.