AbstractsPhilosophy & Theology

The problem of this dissertation is to discover what metaphysical meaning, if any, Whitehead ascribes to the growth of personality as a revelation of the objective truth and value of a human individual. Since Whitehead does not deal systematically with this problem, the present writer must introduce categories of self-knowledge that exemplify the generic principles of his metaphysics in order to interpret his relavent insights. Accordingly, the pertinent passages from his writings are correlated and interpreted in terms of a coherent account of the sense and value content, the purposive activity, and the rational validity which human though and conduct involve. For the full meaning of a human individual cannot be understood apart from a casual explanation of his given experience in accordance with a rational criterion of metaphysical truth.