Reconstruction of Thinking
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Description
The Renaissance development of science fulfilled the ancient ideal of integrating quantitative and qualitative thinking, but failed to recognize valuational thinking and thus deprived moral, aesthetic, and political thought of cognitive status. The task of this book is to reconstruct the concept of thinking in order to exhibit valuation, not reason, as the foundation for thinking and to integrate valuational with quantitative and qualitative modes. Part I explains the broad thesis, interpreting the problem of the foundations for thinking and providing a general theory of value. Part II explains the role of valuation at the imaginative level of thinking with discussions of synthesis, perception, form, and art. The method of reconstruction requires a cosmology that is generated in successive waves.
Reviews
"I believe this to be a truly important book. It is the first genuinely neo-Whiteheadian offering on a large, systematic scale. " — Donald W. Sherburne
"The architectonic of the book is a marvelously creative application of Plato's divided line. Like nested boxes, each part is at a level of perspective different from the others; each chapter within each part rehearses those same levels; each section within each part does likewise; and even within the sections a similar movement across levels is exhibited. This is a method of inquiry, not a gimmick, and Neville both argues for and exhibits this method throughout the volume. " — George Allan