Key to Whitehead's Process and Reality, A

Whitehead's magnum opus is as important as it is difficult. It is the only work in which his metaphysical ideas are stated systematically and completely, and his metaphysics is the heart of his philosophical system as a whole. "[It is a] book that in richness and suggestiveness is unsurpassed," writes Sherburne, "but in opacity is monumental." Sherburne has remedied this situation by rearranging Whitehead's text in a way designed to lead the student logically and coherently through the intricacies of the system. Where Whitehead's comments on a subject are scattered throughout the original text, Sherburne draws them together to achieve maximum ease of comprehension without losing the vigor of Whitehead's often brilliant prose.