The contemporary importance of A. N. Whitehead 18611947 lies in his direct yet productive challenge to the culture of thought inherent in modernity a challenge that suffuses science social theory and philosophy alike. Unlike some of the more destructive aspects of postmodernism and poststructuralism Whiteheads diagnosis of the conceptual fault lines of the modern era does not entail a passive relativism. Instead he calls for a renewal of our concepts offering a positive philosophical approach b