A Refutation of Russell's Stereotype

An account of Alfred North Whitehead's work cannot start without first refuting a widespread stereotype of Whitehead. This stereotype reads:

Originally Whitehead was no philosopher, but a mathematician. As a mathematician, he was Bertrand Russell's invaluable coauthor of Principia Mathematica, a landmark in the history of mathematics and its philosophy. When, however, at the end of the First World War, Whitehead's youngest sun, Eric, a pilot of the Royal Flying Corps, was killed in action over the Forêt de Gobain (PNK iv), Whitehead took refuge to philosophy, and sought solace in an obscure metaphysics of idealist making. Hence, his philosophy is square with Russell's, which lies at the basis of analytical philosophy, a movement characterized by conceptual clarification and expulsion of metaphysics.

The best way to fight this stereotype is by going back to one of its major sources. I am referring to Russell's 1956 portrait of Whitehead in Portraits from Memory (PFM 92-97), which reappeared almost literally in Russell's 1967 autobiography (Auto1 159-163). In this essay I highlight the shortcomings of Russell's portrait of Whitehead.