Abstract

There are several prefatory remarks which ought to be made about this examination. In the first place, we need a label for the fallacy which is being discussed. We shall use Whitehead's term, "the bifurcation of nature." Secondly, it should be noticed that the bifurcation of nature is not a fallacy in the narrowest sense of the term. Thus it has no conventional status among lists of logical fallacies. It is notable that while Whitehead inveighs heavily against it he never calls it a fallacy; he refers to it as a "vice" and a "vicious" theory. However, since the theory expresses itself ambiguously and leads to contradictions, it would seem to merit the epithet "fallacy."