Everything Here Is Plastic

Abstract

Abstract This chapter explains and defends a radically empirical worldview, a view of the real world as a world of dynamic relations. Section 1 explicates James’s radical empiricism and shows how he affirmed this view throughout his writings. Section 2 establishes similarities and differences between James’s theory and the transcendental empiricism and account of immanence of Gilles Deleuze, and through this detailed comparison further refines radical empiricism. Section 3 provides a companion comparison between radical empiricism and the non-reductive naturalism of George Santayana and pays special attention to the pragmatic rejection of any notion of an experience-independent nature. Finally, in section 4 these metaphysical differences are linked to temperamental differences. What appears to naturalists to be radical empiricism’s egoism is shown instead to be hope, meliorism, and belief in possibility.