The Ramifications of Whitehead’s Theory of Experience

Abstract

Whitehead's philosophy is thought by many to be a modern-day ra tionalism, yet rationalistic criteria of logical consistency and coherence are balanced by empirical criteria of applicability and adequacy. He understands metaphysics to be the endeavour to frame a . . . necessary system of general ideas in terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted. . . . Here 'applicable' means that some items of ex perience are thus interpretable, and 'adequate' means that there are no items incapable of such (PR 4).1 Experience is fundamental. Without appeal to experience we could not determine whether our metaphysical proposals pertained to actual world or merely to its possi ble alternatives.2 Although there is a wealth of phenomenological insight describing salient features of human experience in Whitehead's writings, such as in Symbolism (1927), part II of Process and Reality (1929), and Modes of Thought (1938), which bear considerable affinity with William James's radical empiricism, shall not examine them here, preferring to focus on more fundamental question as to nature of experience. The phenomenological method makes two assumptions at odds with Whitehead's approach. It assumes that experience presupposes con sciousness, and not vice versa, and that there is much to be gained by recovery of pure experience unencumbered by philosophical interpreta tion. Whitehead conceives of experience as including a depth of un conscious feeling. Consciousness pertains to mere surface phenomena made possible by fortunate mating of causal influences ultimately derived from external world with relevant contrasting conceptions. Thus in every conscious feeling some conceptual element is ineluctably present. There can be no hope of achieving a completely neutral account of ex perience, for interpretation must be present in some sense for us to be aware of its contents. On level of metaphysical generality we cannot eliminate this conceptual dimension, which makes it all more imperative that we replace faulty presuppositions with sounder ones. Whitehead fully endorses Cartesian turn in philosophy, which he understands as systematic replacing of objective statements by experien tial reports as that which is most fundamental. Thus for statement, This desk is brown, a more basic account is given by report, I ex perience this desk as brown. Here experience is given primary role it