Abstract
This paper comes at subjectivity from a Whiteheadian perspective. It argues that Whitehead provides us with a “deep” form of empiricism grounded in the notion of the “actual occasion” of experience and in the temporal and spatial co-assembly of multiplicities of such occasions. A deep empiricism that embraces process, affirms creativity, foregrounds value and refuses to bifurcate nature into irreconcilable subjective and objective aspects, it is argued, might serve as a useful corrective to current tendencies in social theory to avoid subjectivity and to elide the differences between forms of subjectivity.
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Notes
After writing this paper Hilary Mcqueen brought it to my attention that Derek Malone-France (2005) has also used the phrase “deep empiricism” in a comparison of the work of Hartshorne and Popper. Interestingly, he attributes it to David Griffin – a Whiteheadian scholar. Malone-France uses the concept in a rather different sense from my own since he is proximally concerned with the logic of metaphysical statements. It seems to me, however, that the uses are complementary.
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Stenner, P. A.N. Whitehead and Subjectivity. Subjectivity 22, 90–109 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1057/sub.2008.4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/sub.2008.4