Perception in the Mode of the Word: Alfred North Whitehead’s Philosophy of Perception in the Poetry of William Carlos Williams

Summary

Whitehead's philosophy of perception, which holds that involvement with a perceived object precedes conscious awareness of it, reframes the famous Williams line 'No ideas but in things.' The line does not prioritize objects or concrete reality; instead, ideas and things share an ontologically prior relationship. Proprioception—embodied knowledge without conscious awareness—becomes key to interpreting Williams's short poems, which critique the subject/object distinction by depicting perception without a perceiver. This approach reveals philosophical complexity in Williams's poetry.

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Abstract

Abstract This article seeks to mobilize Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophy of perception—more specifically, his contention that imbrication in a knowledge relationship with the perceived object precedes registration of the percept in consciousness—toward reconceiving some stale debates in Williams studies, namely: what is meant by the famous dictum, “No ideas but in things.” For Williams, this statement does not mean placing poetic priority on objects, particulars, or concrete reality. Instead, ideas and things exist in a relationship that is itself ontologically prior to either things or ideas. Proprioception, an embodied form of knowledge that does not require conscious awareness, becomes a crucial tool for interpreting Williams’s ostensibly object-centered shorter poems, which this article suggests dramatize a critique of the subject/object distinction by portraying perception without a perceiver. This philosophical framework serves to deepen the possibilities of engagement with deceptively simple poems, and to argue for the philosophical complexity of Williams’s poetry more broadly.

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