Perception in the Mode of the Word: Alfred North Whitehead’s Philosophy of Perception in the Poetry of William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams Review December 1, 2025 Deven Philbrick
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...