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

Alfred North Whitehead's philosophy of perception, which holds that a knower is already entangled with a perceived object before becoming consciously aware of it, offers a fresh way to understand William Carlos Williams's famous line "No ideas but in things." The statement does not prioritize objects over ideas; rather, ideas and things exist in a relationship that is ontologically prior to either. Proprioception—an embodied, non-conscious form of knowledge—becomes key to interpreting Williams's short poems, which dramatize a critique of the subject/object distinction by portraying perception without a perceiver. This framework reveals philosophical complexity in seemingly simple poems.

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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.