On a Certain Blindness in Political Matters (Report‪)‬

This philosophical essay is put under the dual patronage of William James (1842-1910) and Alfred North Whitehead (1861--1947). Accordingly, instead of speaking about facts, things, reality, substance and the like, it uses as often as possible the process language of experience and events. It argues for two complementary theses, one pertaining to epistemology and the other to politics. First, unless philosophy adopts a radical empiricist standpoint and seeks the uttermost generalities, it cannot differentiate itself from yet another form of limited expertise and becomes useless. Hence two important requirements: on the one hand, no experience, no fact, can be excluded a priori from the philosophical agenda; on the other hand, philosophy has to pragmatically seek the broadest empirical truths. Second, both radical empiricism and imaginative pragmatism lead the philosopher towards the left end of the political spectrum, i.e., to a radically progressive politics. In other words: on the one hand, the more you experience, the more you become acquainted with the world, the more concern you find for your fellow human beings, for other forms of life and eventually for the entire biosphere; on the other hand, the more you think your expanding experiential field, the more you are lured towards the concept of the common good.