A Genesis of Speculative Empiricisms: Whitehead and Deleuze Read Hume

Deleuze's “transcendental empiricism” and the “empirical side” of Whitehead's metaphysics are paradoxical unless placed in the context of their unorthodox readings of empiricism. I explore this context focusing on their engagements with Hume. Both subvert presumptions of a categorical gap between external nature and internal human experience and open possibilities for a speculative empiricism that is nonreductive while still affirming experience as source for philosophical thinking. Deleuze and Whitehead follow Hume in beginning with events of sensation as primary but do not presume the logic of (human) subjects and objects (of nature) as necessary structuring polarities for their interpretation. This challenges a basic distinction (between inner and outer or between self and world) that seems inherent in the ordinary concept of experience, thus earning the moniker speculative. The speculative empiricist studies how these abstractions arise from events of experience prior to their consolidation in representation. This includes a critical component: to what extent do unexamined assumptions about conceptual abstraction hinder, block, or prefigure experiential attention? This critical component has existential implications for how we attend to the affective, intuitive, and preconceptual.     

Affective judgments,common sense,and Zajonc's thesis of independence

Zajonc (1980) argued that, contrary to what is commonly believed, an affective judgment about a stimulus may be independent of the cognitive processes through which we know what that stimulus is. The evidence Zajonc offered (the exposure effect in the absence of recognition) does not entail this claim. An example of the sort of experiment that could do so is offered. When carried out, however, this study indicated the opposite: An affective judgment about a stimulus depended on how it was cognitively interpreted. We argue that what is commonly believed in this area is presumptively correct: Affective judgments about a stimulus depend on whatever information is possessed about that stimulus.     

Month of birth and academic achievement

The degree results of nearly 300,000 British graduates were tabulated by the month of their birth. The number of graduates varied as a function of month of birth. So too, but in a different way, did the quality of their degree results. A number of possible predictors of the results are examined. These analyses suggest that, among those who stay at school until the age of 18, the oldest in their year group are at an advantage but, by the time they graduate from university, the youngest perform best. It is concluded that some intellectually relevant quality peaks between 18 and 21 yr of age and then declines.     

Psychological dynamics and self-perceptions of persons with essential hypertension.

Recent literature suggests specific dynamic commonalities among hypertensives are unlikely; study of development, building and evaluation of programs tailored to the individual is in order.