What is the style of matters of concern ? Two lectures in empirical philosophy
Spinoza Lectures at the University of Amsterdam, April and May 2005, publié sous forme de document indépendant, published as an independent pamphlet, Van Gorcum, Amsterdam, 51 pages, 2008
It has become of great interest to inquire into the history of what Whitehead called « bifurcation of nature ». This history is possible provided we connect art history with science history to dig into the reasons why the distinction between primary and secondary qualities has been thought so central since the time of Locke all the way to the present debates around « naturalism ». Those lectures try to sketch this history, thus defining a second empiricism in the line of the one proposed by William James, one that is defined more by « matters of concern » than by « matters of fact », whose very peculiar aesthetics is being explored.
2005: Allemand / German
German translation of the second lecture par Frank Born (translator) « Die Asrgetik der Dinger von Belang » in Anne von der Heiden & Ninal Zschocke (editors) Autorität des Wissens, Diaphanes, Zurich, 2012, p.27-46.
2014: republication
Abridged republication of the two lectures « What is the Style of Matters of Concern » in Nicholas Gaskill & A.J. Nocek The Lure of Whitehead, University of Minnesota Press, pp. 92-127.
