Un mondo di esperienza neutra

Abstract

William James’s notion of “pure experience” aims at overcoming the traditional dualism between “psychic” and “material”. For this purpose, James develops a vision in which all that exists is natural insofar as it belongs to experience. In this paper I intend to provide a reading of pure experience in connection to Bergson’s élan vital and Whitehead’s superject. With this respect, subjectivity plays no fundamental role; rather, James argues that subjectivity is included in the world as an infinite process. From this perspective, “mind” does not coincide with “psychic” but indicates “pure experience”.