Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Whitehead's concept of importance and James' "On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings"

"Wherever a process of life communicates an eagerness to him who lives it, there the life becomes genuinely significant. Sometimes the eagerness is more knit up with the motor activities, sometimes with the perceptions, sometimes with the imagination, sometimes with reflective thought. But, wherever it is found, there is the zest, the tingle, the excitement of reality; and there is 'importance' in the only real and positive sense in which importance ever anywhere can be." 

- William James, "On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings"

"Whitehead on the Concept of 'Importance'" by Ross Stanway; published in Process Studies Vol. 21, No. 4 (1992):  235-249.