Abstract

There is a good deal linking Whitehead’s and Emerson’s deepest in-tuitions starting with their shared emphasis on intuition and flux—and despite the fact that in sharp contrast with Whitehead, Emerson carefully avoided anything resembling a metaphysical system. Following Stengers, I distinguish between Whitehead’s "scheme" and his "intentionality": he is "less the author of the scheme and of the concepts he articulates than he is obliged by them, compelled by them, in a process of empirical experimentation and verification which has about it something of the experience of a trance because the thought in question is taken, captured, by a becoming—something about to be. "The bulk of the essay concerns the central role played by "interstitial wagers" of this sort in Whitehead’s contribution to what he termed "the romance of human thought."