2.101
Sometimes, we think of five tastes (sweet, salty, sour, bitter, umami — or spicy). But is this how we taste? Or are we picking commonalities—for example: between white, balsamic, and other vinegars, white wine, lemon, orange, pineapple—and ossifying them as basic things (e.g., sourness)? Yes, these things are sour, but is that the whole, basic story? – And it’s not a matter of refining categories (e.g., vinegar-sour, citrus-sour), but of questioning this method or habit. Even if these are all sour, why think this is essential? Even if sourness is one vector upon which to think through connections, why insist on its fundamentalness or priority; why not let different entities reveal commonalities and differences?
Why think philosophy should always or predominantly seek regularity for anticipating experience[1] (i.e., for practical goals)? Why not think that what is empirical or experienced cannot always be shown or applied universally or generally?
The anticipation of experience provides safety and security, and enables a redirection of attention and energy towards other projects, but at the risk of missing particularities. Missing phenomena undermines safety and security, for we’re particular beings who interact with particular others. We even forget that the goal of amassing knowledge and predictability isn’t a precursor to our aims and goals, but is an expression of them. We forget that beings can be approached in many ways other than from the orientation of our technological enframed way of being (§1.106).
[1] Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, trans. William Wood and Joseph Devey (La Vergne, TN: Kessinger Publishing, 1844, 2009), par. 117, p. 49; par. 124, p. 54. Bacon refers to his method as the interpretation of nature (in distinction from the anticipation of nature), but the interpretation of nature is just an anticipation by another name: par. 26, p. 8. A.J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1952), p. 49–50, 97–9, 101, 120, 151.