Scott Lash is Professor of Journalism and Communications at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Senior Research Fellow at the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society at the University of Oxford.

"This is a book of amazing scholarly scope. It stands out as an extremely serious study that does not pander to fads and fashions nor seek approval from readers. Here is a major statement that will surprise many who think they are familiar with Lash's thought."—Philip Smith, Yale University"In this book, Scott Lash analyses the diverse meanings of a concept key to the social sciences and provides a hermeneutic lens through which the languages of sociology, anthropology, technology and art illuminate one another. A broadening of perspective, engaging with Chinese cosmology at the end of the book, distinguishes Experience as a truly global account of our age."—Roberto Esposito, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa"In his remarkable book, Scott Lash weaves his way through eras and cultures to construct a possible theory - transcultural and transhistorical - of what most defies theory. The 'empirical' option he gradually develops can indeed, after James and Arendt, erect experience as philosophy's decisive issue."—François Jullien, Fondation maison des sciences de l’homme, Paris

• Introduction: Three Types of ExperienceChapter One: Have We Forgotten Experience?1.1 In Praise of the A Posteriori1.2 Substance1.3 New Totalitarianisms and Technological Phenomenology: The ChaptersChapter Two: Experience in Antiquity: Aristotle's A Posteriori Technics2.1 Technics and Praxis: Aristotle2.2 Against Theoretical Reason: Praxis, Technics, Contingency2.3 Form and Substance: Ancients, Christians and ModernsChapter Three: Subjective Experience: William James's Radical Empiricism3.1 James's Radical Empiricism3.1.1 James and Hume: Radical Empiricism and Classical Empiricism3.1.2 Experience and its Functions3.2 Pragmatism: Activities3.3 Dewey or Formal Pragmatics3.4 Some ConclusionsChapter Four: Objective Experience: Methodenstreit and Homo Economicus4.1 Methodenstreit: Formalists and Substantivists4.1.1 Historical School: Subjective Experience and Institutions4.1.2 Max Weber: Subjective Experience as Method, Objective Experience as Outcome4.2 Classicals and Neoclassicals4.2.1 Physics and Economics: From Conservation of Substance to Field of Utilities4.2.2 Scottish Enlightenment4.3 Conclusions: The Economic and the PoliticalChapter Five: Hannah Arendt's A Posteriori Politics: Free Will, Judgment, and Constitutional Fragility5.1 Ancients and Moderns5.2 Pax Romana5.3 After the Polis: Augustine and Free Will5.4 Politics as Aesthetic Judgment5.5 Conclusions: From Politics to the Technological SystemChapter Six: Forms of Life: Technological Phenomenology6.1 Forms of Life: Transformations of Performative Language6.1.1 Forms of Life and Exclusion: Homo sacer's experience6.1.2 Language and Forms of life6.2 Technological Forms of Life6.2.1 Communicational Forms of Life6.2.2 Entropy against Negentropy6.2.3 Incompleteness: From Predications (Science) to Algorithms (Engineering)6.2.4 System Encounter: War Games or Sex Games?6.3 ConclusionsChapter Seven: Aesthetic Multiplicity: The View and the Ten Thousand Things7.1 Fuzzy Singularities7.1.1 Views7.1.2 Art and Singularities7.2 The Gaze as Multiplicity7.2.1 Beauty: China against Metaphysics7.2.2 Mountains that Breathe (and Perceive)Chapter Eight: Conclusions8.1 Technology8.2 Institutions8.3 Metaphysics or Empirical Multiplicity

Scott Lash is Professor of Journalism and Communications at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Senior Research Fellow at the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society at the University of Oxford.

"This is a book of amazing scholarly scope. It stands out as an extremely serious study that does not pander to fads and fashions nor seek approval from readers. Here is a major statement that will surprise many who think they are familiar with Lash's thought."—Philip Smith, Yale University"In this book, Scott Lash analyses the diverse meanings of a concept key to the social sciences and provides a hermeneutic lens through which the languages of sociology, anthropology, technology and art illuminate one another. A broadening of perspective, engaging with Chinese cosmology at the end of the book, distinguishes Experience as a truly global account of our age."—Roberto Esposito, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa"In his remarkable book, Scott Lash weaves his way through eras and cultures to construct a possible theory - transcultural and transhistorical - of what most defies theory. The 'empirical' option he gradually develops can indeed, after James and Arendt, erect experience as philosophy's decisive issue."—François Jullien, Fondation maison des sciences de l’homme, Paris

• Introduction: Three Types of ExperienceChapter One: Have We Forgotten Experience?1.1 In Praise of the A Posteriori1.2 Substance1.3 New Totalitarianisms and Technological Phenomenology: The ChaptersChapter Two: Experience in Antiquity: Aristotle's A Posteriori Technics2.1 Technics and Praxis: Aristotle2.2 Against Theoretical Reason: Praxis, Technics, Contingency2.3 Form and Substance: Ancients, Christians and ModernsChapter Three: Subjective Experience: William James's Radical Empiricism3.1 James's Radical Empiricism3.1.1 James and Hume: Radical Empiricism and Classical Empiricism3.1.2 Experience and its Functions3.2 Pragmatism: Activities3.3 Dewey or Formal Pragmatics3.4 Some ConclusionsChapter Four: Objective Experience: Methodenstreit and Homo Economicus4.1 Methodenstreit: Formalists and Substantivists4.1.1 Historical School: Subjective Experience and Institutions4.1.2 Max Weber: Subjective Experience as Method, Objective Experience as Outcome4.2 Classicals and Neoclassicals4.2.1 Physics and Economics: From Conservation of Substance to Field of Utilities4.2.2 Scottish Enlightenment4.3 Conclusions: The Economic and the PoliticalChapter Five: Hannah Arendt's A Posteriori Politics: Free Will, Judgment, and Constitutional Fragility5.1 Ancients and Moderns5.2 Pax Romana5.3 After the Polis: Augustine and Free Will5.4 Politics as Aesthetic Judgment5.5 Conclusions: From Politics to the Technological SystemChapter Six: Forms of Life: Technological Phenomenology6.1 Forms of Life: Transformations of Performative Language6.1.1 Forms of Life and Exclusion: Homo sacer's experience6.1.2 Language and Forms of life6.2 Technological Forms of Life6.2.1 Communicational Forms of Life6.2.2 Entropy against Negentropy6.2.3 Incompleteness: From Predications (Science) to Algorithms (Engineering)6.2.4 System Encounter: War Games or Sex Games?6.3 ConclusionsChapter Seven: Aesthetic Multiplicity: The View and the Ten Thousand Things7.1 Fuzzy Singularities7.1.1 Views7.1.2 Art and Singularities7.2 The Gaze as Multiplicity7.2.1 Beauty: China against Metaphysics7.2.2 Mountains that Breathe (and Perceive)Chapter Eight: Conclusions8.1 Technology8.2 Institutions8.3 Metaphysics or Empirical Multiplicity

Scott Lash is Professor of Journalism and Communications at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Senior Research Fellow at the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society at the University of Oxford.

"This is a book of amazing scholarly scope. It stands out as an extremely serious study that does not pander to fads and fashions nor seek approval from readers. Here is a major statement that will surprise many who think they are familiar with Lash's thought."—Philip Smith, Yale University"In this book, Scott Lash analyses the diverse meanings of a concept key to the social sciences and provides a hermeneutic lens through which the languages of sociology, anthropology, technology and art illuminate one another. A broadening of perspective, engaging with Chinese cosmology at the end of the book, distinguishes Experience as a truly global account of our age."—Roberto Esposito, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa"In his remarkable book, Scott Lash weaves his way through eras and cultures to construct a possible theory - transcultural and transhistorical - of what most defies theory. The 'empirical' option he gradually develops can indeed, after James and Arendt, erect experience as philosophy's decisive issue."—François Jullien, Fondation maison des sciences de l’homme, Paris

• Introduction: Three Types of ExperienceChapter One: Have We Forgotten Experience?1.1 In Praise of the A Posteriori1.2 Substance1.3 New Totalitarianisms and Technological Phenomenology: The ChaptersChapter Two: Experience in Antiquity: Aristotle's A Posteriori Technics2.1 Technics and Praxis: Aristotle2.2 Against Theoretical Reason: Praxis, Technics, Contingency2.3 Form and Substance: Ancients, Christians and ModernsChapter Three: Subjective Experience: William James's Radical Empiricism3.1 James's Radical Empiricism3.1.1 James and Hume: Radical Empiricism and Classical Empiricism3.1.2 Experience and its Functions3.2 Pragmatism: Activities3.3 Dewey or Formal Pragmatics3.4 Some ConclusionsChapter Four: Objective Experience: Methodenstreit and Homo Economicus4.1 Methodenstreit: Formalists and Substantivists4.1.1 Historical School: Subjective Experience and Institutions4.1.2 Max Weber: Subjective Experience as Method, Objective Experience as Outcome4.2 Classicals and Neoclassicals4.2.1 Physics and Economics: From Conservation of Substance to Field of Utilities4.2.2 Scottish Enlightenment4.3 Conclusions: The Economic and the PoliticalChapter Five: Hannah Arendt's A Posteriori Politics: Free Will, Judgment, and Constitutional Fragility5.1 Ancients and Moderns5.2 Pax Romana5.3 After the Polis: Augustine and Free Will5.4 Politics as Aesthetic Judgment5.5 Conclusions: From Politics to the Technological SystemChapter Six: Forms of Life: Technological Phenomenology6.1 Forms of Life: Transformations of Performative Language6.1.1 Forms of Life and Exclusion: Homo sacer's experience6.1.2 Language and Forms of life6.2 Technological Forms of Life6.2.1 Communicational Forms of Life6.2.2 Entropy against Negentropy6.2.3 Incompleteness: From Predications (Science) to Algorithms (Engineering)6.2.4 System Encounter: War Games or Sex Games?6.3 ConclusionsChapter Seven: Aesthetic Multiplicity: The View and the Ten Thousand Things7.1 Fuzzy Singularities7.1.1 Views7.1.2 Art and Singularities7.2 The Gaze as Multiplicity7.2.1 Beauty: China against Metaphysics7.2.2 Mountains that Breathe (and Perceive)Chapter Eight: Conclusions8.1 Technology8.2 Institutions8.3 Metaphysics or Empirical Multiplicity