Will and Atomization

Hume's theory of Atomistic Impressionism, i. e. that all experience is derived from discrete sensory moments, has typically been criticized as entailing an abstraction--for example, from physiological causality, according to Lockeians, and from successiveness, according to Kantians. Formaterialism further develops the latter challenges, by holding that experience is cumulative, so that every new impression incorporates the entire sequence that precedes it. But also, the system pursues a different vulnerability, one that Whitehead suggests, but lacks the conceptual resources to fully explore. What Hume also abstracts from is any process of atomization that might produce the atoms that he takes as given. Whitehead's contention that experience atomizes the world is difficult to explain in terms of Concrescence alone, i.e . without a recognition of Discrescence. In contrast, in Formaterialism, Will, as exceeding the given, introduces discrete novelty into experience, a process which can not completely inaccurately be characterized as 'atomization', though any novelty is always with respect to what proceeds it. However, such an accommodation of atomization offers little help to an Impressionist such as Hume, i. e. to a theory in which cognition has priority over volition.