“The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.”
–Alfred North Whitehead
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Simon Critchley’s “Faith of the Faithless: Experiments in Political Theology”
Just ordered his newest book Faith of the Faithless: Experiments in Political Theology (2012) after watching Critchley and Cornel West’s recent discussion. There are many reviews of the book around, but here is one I enjoyed from the Los Angeles Review of Books by David Winters. He writes: Critchley…[claims] that politics consists of reconfigurations of religion. In Read more
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The Politics of Renaissance Hermeticism, and the Magic of Science
I’ve been reading Frances Yates’ Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (1964). Part of her project is to dispel the myth that Bruno was burnt at the stake primarily for his heliocentrism and generally scientific and materialist attitude. This was certainly one of the Roman Inquisitions many accusations, but the real reasons the Church lit Read more
Ancient Philosophy, Copernican Revolution, Descartes, imagination, Kepler, Modern Philosophy, Plato, Ptolemy
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Neuroscientist Christoph Koch comes out as a panpsychist?
Now that I’m just about finished with my comprehensive exam, let’s see what interesting things are happening around the blogosphere… WOW! According to Michael Zimmerman, Christoph Koch has come out as a panpsychist in his new book Consciousness: Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist. Koch generates an information-theoretic account of consciousness, which he labels Φ, suggesting that all Read more
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[Rough Draft] “The Re-Emergence of Schelling” – The nature of human freedom
For a PDF of the entire essay, click The Re-Emergence of Schelling: Philosophy in a Time of Emergency. The Nature of Human Freedom The Naturphilosoph comes to understand “Nature as subject.”232 This does not imply that nature necessarily conforms to the transcendental structure of the human mind (a form of anthropomorphism), but rather that human consciousness Read more
“In one sense philosophy does nothing. It merely satisfies the entirely impractical craving to probe and adjust ideas which have been found adequate each in its special sphere of use. In the same way the ocean tides do nothing. Twice daily they beat upon the cliffs of continents and then retire. But have patience and look deeper; and you find that in the end whole continents of thought have been submerged by philosophic tides, and have been rebuilt in the depths awaiting emergence. The fate of humanity depends upon the ultimate continental faith by which it shapes its action, and this faith is in the end shaped by philosophy.”
—Alfred North Whitehead
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