“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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Illusionism Meets Panpsychism: Dialogue with Keith Frankish
I greatly enjoyed my dialogue with Keith Frankish this morning. Thanks is due to Justin for getting us together. I’d say we had a fascinating conversation exploring process-relational metaphysics and my Whiteheadian form of panpsychism, Keith’s version of illusionism, and how these positions bear on the nature of consciousness and meaning. Keith sent me a few articles to read Read more
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Machinic Heterogenesis and Ecosophic Futures: Thinking With Félix Guattari
The video above records my thoughts after reading a chapter from Felix Guattari’s book Chaosmosis (1995). Turning again to the work of Guattari and his frequent collaborator Gilles Deleuze felt important as the US enters a dangerous moment in its own history. Fascism is not just an external threat, not just about those bad people over there. As Read more
Alfred North Whitehead, autopoiesis, Carl Jung, Darwin, Donna Haraway, Evan Thompson, Francisco Varela, Gilles Deleuze, Heidegger, Henri Bergson, imagination, Modern Philosophy, Plato, politics, reason, Timothy Morton
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Dialogue with Evan Thompson about “The Blind Spot”
The Theōros Project hosted philosopher Evan Thompson at CIIS for a dialogue with me about his new book (with Adam Frank and Marcelo Gleiser) The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience (2024). We covered a lot of territory: Read more
Albert Einstein, Alfred North Whitehead, autopoiesis, Edmund Husserl, Evan Thompson, Francisco Varela, Galileo, Goethe, Henri Bergson, Isabelle Stengers, Modern Philosophy, reason
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Mi-Cha-El: Spirit of Our Time
The Sun creates the space the Earth inhabits. The energy it transforms creates the time in which life happens. We breathe solar air. We eat solar flora. We are so twisted up in Sun and Moon, we have no idea how dizzy we’ve become. We are made of light and its reflection. There is none Read more
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Reading Whitehead on Evolutionary Theory (Dialogue with Tim Jackson)
Tim Jackson and I just read Whitehead’s 1929 book The Function of Reason together. Here is our discussion: I begin with historical context about two important biologists who influenced Whitehead at Harvard: Lawrence Henderson and William Wheeler. Henderson, in his 1913 book The Fitness of the Environment, argued for continuity between cosmic and biological evolution, suggesting 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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