“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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The Wise and the Foolish
The bones between this body are burdensome but fair. They hold this flesh together while it breathes air, but balance the bargain with a fateful despair. The bones remain after the soul has gone home–a reminder for those who still seek, who still inhale and must eat. Death is the great equalizer, and a master… Read more
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What does liberation require?
What does liberation require? Krishnamurti would stop us before we even ask the question, as to suppose enlightenment could have a cause in time is to mistake the temporal for the eternal. But supposing we are then merely trying to describe the experience of awakening metaphorically, rather than trying to scientifically break it down into… Read more
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The End of the Word (preliminary remarks)
To engage in philosophy is to attempt to wake up from a dream. I had one once where I dreamt of these men’s thoughts: I believe one of the things Christianity says is that sound doctrines are all useless. That you have to change your life. (Or the direction of your life.) It says that… Read more
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I cannot stick a thought (a stream of consciousness)
Conceptualization has become impossible. I have thoughts, but the thinking doesn’t stick. It always slides off, becomes obsolete, without reason. One moment an idea seems to fit the real; in the next, it has been replaced by a blank stare into a broken mirror. I am lost in experience, so far outside myself that I… Read more
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Spellbound: Magic Words and Minds Without Self
Introduction There was a time when physics, still high on the spirit of the Enlightenment, took seriously the idea that its measurements of the fundamental stuff composing the universe could explain just about everything worth knowing about. Granted, it didn’t have all the necessary measurements compiled just yet, but it assured everyone that it was… Read more
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Reality is a Reel
All my life, I’ve been drawn to the big questions, But I cannot even begin my story Without revealing my bias in the first line. Why “big” questions? Are the answers especially “full” of goodness? Does it take a “long” time to find them?Are there really “more” than one? Questions and answers… A captain seeking… 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
Alan Watts Albert Einstein Alfred North Whitehead Ancient Philosophy Andy Clark Aristotle autopoiesis Brian Swimme Bruno Latour Carl Jung Catherine Keller Coleridge Copernican Revolution Corey Anton Daniel Dennett Darwin David Chalmers Descartes Donna Haraway Edmund Husserl Emmanuel Levinas Eric Smith Ernst Cassirer Evan Thompson Extended Mind Fichte Francisco Varela Galileo Gilles Deleuze Goethe Graham Harman Hegel Heidegger Henri Bergson Heraclitus Herbert Marcuse Hume Iain Hamilton Grant imagination Isabelle Stengers Jakob Böhme James Hillman Jean Gebser Jessica Garfield-Kabbara john Keats Kant Ken Wilber Kepler Leron Shults Levi Bryant Meister Eckhart Modern Philosophy Owen Barfield Paul Churchland Philip Clayton Pierre Hadot Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Plato Pluto poetry politics Ptolemy PZ Myers quentin meillassoux race Raimon Panikkar Ralph Waldo Emerson Ray Brassier reason Religion Richard Dawkins Richard Doyle Richard Tarnas Robert N. Bellah Romantic Philosophy Rudolf Steiner Schelling Sean Kelly Seth Segall Simon Critchley Slavoj Žižek Socrates speculative realism Spinoza Steven Shaviro Thomas Berry Timothy Morton Travel Ursula King William Blake William Irwin Thompson William James Wittgenstein
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© 2006-2023 Matthew David Segall
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