“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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Self-consciousness and Philosophy
“You, all-powerful, are my all, at one with me before I can be at one with you.” –St. Augustine (Confessions). Self-consciousness is that with which I must begin… but I will confess, I cannot yet be certain even of my own beginning. It remains a mystery to me, sometimes even a horror. I meet the Read more
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Consciousness of Science, post at PZ Myers’ blog Pharyngula
Link to Pharyngula …To believe self-consciousness can be accounted for in purely neurochemical terms is simply a category mistake. Empirical science presupposes self-consciousness, otherwise scientific reasoning would not be possible. Science cannot explain self-consciousness mechanistically without calling into question its own privileged epistemic status. Natural science attempting to explain consciousness in terms of brain mechanisms Read more
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Jonael Schickler, Christology, and Rudolf Steiner
So the book arrived today: Schickler’s dissertation, “Metaphysics as Christology: An Odyssey of the Self from Kant and Hegel to Steiner.” The author’s argument is as optimistic and uplifting as his own fate is tragic. Just days after finishing the manuscript, Schickler was killed in the Potters Bar rail accident in 2002 near Hertfordshire in 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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Footnotes2Plato 