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The Meaning of ‘Literal’: Thinking with Owen Barfield and Alfred North Whitehead
The following essay is adapted from the transcript of this recording on our Urphänomen research guild Substack. It is a poetic commentary on Owen Barfield’s essay in The Rediscovery of Meaning, “The Meaning of ‘Literal,’” which was also the subject of discussion in this morning’s reading group: When Whitehead remarked that every science has its Read more
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The Cosmic Poetry of Whitehead’s Philosophy: Notes on my dialogue with Ingrid Rieser
You can listen to my conversation with Ingrid over on her Forest of Thought podcast, or read the revised transcript of my remarks below. We recorded this in Claremont, CA back in June at the “Is It Too Late?” conference on ecological civilization (you can watch my conference presentation on Whitehead’s advice for the business mind here). “Philosopher” is Read more
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From Substance to Creativity, Or on the Modernity That Could Have Been
Yesterday in my history of Western philosophy course, where my students are reading Richard Tarnas’ Passion of the Western Mind (1991), I lectured on a couple of seventeenth century philosophers in an attempt to catch the nature of the shift that historians call “the Enlightenment.” I then connect their innovations to a couple of nineteenth and twentieth Read more
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Between the Speculative and the Prosaic: Life, Imagination, and Individuation
Timothy Jackson and I went deep into descendental philosophy and aesthetic ontology, core concepts developed in my last book Crossing the Threshold (2023). I try to argue against both scientistic neutrality and dogmatic theology. I believe that any attempt at thinking the most general conditions of reality inevitably touches the spiritual. If it did not then natural science Read more
Alfred North Whitehead, Ancient Philosophy, Aristotle, Carl Jung, Darwin, Gilles Deleuze, imagination, Isabelle Stengers, Jakob Böhme, Kant, Modern Philosophy, Plato, politics, reason, Religion, Romantic Philosophy, Rudolf Steiner, Schelling, Spinoza, William James
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The Return of Form in Biology: Thinking Through Platonic Morphospace
The mystery of biological form has led some biologists, most prominently Michael Levin, back to Plato’s theory of Ideas. Levin is driven primarily by the surprising empirical findings of his lab. He argues that his results are best explained by reference to modes of causality not traceable to genetic histories or molecular components. While he has 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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