“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 Cosmological Context of the Origin of Life: Process Philosophy and the Hot Spring Hypothesis
I just sent a draft of this coauthored essay off to the editors. Astrobiologist Bruce Damer and I have been building toward this for a few years. I’m thrilled to have gotten it to this point, and looking forward to peer review! The essay will be featured in a book coming out of this conference Read more
Alfred North Whitehead, Aristotle, autopoiesis, Brian Swimme, Bruno Latour, Copernican Revolution, Darwin, Descartes, Donna Haraway, Evan Thompson, Francisco Varela, Hume, imagination, Isabelle Stengers, Kant, Kepler, Modern Philosophy, reason, Religion, Romantic Philosophy, Schelling, William James
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Goethe and Whitehead: Steps to a Science of Organism
This essay was slated to be published in the Holistic Science Journal, but it looks like it will end up somewhere else later this year. I’ve been sitting on it for a while, though, and wanted to share it here. Feedback welcome. “Goethe and Whitehead: Steps to a Science of Organism” (2021): Read more
Alfred North Whitehead, Aristotle, Goethe, imagination, Kant, Modern Philosophy, Plato, poetry, reason, Religion, Romantic Philosophy, Schelling
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Social Threefolding
“The Times are the masquerade of the eternities; trivial to the dull, tokens of noble and majestic agents to the wise; the receptacle in which the Past leaves its history; the quarry out of which the genius of to-day is building up the Future. The Times—the nations, manners, institutions, opinions, votes, are to be studied Read more
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Zombie Evolution (reply to Sean Carroll)
The physicist Sean Carroll was recently on the Mind Chat podcast hosted by the philosophers Keith Frankish and Philip Goff. Watch it here. I uploaded a brief interpolation of my own on YouTube, which among other things calls out the model-centrism at play in Carroll’s “Core Theory.” Earlier today, Carroll uploaded a blog post to Read more
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On Whitehead’s Sociological Theory in “Adventures of Ideas”
Whitehead’s goal is these pages to elucidate the concept of civilization. He operates under the assumption that human civilization has profound cosmological significance. The fact that civilized beings have emerged in the course of the evolution of the universe tells us something important about the nature and perhaps even the purpose of that universe. His Read more
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“Facing Apocalypse: Climate, Democracy, and Other Last Chances” by Catherine Keller
Let us first recall why Keller has chosen to “dreamread” John of Patmos’ Book of Revelation. As a process theologian, it is no surprise that she would be interested in a Biblical text. But her purpose is not merely to read John’s missive back into its 1st century CE historical context. Nor is her intent to Read more
Alfred North Whitehead, Ancient Philosophy, Catherine Keller, imagination, Modern Philosophy, poetry, politics, reason, Religion
“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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