“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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“Another End of the World is Possible” by Servigne, Stevens, and Chapelle
“How could we call ‘rational’ an ideal of civilization guilty of a forecasting error so massive that it prevents parents from leaving a habitable world to their children?”—Bruno Latour “The system is collapsing all around us just at the time when most people have lost the ability to imagine that anything else could exist.” —David Graeber Read more
Ancient Philosophy, Bruno Latour, imagination, Modern Philosophy, Plato, poetry, politics, reason, Religion, Socrates
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“How Everything Can Collapse: A Manual for our Times” by Servigne and Stevens
Pablo Servigne and Raphaël Stevens cover a lot of territory in this book. It is clear enough to anyone open to even consider reading it that climate change and other ecological catastrophes are already occurring and will only intensify. This book was published in French in 2015, well before the Covid-19 pandemic. While the origins of this virus Read more
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Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology Podcast
Had a great time chatting with my friend Dr. Sam Mickey about Whitehead’s philosophy of organism. Read more
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Towards a Mycological Metaphysics
The mycologist Merlin Sheldrake recently published Entangled Life (2020). The book revels in the power of fungi to “make us question our categories,” thereby “[changing] the way we think and imagine” (14, 214). A few pages in, Merlin defines mycelium as a process, rather than a thing (6). I am inclined to agree. As a Read more
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HomeBrewed Christianity podcast with Tripp Fuller
Had a great time discussing Whitehead’s cosmology with Tripp. Check it out here: https://trippfuller.com/2021/09/13/matthew-segall-cosmology-consciousness-and-whiteheads-god/ We discussed topics including: the allure of Whitehead’s vision of mind in nature (knowledge as ‘an adjunct within things known’) the potential of a process engagement with different natural scientific problems, including the origins of life the problems with reductionism what Read more
Alan Watts, Albert Einstein, Alfred North Whitehead, Ancient Philosophy, Modern Philosophy, Plato, Religion, Richard Dawkins
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Cassettes podcast
William July invited me on his podcast. We had a wide-ranging and in-depth conversation concerning the hard problem of consciousness, emergence, panpsychism, value, freedom, and so much more. Check it out here. 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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