“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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Whitehead’s Final Interpretation of Reality: God and the World
Whitehead tells us at the start of the final part of Process & Reality (“Final Interpretation”) that the chief danger in philosophy is narrowness in the selection of evidence. For many modern, scientifically inclined philosophers, this narrowness has taken the form of an all too easy rejection of the world’s religious traditions and the religious experience which gave rise Read more
Alfred North Whitehead, Ancient Philosophy, imagination, Modern Philosophy, Plato, poetry, Religion, Romantic Philosophy
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From pedagogy to cosmology with A. N. Whitehead
A student in my course this semester asked a great question recently: “How is Whitehead’s cosmology related to his pedagogy?” Many commentators find it strange that Whitehead decided to include (and indeed to conclude) his book Aims of Education with a few chapters on relativistic space and time. What on earth does his alternative interpretation Read more
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Economics as though life on Earth depended on it
Some related essays on integral economics, a Christian ecological worldview, and slavery and capitalism. Read more
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On the Matter of Life: Towards an Integral Economics
I’m posting a revised version of a long essay I wrote a decade ago. It draws on thinkers including Sri Aurobindo, Jean Gebser, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, William Irwin Thompson, Francisco Varela, Alfred North Whitehead, and Alf Hornborg in search of a more integral approach to economics. I had not yet encountered the social ecology Read more
Alfred North Whitehead, Ancient Philosophy, Aristotle, autopoiesis, Brian Swimme, Daniel Dennett, Darwin, Descartes, Donna Haraway, Evan Thompson, Francisco Varela, Hegel, Henri Bergson, Hume, imagination, Jean Gebser, Kant, Ken Wilber, Modern Philosophy, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Plato, politics, reason, Richard Dawkins
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Notes on Deleuze’s “Bergsonism”
Intuition as Method Stating and creating problems Realizing that we are the creators of our own problems gives us “semi-divine power”; those who accept ready-made problems of society are slaves (15) Deleuze: “the history of humanity, from the theoretical as much as from the practical point of view, is the construction of problems. It is 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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