“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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Genes v. Organisms in Biological Explanation (responding to the Dawkins v. Weinstein debate)
Here’s the recent debate between Richard Dawkins and Bret Weinstein on the relationship between cultural and biological evolution: Here are two response videos from me arguing for the relevance of Francisco Varela and Evan Thompson et al.’s theory of autopoiesis and Alfred North Whitehead’s Philosophy of Organism: Some relevant essays that expand on the Read more
Alfred North Whitehead, autopoiesis, Darwin, Evan Thompson, Francisco Varela, imagination, reason, Religion, Richard Dawkins
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The Schelling & Hegel Tapes
I’m sharing some clips from a live video conference session a few days ago with students in my online course this semester, “Mind and Nature in German Idealism.” Read more
Alfred North Whitehead, Ancient Philosophy, Fichte, Goethe, Hegel, Jakob Böhme, Kant, Modern Philosophy, reason, Religion, Romantic Philosophy, Schelling, Socrates, Spinoza
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Integrating Space-Time: Non-Dual Idealism, or Physics of the World-Soul?
Metaphysics is serious play. Serious because (if done well) it demands a reckoning with death, with limit as such, with finitude and necessity. Play because (if done well) it frees us from our perceived finitude to partake in the process of realization itself. Materialism and idealism, though mutuality exclusive as metaphysical positions, are nonetheless symbiotically Read more
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Whitehead’s Radically Empirical Theory of General Relativity
“The doctrine of relativity affects every branch of natural science, not excluding the biological sciences. . . . Relativity, in the form of novel formulae relating time and space, first developed in connection with electromagnetism. . . . Einstein then proceeded to show its bearing on the formulae for gravitation. It so happens therefore that Read more
Alfred North Whitehead, Copernican Revolution, Kepler, Modern Philosophy, Plato, Ptolemy, reason, William James
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Whitehead’s Quantum of Explanation: Thinking with Auxier and Herstein
“Our central idea is that concrete existence explains the abstract aspects of experience and not vice-versa.” -Auxier and Herstein “So long as necessity is taken to be the guarantor of rationality, the conception of rationality advocated will be as useless to science as it is to practical life.” -Auxier and Herstein Below I offer some Read more
Albert Einstein, Alfred North Whitehead, Gilles Deleuze, Hume, imagination, Isabelle Stengers, Kant, Modern Philosophy, Plato, reason, Religion, Rudolf Steiner, Schelling
“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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