THE PUBLIC NOTEBOOK OF MATTHEW DAVID SEGALL
Footnotes2Plato
“The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.” -A. N. Whitehead
Explore the constellation
Thinkers, questions, and recurring themes from twenty years of writing.
Albert Einstein Alfred North Whitehead Ancient Philosophy Aristotle autopoiesis Brian Swimme Bruno Latour Carl Jung Copernican Revolution Daniel Dennett Darwin Descartes Evan Thompson Fichte Francisco Varela Galileo Gilles Deleuze Goethe Graham Harman Hegel Heidegger Henri Bergson Hume imagination Isabelle Stengers Kant Levi Bryant Modern Philosophy Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Plato poetry politics reason Religion Richard Dawkins Romantic Philosophy Rudolf Steiner Schelling speculative realism William James
Browse every category
- Alan Watts (27)
- Albert Einstein (86)
- Alfred North Whitehead (563)
- Ancient Philosophy (198)
- Andreas Weber (1)
- Andy Clark (6)
- Aristotle (117)
- autopoiesis (100)
- Brian Swimme (69)
- Bruno Latour (82)
- Carl Jung (64)
- Catherine Keller (37)
- Coleridge (27)
- Copernican Revolution (83)
- Corey Anton (3)
- Daniel Dennett (48)
- Darwin (168)
- David Chalmers (29)
- Descartes (161)
- Donna Haraway (34)
- Edmund Husserl (32)
- Emmanuel Levinas (11)
- Eric Smith (7)
- Ernst Cassirer (3)
- Evan Thompson (67)
- Extended Mind (34)
- Fichte (47)
- Francisco Varela (62)
- Galileo (65)
- Gilles Deleuze (74)
- Goethe (75)
- Graham Harman (53)
- Hegel (133)
- Heidegger (52)
- Henri Bergson (77)
- Heraclitus (30)
- Herbert Marcuse (2)
- Hume (63)
- Iain Hamilton Grant (37)
- imagination (505)
- Isabelle Stengers (61)
- Jakob Böhme (27)
- James Hillman (17)
- Jean Gebser (25)
- Jessica Garfield-Kabbara (2)
- john Keats (12)
- Kant (235)
- Ken Wilber (17)
- Kepler (23)
- Leibniz (3)
- Leron Shults (1)
- Levi Bryant (48)
- Meister Eckhart (13)
- Modern Philosophy (391)
- Owen Barfield (33)
- Paul Churchland (5)
- Philip Clayton (3)
- Pierre Hadot (4)
- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (67)
- Plato (235)
- Pluto (3)
- poetry (100)
- politics (125)
- Ptolemy (9)
- PZ Myers (16)
- quentin meillassoux (15)
- race (35)
- Raimon Panikkar (13)
- Ralph Waldo Emerson (16)
- Ray Brassier (17)
- reason (233)
- Religion (329)
- Richard Dawkins (48)
- Richard Doyle (4)
- Richard Tarnas (42)
- Robert N. Bellah (17)
- Romantic Philosophy (175)
- Rudolf Steiner (112)
- Schelling (225)
- Sean Kelly (24)
- Seth Segall (1)
- Simon Critchley (9)
- Simone Weil (2)
- Slavoj Žižek (12)
- Socrates (24)
- speculative realism (45)
- Spinoza (33)
- Steven Shaviro (15)
- Thomas Berry (16)
- Timothy Morton (16)
- Travel (10)
- Ursula King (2)
- William Blake (10)
- William Irwin Thompson (9)
- William James (109)
- Wittgenstein (25)
Prefer a guided introduction? Start with the reading guide →
THE LIVING NOTEBOOK
Recent writing
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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