“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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Thoughts on System in Kant and Whitehead
A reading group I’ve participated in for several years now just finished Shaviro’s Without Criteria. We wrapped up the discussion thinking through, among other things, the contrasting conceptions of “system” articulated in Kant’s and Whitehead’s works. Here are some excerpts from the two philosophers that get at the contrast. “The reader must naturally have a strong Read more
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CIIS Commencement Speech 5/22
Thank you, President Subbiondo. Thanks also to our Academic Vice President Judie Wexler, to our honorary degree recipients Angela Davis and Josef Brinckmann, and to all CIIS faculty and staff for the work you have done to make this day possible for me and for my fellow graduates. I am a philosopher, which is not to Read more
Alfred North Whitehead, Brian Swimme, imagination, politics, Richard Tarnas, Robert N. Bellah, Sean Kelly, Thomas Berry
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In defense of other possibilities…
I always try to ration myself early in the month since I only get 10 free articles, but Charles Blow’s op-ed in the New York Times this morning–“A Trump-Sanders Coalition? Nah”–seemed worth the read. Blow rightly points out why Trump’s campaign manager is sorely mistaken about the prospects of winning over Bernie’s supporters in the general Read more
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Ginsberg’s “Plutonian Ode”
Plutonian Ode I What new element before us unborn in nature? Is there a new thing under the Sun? At last inquisitive Whitman a modern epic, detonative, Scientific theme First penned unmindful by Doctor Seaborg with poisonous hand, named for Death’s planet through the sea beyond Uranus whose chthonic ore fathers this magma-teared Lord of Read more
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Vegetal ontology in Jung
“Life has always seemed to me like a plant that lives on its rhizome. Its true life is invisible, hidden in the rhizome. The part that appears above ground lasts only a single summer. Then it withers away—an ephemeral apparition. When we think of the unending growth and decay of life and civilizations, we cannot 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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