“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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Time Eats Itself, by Henri Bergson
from Creative Evolution (Ch. 1, pgs. 4-6): “…as regards the psychical life unfolding beneath the symbols which conceal it, we readily perceive that time is just the stuff it is made of. There is, moreover, no stuff more resistant nor more substantial. For our duration is not merely one instant replacing another; if it were, Read more
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A White Guy Talking About Race
Figured I should start talking about this stuff. Please join me. Enlighten me. Endarken me. Whatever you feel needs to be added, corrected, etc. We just really need to start talking about it… A response to me by the YouTube user Rorschach Romanov: And my response to him: Read more
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Religion, Ecology, Race, and Cultural Evolution
“Today we cannot ignore that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach and should integrate justice in discussions on the environment to hear both the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor.” -Pope Francis (n.49) Pope Francis released his encyclical last week. The English translation is HERE. I have only Read more
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Pope Francis and Integral Ecology
Check out Sam Mickey’s post on the Pope’s integral encyclical. Sam includes several excerpts for those who don’t have the time to read the entire document. Read more
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Space and Time in an Ontology of Organism
I’m thoroughly enjoying Jimena Canales social, scientific, and philosophical history of the Einstein-Bergson debate in The Physicist and the Philosopher: Einstein, Bergson, and the Debate that Changed Our Understanding of Time. There are quite a few pages on Whitehead’s alternative rendering of relativity theory. There is one place (198-99) where Canales, while commenting on George Herbert Read more
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Pope Francis an Integral Ecologist?
Next week, Pope Francis will release an encyclical on the role of Catholics in the ecological crisis. According to John Grimm (Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale University), “Francis will likely bring together issues of social justice and economic inequity into relationship with our growing understanding of global climate change and environmental trauma.” By 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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Footnotes2Plato 