Footnotes2Plato

“The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.”
–Alfred North Whitehead

Author: Matthew David Segall

  • The Poetics of Copernican Cosmology

    In his cosmographic study of the Copernican Revolution,The Poetic Structure of the World (1987), Fernand Hallyn entirely re-envisions the foundations of modern science. Instead of reading Copernicus’ break with the geocentric scheme as a rejection of the enchanted cosmos of the ancient world, Hallyn makes clear that Copernicus himself believed he was only making ancient…

  • Knowledge Ecology on an Object-Oriented Ecology, and some reflections on substance

    Adam Robbert over at Knowledge-Ecology has posted a great piece on his conception of an object-oriented ecology. He draws primarily from Graham Harman, Tim Morton, and Isabelle Stengers. I’m re-posting my comment to him below: Really well written, Adam. You’ve definitely provided an outline for a robust OOE. I agree with your assessment that it…

  • Whiteheadian Panentheism and Ralph Pred’s “Onflow”

    I’ve just been skimming Ralph Pred’s naturalization of Whitehead’s process-experiential ontology (see Onflow: Dynamics of Consciousness and Experience, 2005). Pred attempts to naturalize Whitehead by explaining away the need for any divine function in cosmogenesis, but in critiquing Whitehead’s speculative scheme, Pred focuses exclusively on the unconscious, primordial nature of God, leaving unmentioned the conscious pole of the…

  • Whoever finds this note, please help the earth.

    Earlier tonight, while walking home, I came across a folded up piece of paper placed on on the sidewalk beneath a rock:

  • Intuitive Thinking vs. Reflective Thought: Harman on Meillassoux

    I’ve just read Graham Harman‘s essay for continent. entitled “Meillassoux’s Virtual Future” (2011). As usual, it is primarily Harman’s style of philosophizing that really excites me. I am fascinated by the way he juggles and plays with ideas, even when I don’t finally agree with his attempts to securely mold a certain set of them into…

  • Plato and Astrosophy: The Wisdom of the Sky

    Scholarship has been unable to determine who the true writer of Epinomis was, but it is generally assumed that the text available to us today is either what remains of an unfinished wax-tablet manuscript left behind by Plato at his death in 347 BCE, or is an extra chapter added later by a student of Plato’s,…

  • Research notes on the pragmatisms of James and Dewey

    …continuing research for my dissertation… I’ve been enjoying Louis Menand’s The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America (2001). With an insightful synopsis of American history from the Civil War until about WWI as the backdrop, Menand traces the intellectual development of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey.…

  • Stephen Hawking explains the universe over on PZ Myers’ blog

    I’ve jumped into a thread over at Pharyngula to offer my opinion of Hawking’s attempt to explain the Universe positivistically.

  • Alan Watts on Subjective Idealism and Correlationism

  • Theism/Atheism: Imagination and Ontological Openness

    There is no need to oppose one possibility with the other. Speculative philosophy’s task is to overcome the dualistic limitations of sense-understanding (subject v. object, quality v. substance) by way of a schematic renewal of (or participatory intervention into) our habitual way of imaging the world. Speculative philosophy must hold the binary (God/no-God) together to…

  • Philosophy Blogging, OOO/SR, Nihilism, and God

    It is difficult to describe the effects of the blogosphere on consciousness, especially when the information communicated via blogs pretends to be philosophical. The blog, as a medium, has not yet been swallowed as radio by TV, or the printed word by the digital hyperlink, and so gaining perspective on its effects remains difficult. We’re…

  • Whitehead on God and the Universe in “Modes of Thought”

    It might be helpful for the last pages of Whitehead’s 5th lecture in Modes of Thought (1938), “Forms of Process,” to be available online. I’d enjoy unpacking the implications of what is said here, and so I will post them in the hopes that they be productive of further reflection on my part, as well as generative of…

  • The New Reformation: Whitehead on Christian Metaphysics

    “…if you want to make a new start in religion, you must be content to wait a thousand years.” -Alfred North Whitehead I’ve been thinking through my recent posts on the philosophical import of religious experience, and in light of some of the concerns brought up by Jason Hills, I wanted to further unpack the…

  • Types of Explanation in Whitehead and Hegel

    I’m still working my way through Hegel and Whitehead: Contemporary Perspectives on Systematic Philosophy (1986), ed. by George R. Lucas, Jr. Today I read Klaus Hartmann’s (University of Tubingen) essay, “Types of Explanation in Hegel and Whithead”. Hartmann finds both similarities and differences in their respective approaches to philosophy. Among the similarities, he notes their…

  • God and Religious Experience in Whitehead: another response to Levi Bryant

    Levi Bryant has problematized my attempt to clarify Whitehead’s position on the function of divinity in the universe. He writes: “You make the claim that without God there would be chaos and no order. This is a problematic claim for two reasons. First, you have repeatedly tried to claim that God isn’t supposed to explain…

  • The Creativity of Causality in Bios and Cosmos: a response to Levi Bryant

    Levi Bryant has posted a comment in response to me over at plasticbodies. He has also posted a comment directed at Adam and I over at knowledge-ecology. I’d like to respond to some his questions and concerns, which include issues surrounding causality, explanation, God, and Nature. He first suggests I have conflated two different construals…

  • Causality in Whitehead’s Panentheism

    Plasticbodies has posted another volley in the theism-nihilism discussion, this time drawing attention to causality. He asks: What does process theology give us that a (process) naturalism cannot? Or, put otherwise, how does one get from nature to divinity without begging the question? I’ll paste my comments in response here: I have written quite a…

  • Religion and Philosophy: The God Problem

    The discussion continues over on Levi Bryant’s blog. Bryant agrees with me that Whitehead’s conception of God does not fall prey to many of the ethical and epistemological criticisms he levels against traditional theism. But he fails to understand the problem that Whitehead’s God is purported to have solved. Whitehead’s style of philosophizing has much…

  • Ontology and God: a further response to Levi Bryant

    I posted the following as a comment to Bryant’s short response. Adam Robbert has a nice comment there, too. There is no necessary relationship between OOO (or ontology generally) and theology or morality, but certainly every ontology has theological and moral implications. To the extent that OOO has something in common with Whitehead’s process ontology,…

  • SR/OOO and Nihilism: a response to Harman and Bryant

    I’ve already posted a short response to Harman, but I wanted to re-visit the issues explored in that post concerning the difference between Homo Sapiens, as an object among objects, and the Anthropos, as an ideal toward which every object tends. I will also try to disentangle my own “cosmotheandric” position from the generic anti-nihilism…

  • OOO and Anthropos: Graham Harman responds

    Adam Robbert and Graham Harman have both posted responses to my post about the anthrodecentrism of object-oriented ontology. I think Adam’s summary of my position as regards the relationship between divinity, nature, and humanity is quite accurate. He chose Raimon Panikkar‘s term “cosmotheandrism” to describe my approach. I’m definitely sympathetic to this characterization and have…