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

  • Embody Your Soul

    Honesty is only possible if one agrees with oneself. If an inner conflict persists, one can only delay the truth, or lie. If we can befriend ourselves, speaking the truth becomes a possibility. Telling the truth consists in carrying the inside, out. Truth reveals what is of itself so, but which had prior to its…

  • I am Time

    Suffering,or bliss. Do not be disturbed. Do not lose your head. Do not knot your soul. There is no testimony, no measuring of miss. The either/or is mysterious, that’s sure. Just hear it. Then see it. Now taste it. What have you found? Ask your mind what it is like… go on. Four dimensions: The…

  • Integrating Rationality

    Prickles, I’m gooey and you’re prickly. This may be the root of our disagreement… -Goo —————————- Goo, i think there my be a distinction in the ‘personality’ of our philosophy… heres what ive been thinking though regarding our discussion: Like i said before, and im going to try to make more clear in another video……

  • Hofstadter, Wittgenstein, Varela: Loops, Language, Poesis

    The purpose of this essay is to display how the Enlightenment’s arête became its hamartia. In other words, it is to show how Modernity’s greatest virtue became its tragic flaw. Its virtue was to separate the Big Three: the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. This differentiation lead to all the positive aspects of Modern…

  • Love of Wisdom

    To you, As long as we’ve known each other, even intimately at least for brief episodes, there seems to remain something hidden between us. It is not something so simple as a secret kept by one of us from the other, but rather seems to be something we share but are unwilling or unable to…

  • Phenomenology and Science

    Science (empirical observation coupled with logical deduction), as a way of thinking, has undoubtedly made more out of mankind than any other mode of thought in his historical arsenal. In both the material and mental spheres, man has used the knowledge and technology that he has gained from science to make many great practical advances.…

  • A Fable of Time and Eternity

    Writing is weaving, and weaving is telling a story. This evening’s readings began with pen and paper, but alas, the well ran dry and my lines became blank. So back inside I went —leaving my medieval manuscript face open on the porch chair with the sterile hollowness of a quill that it was laying flat…

  • The Essence of Religion

    Preface It has been suggested that all modern philosophy begins with doubt (JC, p. 80). When one philosophizes, they agree to take nothing for granted, and even to question themselves backward into a corner if need be. Cornering oneself in such a way becomes the goal of philosophical inquiry, as once trapped by one’s own…

  • Myth and Mentation

    Belief is creation. Human beings cannot escape the relationship between the formative powers of their imagination and the world itself. Thought is reality. Yes, we have science; we have response to thought. We can test our thoughts and gauge their efficacy. We can produce statistics and build models. But these responses are still thoughts, still…

  • YouTube

    Video doesn’t afford us the same intensity of individuality that the printed word provides. Speaking aloud into the internet is emersion in the Other. Writing affords an author time for reflection and debate. One can “catch their breath” before they pronounce the world, gather supplies before setting off to sea. Marshall Mcluhan said that “every…

  • Inside and Outside

    Why does my mind matter more than my body? Why is it that it’s what’s inside that counts? Isn’t the shape and character of my face as much “me” as the trends and moods of my personality? Aren’t they each a symptom of the other? My personality is my reaction to the other faces I’ve…

  • Impersonal text for no one in particular

    Talking out loud is tiring, it is inevitably personalizing. If I want to stick to impersonality,it pays to write. Remaining faceless avoids the glare. Spontaneously talking into a camera to post your face on the Internet is pornographic. It is pop-thought, public nudity, mass consciousness. It is confronting the superego and shouting spells at him…

  • To TheModernMystic (YouTube)

    TheModernMystic @ YouTube.com Nick, the gap has been leaped. 1st person and 3rd person are equally illusory. No “I” and no “it”. There is no single observer just like there is no single observed. In fact, there is no observer or observed at all, they are not two. Thou art That. I am It. No,…

  • Ego trying to transcend Ego

    Oh, I am dizzy from the never ending torment of chasing my own tail around and around and around. I feel deflated, not for any particular reason, but more so because I need a reason not to be. Why spirituality? Why demand that existence be meaningful? Because it just feels so much better that way!…

  • Wittgenstein and Language

    What is language? Wittgenstein’s early project was to define language in the terms most familiar to the Western tradition, running through Augustine up until Russell. His aim was to show that all philosophy consisted in defining the logical form of sentences. A certain proposition was thought to be isomorphic to a certain event in the…

  • Wonder

    I wonder what it is that turns the world round, That hides the far side of the Moon from the Earth, That sees with my eyes but cannot be seen. Why is it that I have a perspective? How is it that I exist as an individual, As a piece of space wrapped up in…

  • The Spiritual Animal

    Some have suggested that the human being can (and therefore ought to) live without God. I reject this claim. I propose that the human being is the spiritual animal, the organism that knows that it is. God is the “thatness” of existence, that transcendent quality of all that is but whose name cannot be spoken.…

  • The Zeitgeist

    The zeitgeist gives our individual lives their substance. Without this cultural matrix to create and sustain our sense of ourselves as subjects; as persons with responsibilities; as bodies with a rational will required by outer law to be in control (but by inner law to be spontaneous), we would be free to release our experience…

  • The Wise and the Foolish

    The bones between this body are burdensome but fair. They hold this flesh together while it breathes air, but balance the bargain with a fateful despair. The bones remain after the soul has gone home–a reminder for those who still seek, who still inhale and must eat. Death is the great equalizer, and a master…

  • What does liberation require?

    What does liberation require? Krishnamurti would stop us before we even ask the question, as to suppose enlightenment could have a cause in time is to mistake the temporal for the eternal. But supposing we are then merely trying to describe the experience of awakening metaphorically, rather than trying to scientifically break it down into…

  • The End of the Word (preliminary remarks)

    To engage in philosophy is to attempt to wake up from a dream. I had one once where I dreamt of these men’s thoughts: I believe one of the things Christianity says is that sound doctrines are all useless. That you have to change your life. (Or the direction of your life.) It says that…