Category: Alfred North Whitehead
-
Catherine Keller: The Cosmopolitical Entanglements of Process-Relational Theology
In what follows, I offer some reflections on the feminist process theologian Catherine Keller’s book Cloud of the Impossible: Negative Theology and Planetary Entanglement (2015). Keller poetically folds her refreshingly open theological orientation into an array of important planetary topics,—including the ethical implications of quantum entanglement (chapter 4), the poststructuralist dissolution of substance (chapter 5)…
-
Politics and Pluralism in the Anthropocene
Notes from a talk I gave at CIIS this past March titled “Politics and Pluralism in the Anthropocene” Here’s the video of the whole panel: https://youtu.be/sgoAZV4VVsc Foucault on Hegel: “[T]ruly to escape Hegel involves an exact appreciation of the price we have to pay to detach ourselves from him. It assumes that we are aware of the…
-
Genes v. Organisms in Biological Explanation (responding to the Dawkins v. Weinstein debate)
Here’s the recent debate between Richard Dawkins and Bret Weinstein on the relationship between cultural and biological evolution: Here are two response videos from me arguing for the relevance of Francisco Varela and Evan Thompson et al.’s theory of autopoiesis and Alfred North Whitehead’s Philosophy of Organism: Some relevant essays that expand on the…
-
The Schelling & Hegel Tapes
I’m sharing some clips from a live video conference session a few days ago with students in my online course this semester, “Mind and Nature in German Idealism.”
-
Integrating Space-Time: Non-Dual Idealism, or Physics of the World-Soul?
Metaphysics is serious play. Serious because (if done well) it demands a reckoning with death, with limit as such, with finitude and necessity. Play because (if done well) it frees us from our perceived finitude to partake in the process of realization itself. Materialism and idealism, though mutuality exclusive as metaphysical positions, are nonetheless symbiotically…
-
Whitehead’s Radically Empirical Theory of General Relativity
“The doctrine of relativity affects every branch of natural science, not excluding the biological sciences. . . . Relativity, in the form of novel formulae relating time and space, first developed in connection with electromagnetism. . . . Einstein then proceeded to show its bearing on the formulae for gravitation. It so happens therefore that…
-
Whitehead’s Quantum of Explanation: Thinking with Auxier and Herstein
“Our central idea is that concrete existence explains the abstract aspects of experience and not vice-versa.” -Auxier and Herstein “So long as necessity is taken to be the guarantor of rationality, the conception of rationality advocated will be as useless to science as it is to practical life.” -Auxier and Herstein Below I offer some…
-
Spring online course at CIIS.edu – Whitehead’s Adventure in Cosmology
Auditors are welcome, though space is limited. Email me at msegall@ciis.edu for more information. One of our core texts in this course will be my Physics of the World-Soul (a new third edition soon to be published).
-
Back to teach at Schumacher College in April 2019: “The Evolution of Consciousness and the Cosmological Imagination”
I’ll be teaching another short course at Schumacher College in the UK the week of April 22nd-26th, 2019. Here’s a link if you’re interested in registering: https://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/courses/short-courses/re-enchanting-the-cosmos Here’s what I’ll be teaching on: “The Evolution of Consciousness and the Cosmological Imagination” This week-long course will trace the evolution of consciousness in the West from ancient…
-
“From Final Knowledge to Infinite Learning, with Chaudhuri, Whitehead, and Deleuze”
Next weekend, CIIS is hosting a conference called “1968 Revisited.” I’ll be presenting on a panel on Saturday, September 29th at 10am called “Pedagogy and Experimental Philosophy” with Jacob Sherman and Joshua Ramey (moderated by Debashish Banerji). Below is a draft of my panel presentation, titled “From Final Knowledge to Infinite Learning, with Chaudhuri, Whitehead,…
-
Panel Presentation at “1968 Revisited” Conference
The East-West Psychology department is hosting a conference at CIIS on September 28-30, 2018. You can read more about it and register here: https://www.ciis.edu/ciis-news-and-events/campus-calendar/1968-revisited I’ll be presenting on a panel called “Pedagogy and Experimental Philosophy” on Saturday, September 29th at 10am. Other panelists include Joshua Ramey and Jacob Sherman. My presentation title is “From Final Knowledge…
-
Participatory Spirituality in an Evolving Cosmos
Here’s my talk from the INTERSECT: Science & Spirituality conference in Telluride, CO earlier this summer. It’s titled “Participatory Spirituality in an Evolving Cosmos”
-
INTERSECT: Science & Spirituality (more conference reflections)
John Hausdoerffer Brian Thomas Swimme
-
Alfred North Whitehead: An Introduction
-
“Intersect: Science & Spirituality” – a conference in Telluride, CO
INTERSECT: Science & Spirituality Join us for a 2-Day Conversational Conference (July 27-29th) for the purpose of Exploring Syngergies between the world of Science and the world of Spirituality. Topics to include Cosmology, Ecology, Sustainability, and Consciousness. Speakers include: Drew Dellinger, John Hausdoerffer, Matthew Segall and Brian Swimme (via video). Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/intersect-science-spirituality-tickets-4239963846
-
Physics of the World-Soul, a short course on Schelling and Whitehead at Schumacher College next week
>More information on this course<< Recommended Readings (PDF)
-
Whitehead’s Way Beyond Postmodernism
Based on this paper delivered at the 2015 International Whitehead Conference.
-
Schumacher College summer course update: “Physics of the World-Soul”
https://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/courses/short-courses/physics-of-the-world-soul Schumacher College has decided to make my week on Schelling and Whitehead a stand alone course called “Physics of the World-Soul.” It will take place June 18-22. More information available at the link above.
-
Panpsychist Physicalism (continued)
Continuing the discussion about “panpsychist physicalism,” I’m sharing another one of my replies over at The Skeptical Zone (click here to read what I am responding to). Thanks for the reply, keiths. Of course, everything depends on what we mean by physicalism. “Scientific materialism” is a phrase I borrow from Whitehead to refer to an outdated…
-
Panpsychist Physicalism
[Written partially as a response to some discussion over in The Skeptical Zone]: Physicalism is the idea that the universe is fundamentally composed of entirely blind, deaf, dumb–DEAD–particles in purposeless motion through empty space. For some reason, these dumb particles follow the orders of a system of eternal mathematical laws that, for some reason, the…
Footnotes2Plato 