Category: Alfred North Whitehead
-
What is Life? (Response to Joe Norman)
Sharing my reply below to a brilliant series of thoughts concerning the essence of life at Joseph W. Norman’s blog (CLICK HERE TO READ IT). Joe, Thanks for pointing out the relevance of N. Taleb’s distinction between randomness and an agent’s exposure to randomness for the question of “life.” Much to ponder here… My friendship with…
-
Introduction to Process Philosophy
Below is a lecture recorded for the online course PARP 6060 02 – Introduction to Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness at CIIS.edu. I first discuss the meaning of philosophy from a Whiteheadian perspective, then run through a brief history of philosophy as relevant to process thought (Parmenides, Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, Copernicus, Descartes, Newton, Kant and his…
-
Whiteheadian commentary on contemporary scientific cosmology: Are the fundamental constants changing?
The following is a lecture from a course I’m currently teaching called Whitehead’s Adventure in Cosmology: Toward a Physics of the World-Soul. Watch the PBS Space Time video first for context. “The animal body is only the more highly organized and immediate part of the general environment for its dominant actual occasion [i.e., its consciousness],…
-
“Retrieving Realism: A Whiteheadian Wager” published in IJTS
Retrieving Realism: A Whiteheadian Wager (PDF) Published in International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, Volume 36, Issue 1 (2017) Abstract: This essay argues that the organic realism of Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) provides a viable alternative to anti-realist tendencies in modern and postmodern philosophy since Descartes. The metaphysical merits of Whitehead’s philosophy of organism are unpacked in…
-
Book Review of Dreyfus & Taylor’s “Retrieving Realism”
World Futures: The Journal of New Paradigm Research just published my review of Hubert Dreyfus and Charles Taylor’s book Retrieving Realism (2015). Read my review here (it may be behind a paywall, sorry about that). I have another expanded article on their book coming out very soon in the International Journal of Transpersonal Studies that…
-
The Place of Life in the Cosmos (draft of 11th International Whitehead Conference paper)
Below is the draft of a paper I’ll present at next week’s International Whitehead Conference in the Azores. Feedback appreciated! 2017 International Whitehead Conference Matthew T. Segall The Place of Life in the Cosmos: Feeling the Origin of Organism “A philosophic outlook is the very foundation of thought and of life. The…
-
Toward a Communicative Cosmos: Whitehead and Media Ecology (updated draft)
Below is a draft of a paper I’ll offer at the MEA Convention in a few weeks. I share it here in the hopes that my readers may provide feedback that helps me improve it. I have something like 15 minutes to present as part of a panel on “Philosophical Perspectives,” so I’ll only be…
-
My Online Course this Fall: PARP 6133 – Whitehead’s Adventure in Cosmology
I’m teaching another online graduate course for CIIS.edu this Fall (Aug-Dec) called Whitehead’s Adventure in Cosmology: Toward a Physics of the World-Soul (PARP 6133). Here is the proposed syllabus. Auditors and Special Students are welcome to enroll. Email me at msegall@ciis.edu for more information about how to do this.
-
McLuhan on Electronic Media
I’m reading McLuhan’s classic Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964) as I prepare a paper for the Media Ecology Association conference this summer. I’m struck by his prophetic insights into the effect of “electronic media” on the human condition. My MEA conference paper will challenge some of his basic assumptions from a (surprise, surprise) Whiteheadian…
-
Media Ecology Conference Paper
Later this month, St. Mary’s College of California will host the 18th Annual Convention of the Media Ecology Association. The conference theme is “Technology, Spirituality, Ecology.” My paper proposal was accepted. The abstract is below Title: A Communicative Cosmos: Toward a Whiteheadian Media Ecology Author: Matthew T. Segall, PhD Affiliation: California Institute of Integral Studies Contact: msegall@ciis.edu…
-
Waking Cosmos Podcast Interview
Thanks to Adrian Nelson for hosting this conversation on his YouTube channel Waking Cosmos.
-
Towards a new root image in natural science…
Here is anthropologist Anne Buchanan on the post-truth era in natural science. I was reminded of my post on the federally-funded Brain Initiative a few years ago. Buchanan includes geneticist Ken Weiss’ list of facts that do not fit the reductionistic paradigm of “normal science” in biology at the end of her post. Weiss and Buchanan…
-
Thinking Law, Politics, and other Modes of Existence with Bruno Latour
Below I’ve pasted a couple of excerpts from Latour’s work on politics and law. “Why do we regret that politicians ‘don’t tell the truth’? Why do we demand that they be ‘more transparent’? Why do we want ‘less distance between representatives and those whom they represent’? Even more absurd, why do we wish that ‘politicians…
-
Organic Science in Schelling and Whitehead
A lecture from last week’s class Brief History of Western Thought on Romanticism and the crisis of modern science as it played out in the organic nature philosophy of Schelling and Whitehead.
-
Archetypal Panpsychism: Whitehead, Jung, & Hillman
If you happen to live near Boise, Becca and I will travel there in January to give a weekend workshop for the Idaho Friends of Jung. January 20-21, 2017 Archetypal Panpsychism: Whitehead, Jung, and Hillman A presentation by Matthew D. Segall, PhD, & Becca Tarnas, ABD Friday Lecture, 7:00 – 9:00 PM; Saturday Workshop, 10:00 AM –…
-
Panpsychism and Emergentism: a discussion with ProfessorAnton
I posted Neil Theise’s video “Complexity Theory & Panpsychism” on FaceBook last week, and Corey Anton posted a response criticizing panpsychism and defending his own emergentist perspective. Their videos are below. Corey and I have gone back and forth on this issue a number of times over the years. I posted a set of responses to…
-
Physics of the World-Soul: Whitehead and Cosmology (2nd edition)
I decided to revise and republish a second edition of my 2013 monograph on the relevance of Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophy of organism to contemporary scientific cosmology. It should be available in paperback in a few weeks. Here is a PDF if you prefer an electronic version.
-
The Ecology of Capitalism
This post is largely in response to this interview with the ecological Marxist John Bellamy Foster. Foster spends most of his time responding to criticisms of his work by Jason W. Moore. I haven’t read Moore’s work, so I’m not sure whether the misunderstanding of Latour arose with him or with Foster’s characterization of the latters “constructionism”…
-
PDF of my Dissertation
Here’s a PDF of the version I submitted to the UMI database. I plan to substantially revise this before publishing it as a book sometime in the next year. But for now, I welcome feedback on the current draft. Cosmotheanthropic Imagination in the Post-Kantian Process Philosophy of Schelling and Whitehead
-
The Function of Reason and the Recovery of an Earthly Architecture
Click here to view this essay at the publisher’s website, FunctionLab. The Function of Reason and the Recovery of an Earthly Architecture By Matthew David Segall, PhD June 2016 “[The] relatedness between us and the world…which begins to exist wherever there is living structure is as important in the sphere of building as it is…
Footnotes2Plato 