Category: Alfred North Whitehead
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Whitehead’s Theory of Propositions
The title of the article Ben Snyder and I are discussing is “The Objectivity of Whitehead’s Propositions: An Explication of the Truth-Relation” in Process Studies53 (2):256-274 (2024). Ben begins with a summary of his paper’s main argument, which I’ll try to capture below. Propositions, for Whitehead, are more than statements in language: they are metaphysical “lures”…
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Schelling’s Reading of Plato’s “Timaeus”
In this dialogue, Tim Jackson and I return almost to the beginning of philosophy–“almost” in the sense that Plato himself was already responding to a few centuries of philosophizing by the physiologoi. His dialogue Timaeus represents a synthesis rather than a pure start in the evolution of philosophy. He attempted to reconcile different positions and…
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Minds All Around Us: Dialoguing with Michael Levin
You can read my reflections on this dialogue here.
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Process Metaphysics Meets Possibilist Physics (Dialoguing with Ruth Kastner)
Ruth Kastner and I first met several years ago in the context of a seminar series focused on plasma physicist and philosopher Timothy Eastman’s work. Ruth also participated in the “Metaphysics and the Matter With Things: Thinking With Iain McGilchrist” conference I co-hosted at CIIS last March. We’ve been meaning to sit down to see what bridges might…
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Process, Reality, and Context: Timothy E. Eastman Unties the Gordian Knot – Summaries of the Seminar Series
Below is a detailed summary of each of the nine seminar sessions that ran monthly from June 2021 through February 2022 focused on Dr. Timothy Eastman’s book, Untying the Gordian Knot: Process, Reality, and Context (2020). This event was sponsored by the Cobb Institute’s Science Advisory Committee, which I chair. You can read my review of…
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Review of Vol. 2 of ‘The Harvard Lectures of Alfred North Whitehead’
Below is a draft of my review of: BRIAN G. HENNING, JOSEPH PETEK, and GEORGE LUCAS, eds. The Harvard Lectures of Alfred North Whitehead (1925-1927): General Metaphysical Problems of Science. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021: lxii + 511 pages. The version that is eventually published in Process Studies will likely need to be about half this length, so I’m…
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Ingressing Minds: Causal Patterns Beyond Genetics and Environment – Reflections on Michael Levin’s Platonic Research Program for Biology
Reflections on Michael Levin’s Platonic Research Program for Biology (a dialogue with Timothy Jackson) Timothy Jackson and I discuss Michael Levin‘s new pre-print “Ingressing Minds: Causal Patterns Beyond Genetics and Environment in Natural, Synthetic, and Hybrid Embodiments” (which will eventually end up in the anthology collecting papers from the “Metaphysics and the Matter With Things: Thinking With Iain McGilchrist”…
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Evolution by Natural Induction (Dialogue with Timothy Jackson)
A near verbatim transcript: Matt Segall: Hey, Tim. Timothy Jackson: Hey, Matt. How are you? Matt Segall: Hanging in there, doing all right. Yeah. Matt Segall: Nice shirt. Timothy Jackson: Oh, this? Yeah, it’s a tiger snake. They’re very common around here. The design was drawn by a friend of ours who does really cool reptile art. Matt Segall: Local in…
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Reflections on My Dialogue with Peter Rollins: Pyrotheology Meets Process Theology
Earlier today I had the chance to speak with Peter Rollins on Rahul Sam’s podcast (video below). The conversation brought up many threads that have shaped my life over the last two decades. We discussed my unexpected encounter with Christ as a teenager, my interest in Alfred North Whitehead’s process theology and how it compares to Rollins radical…
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Minds in the Making: Bringing Formal and Final Causes Back into Evolutionary Science, with Michael Levin
Michael, host of the podcast Third Eye Drops, invited me and the developmental biologist Michael Levin into dialogue. The video should be posted in the coming weeks, and I will share it here. I’ve had several conversations with Mike before (see here). In this post, I want to riff on some of the themes we explored…
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Experiential Philosophy, Psychedelic Entities, and Naturalistic Reincarnation: Cheltenham and UK Philosophers Interview
I recorded this dialogue with Matthew Gray of the Cheltenham and UK Philosophers group a few days ago. A transcript is below. Introduction and Matt Segall’s Credentials Matt Gray: “Hey guys, it’s Matt Gray from Chelam UK Philosophers here, um, just had a fantastic conversation with Matt Segall, the renowned process philosopher, um, he’s a well-decorated,…
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The Evolution of Consciousness and the Destiny of America (Dialogue with Formscapes)
In a spontaneous three-hour livestream, Kehlan and Matt explored the thoughts of influential thinkers and the implications of America’s Pluto Return. They discussed consciousness evolution, materialism’s challenges, and the spiritual mission of the U.S. They expressed concerns over populism and the need for a moral vision amidst societal fragmentation, emphasizing a harmonious approach to spirituality…
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Theories of Everything Podcast: Process Philosophy from Plato to Whitehead and Beyond (Dialogue with Curt Jaimungal)
Below I am sharing a couple of outputs from ChatGPT4o1 as a hopefully interesting way of summarizing my 3 hour conversation with Curt. In my prompt I asked it to create a very detailed narrative summary of the transcript written from the perspective of a 23rd century natural philosopher who had lived through the paradigm…
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Why the World is Unfinished: Whitehead in 20 Minutes
The following reflections are based on transcribed excerpts from a recent podcast that should appear at the end of the year and that I will be sure to share. Do I consider myself a Whiteheadian? On the one hand, obviously yes—he is certainly the most influential philosopher for me. But at the same time, I…
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Machinic Heterogenesis and Ecosophic Futures: Thinking With Félix Guattari
The video above records my thoughts after reading a chapter from Felix Guattari’s book Chaosmosis (1995). Turning again to the work of Guattari and his frequent collaborator Gilles Deleuze felt important as the US enters a dangerous moment in its own history. Fascism is not just an external threat, not just about those bad people over there. As…
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Dialogue with Evan Thompson about “The Blind Spot”
The Theōros Project hosted philosopher Evan Thompson at CIIS for a dialogue with me about his new book (with Adam Frank and Marcelo Gleiser) The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience (2024). We covered a lot of territory:
Footnotes2Plato 