Category: Goethe
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Whitehead, God, and Eternal Objects (Dialoguing with Darren Iammarino)
Darren and I had an intense geek out session exploring some of Whitehead’s categoreal scheme. Key points include: Here’s my paper on eternal objects (a shorter version was just published in Process Studies): “Standing Firm in the Flux: On Whitehead’s Eternal Objects”
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Debating the Place of the Human in Cosmology with Brendan Graham Dempsey
After some back and forth in his Facebook group, Brendan was gracious enough to invite me on his Metamodernism podcast to discuss several core ideas, including the nature of scientific inquiry, the role of human experience in understanding the cosmos, and the limitations of mechanistic models in science. We discussed the intersection of philosophy, science,…
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Intuiting Life Seminar Series, a preview with Spyridon Koutroufinis
If you’d like to join us for the Saturday morning seminar series beginning this weekend, you can RSVP HERE.
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Summary Reflections on Rudolf Steiner’s “Interdisciplinary Astronomy” (GA 323)
Our Urphänomen reading group is back in action, this time reading Steiner’s lecture cycle titled Interdisciplinary Astronomy (1921, GA 323). Frederick Amrine recently published a wonderful new translation. Earlier this week I summarized lecture 5 (video above). Below is a rough transcript of my reflections: The key issue here for Steiner is that we need…
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Metaphysics and the Matter With Things: Thinking With Iain McGilchrist
I’m very excited to announce that my graduate program (Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness at CIIS) and the Center for Process Studies are cohosting a conference March 29-31, 2024 focused on the work of Iain McGilchrist. The temporary conference landing page is HERE. You can provide an email address for updates on conference registration in the…
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![Whitehead’s Philosophy of Organism: Turning Idealism Inside Out [draft article]](https://footnotes2plato.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/dallc2b7e-2023-10-31-10.29.56-photo-of-an-old-world-war-one-battlefield-overlaid-with-intricate-mathematical-patterns-and-equations.-the-sky-above-is-painted-with-swirling-galaxies.png?w=1024)
Whitehead’s Philosophy of Organism: Turning Idealism Inside Out [draft article]
Below is a draft of a chapter I was asked to write for a book on Cambridge Idealism. It is still a bit rough in places and I’ll be continuing to update it in the coming weeks and months. I’ll be presenting some of the ideas explored in it at the International Whitehead Conference in…
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From German Idealism to Anthroposophy: The Spiritual Scientist Podcast
Mick Young invited me on his Spiritual Scientist podcast to discuss the importance of German Idealism in Rudolf Steiner’s development. I introduce the concept of ‘etheric imagination’ as a form of cognition by which we can consciously participate in the formative forces responsible for generating living organisms, including our own bodies. Participating in these etheric…
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Pre-order my new book ‘Crossing the Threshold’
My new book Crossing the Threshold: Etheric Imagination in the Post-Kantian Process Philosophy of Schelling and Whitehead is now available for pre-order (thanks to Revelore Press/Integral Imprint). Orders ship on Earth Day (April 22). “Segall’s new book is a sustained blissful effort to re-infuse 21st century thought with the courage, generosity, and imagination that he himself…
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My presentation at the 50th Anniversary Conference of the Center for Process Studies
This presentation was given on February 16, 2023 at the Claremont United Church of Christ. My paper was titled “Physics Within the Bounds of Feeling Alone.” The draft is available here. Visit the conference website here.
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Thinking with Rudolf Steiner
It is hard to believe I’ve been thinking with Steiner for almost 15 years. He is, as the late BBC documentarian and author Jonathan Stedall put it in the title of his 2011 biopic, a “challenge.” In contemporary German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk’s words: Steiner created a kind of antenna anthropology that we can no longer…
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Goethe and Whitehead article in “In Dialogue: Journal for Holistic Science”
In Dialogue: Journal for Holistic Science, Vol 2 is available as a PDF here. My contribution is titled “Goethe and Whitehead: Steps to a Science of Organism”
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Standing Firm in the Flux: On Whitehead’s Eternal Objects (draft article)
The article to follow is a draft posted here for your review. As usual, I invite your comments and criticisms (Note that I have been continually updating the draft below in light of helpful feedback and my own ongoing reflection: the doctrine of eternal objects is a deep ocean, but hopefully this study at least…
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Revolutionary Left podcast introducing German Idealism
I was invited back on the Rev Left podcast to lay out the dialectical twists and turns of the German Idealist movement. Link here: https://revolutionaryleftradio.libsyn.com/german-idealism
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Infinite Weird Podcast: The Many Become One and Are Increased By One
Had a great time chatting with Matthew Sherling yesterday about my own journey, how I got into Whitehead’s work, and what his basic categories of concrescence and prehension mean.
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Goethe and Whitehead: Steps to a Science of Organism
This essay was slated to be published in the Holistic Science Journal, but it looks like it will end up somewhere else later this year. I’ve been sitting on it for a while, though, and wanted to share it here. Feedback welcome. “Goethe and Whitehead: Steps to a Science of Organism” (2021):
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Physics of the World-Soul: Whitehead’s Adventure in Cosmology (2021)
A new revised and expanded edition of my book Physics of the World-Soul: Whitehead’s Adventure in Cosmology is now available in paperback and electronic versions.
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Eins und Alles _ Goethe
My German is schrecklich, but since I couldn’t find any translations I liked, I spent the afternoon struggling with Goethe’s poem “Eins und Alles” (“One and All”), with a dictionary and several other translations in tow. What follows is my best attempt to render this Englishly. I am convinced that translation is impossible, but I…
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“Philosophy Chat” dialogue on Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Whitehead
Had a great chat with Marty yesterday on his podcast “Philosophy Chat.” We covered a lot of territory… those interested in German Idealism, Naturphilosophie, and Process-Relational Philosophy will have plenty to chew on.

