Category: Iain Hamilton Grant
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Thinking the Holocaust with Schelling
Originally written in 2013, I decided to slightly revise and repost the following reflections in light of current events. Schelling’s Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom (1809) is a text I have returned to time and again over the years. Short, salty, and bittersweet, its alchemical depths continue to nourish my love of wisdom. Schelling’s core…
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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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Toward a Goethean Physics: Reading Steiner’s “Light Course” (GA 320) through Whitehead’s Organic Realism
Below are some excerpts and more or less stream of consciousness reflections upon reading the student notes from Rudolf Steiner’s so-called “Light Course” (GA 320; Dec 1919-Jan 1920). The number headings correspond to each of his lectures. These notes are helping me prepare for a presentation next month at MysTech’s “Mysteries of Light” conference. 1. Rudolf Steiner spent…
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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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Naturphilosophie as Process Philosophy in Schelling and Whitehead
Christopher Satoor and I discussed Schelling, his German Idealist context, and Whitehead’s inheritance of Schellingian ideas about mind and nature.
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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…
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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)
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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.
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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…
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“Nature is a priori” -Schelling
Thanks to milliern for his commentary on and reflections about an exchange Professor Corey Anton, myself, and others have been having on YouTube. I’m reposting my comment to him below: I wanted to offer a few clarifications of my own position. I don’t normally think of myself as a “Heideggerian,” though I suppose most people…
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Thinking the Holocaust with Schelling…
A few days ago, I decided to re-read Schelling’s Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom (1809). It’s a reasonably short text of about 75 pages, so I’ve read it 3 or 4 times in the past year. The text’s key conceptual innovations regarding the essence of freedom (which Schelling defines as the scission…
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Climate Change and Schelling’s inversion of Fichte’s “economic-teleological” principle
Two disappointing tidbits of news from the front lines of the climate war came my way this morning. First, I learned that the US Department of State decided to contract out its recent environmental review of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline to a company called Environmental Resources Management. ERM happens to be “a dues-paying…
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Iain Hamilton Grant Interview
Leon Niemoczynski has posted a FANTASTIC interview with Iain Hamilton Grant. A small sample to wet your appetite: As directly as possible, Idealism is that philosophy that affirms the reality of the Idea. The point is not that any account of reality must be from the standpoint of the Idea, of the Ideal, or that the conceptual…
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[Final Draft] Worldly Religion in Deleuze and Whitehead: On the Possibility of a Secular Divinity
Below I’ve written a paper using the ideas of Gilles Deleuze and Alfred North Whitehead to construct a secular divinity. For Deleuze, this is an especially serious act of buggery on my part. Deleuze of course approved of that method in his own projects, but I wonder if he would approve of the baby jesus…
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On reading Plato…
Everyone already knows Alfred North Whitehead’s over-cited remark about all of European philosophy being but a series of footnotes to Plato. If you’ve somehow forgotten its near exact wording, just follow Plato’s upward pointing finger to the top of this blog for a reminder. Why near exact? I left out the descriptor “European…” that comes before…
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“The Hermetic Deleuze: Philosophy and Spiritual Ordeal” (2012) by Joshua Ramey
I’ve just been made aware of this very new book on Deleuze and the Hermetic tradition. As the commenter who brought it to my attention already guessed, it couldn’t be more relevant to my current project. Hermeticism has long been an interest of mine; I’ve even described myself as a Christian Hermeticist in the past. The…
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[Rough Draft] “The Re-Emergence of Schelling” – Literature review
Again, sorry for the lack of italics. I don’t know how to paste from Pages while keeping the formatting. For a PDF of the document (with italics in tact!), click: The Re-Emergence of Schelling: Philosophy in a Time of Emergency. Literature review This section assesses the reasons for the contemporary resurgence of scholarly interest in Schelling.…
Footnotes2Plato 