Category: imagination
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American Philosophy and Rudolf Steiner, ed. By Robert McDermott
I mentioned this text, American Philosophy and Rudolf Steiner, edited by my advisor Robert McDermott, a few months back. It has since been published.
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The Gossip Gospel – An Informal Talk on the Role of Gossip in Community
I gave this talk on New Year’s Eve to a group of my friends.
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Deleuze on Anamnesis
From Difference and Repetition, p. 85 (in the context of a discussion of the active and passive synthesis of time): If there is an in-itself of the past, then reminiscence is its noumenon or the thought with which it is invested. Reminiscence does not simply refer us back from a present present to former ones,…
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Deleuzean Diagrammagic
Here’s a quick sketch of a diagram I’ll continue to refine that came to me while reading Deleuze’s discussion of the passive synthesis of imagination in D & R (71cf). An easier to read version: The past and the future are rhythmically/repeatedly synthesized via contraction into the lived present by imagination. The actual occasions of…
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Science v. Religion (in the lead up to my dissertation) – Al Jazeera interviews Richard Dawkins, and Lawrence’s Krauss thinks he’s special
Now that I’ve completed preparatory research essays on Schelling (The Re-Emergence of Schelling: Philosophy in a Time of Emergency) and Whitehead (Physics of the World-Soul: The Relevance of A. N. Whitehead’s Philosophy of Organism to Contemporary Scientific Cosmology), it’s finally time to start zeroing in on my dissertation thesis. The title I’m proposing for now is Imagination Between…
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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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Imagination in Philosophy (from NYT’s “The Stone”)
From a recent essay over at The Stone on NYT.COM by Ernie Lepore and Matthew Stone about philosophy and the poetic imagination: “…what makes these interpretive efforts poetic: They do not concern the ordinary significance of form in language. When we approach language prosaically, our focus is on arbitrary conventions that link words to things…
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PDF of “Physics of the World-Soul: The Relevance of Alfred North Whitehead’s Philosophy of Organism to Contemporary Scientific Cosmology” [and Table of Contents]
Here’s a hyperlinked outline of a long essay on Whitehead and scientific cosmology that I’ll post in sections. Here is a link to a PDF of the complete essay: Physics of the World-Soul: The Relevance of A. N. Whitehead’s Philosophy of Organism to Contemporary Scientific Cosmology Table of Contents I. Introduction: From Physics to Philosophy II. The…
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Tolkien’s Imagination: A Talk at Esalen
Originally posted on Becca Tarnas: The essay “The Fantastic Imagination: Sub-Creating Tolkien’s Middle-Earth,” which is the foundation of this presentation, is available here.
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Deleuze’s Platonism and Cosmic Artisanry
I recently picked up Joshua Ramey’s The Hermetic Deleuze again after having had to temporarily shelve it back in August due to other research obligations. Having all but completed my comprehensive exam on Whitehead, I’m turning now to focus on a paper on Deleuze for a process philosophy seminar. Having tried (admittedly not very hard)…
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Cosmopolitical Theology: Violence, Value, and the Push for a Planetary People
This is a talk I gave back in September for my colleagues at CIIS during our annual retreat to Esalen in Big Sur, CA.
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The Varieties of Naturalistic Philosophy
If a pushy philosopher were to back me into a corner and force me to choose one or the other, naturalism or supernaturalism, I would choose naturalism. But I’d find myself wanting to ask, as Socrates might, what is meant by “nature”? Physics becomes metaphysics as soon as the word–”nature”–is pronounced. The logos of language…
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Thinking With Whitehead: Science, Sunsets, and the Bifurcation of Nature
Thinking with Whitehead: The Scientific Revolution and the Bifurcation of Nature The scientific revolution, beginning perhaps with Copernicus’ rediscovery of the heliocentric model of the solar system early in the 16th century, and culminating perhaps with Newton’s formulation of the laws of motion and universal gravitation towards the end of the 17th century, fundamentally…
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Cosmic Self: a Uni-Verse
It is with my own self-consciousness that I must begin… but I will confess, I am not yet certain of my own beginning, or even of my own uncertainty. Already I seem to have said too much: “I am”–how do I know that? Do I really exist? Can I claim self-consciousness as “my own” if…
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“Logic of Imagination: The Expanse of the Elemental” by John Sallis
I just finished John Sallis‘ latest book: It was my first experience of his writing, which was lucid and even rose to imaginal and inspired heights in places. I haven’t read continental phenomenology in a while, though thinkers like Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty definitely shaped my entry into academic philosophy as an undergraduate. What I…
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Immanent Law, Transcendent Love, and Political Theology
I’m going to attempt to clarify my own position in relation to that of Levi Bryant’s on the issue of the potential role of religion in revolutionary politics. Bryant has toned down the diatribe, offering two substantive posts over at Larval Subjects, as well as several comments to me here at Footnotes. I’ll try to lay…
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The Politics of Renaissance Hermeticism, and the Magic of Science
I’ve been reading Frances Yates’ Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (1964). Part of her project is to dispel the myth that Bruno was burnt at the stake primarily for his heliocentrism and generally scientific and materialist attitude. This was certainly one of the Roman Inquisitions many accusations, but the real reasons the Church lit…
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“From Kant to Schelling to Process Metaphysics: On the Way to Ecological Civilization” by Arran Gare
I stumbled upon this great essay on Schelling and process metaphysics recently published in the journal Cosmos and History by Prof. Arran Gare. He really makes it clear how compatible Schelling’s Naturphilosophie is with Whitehead’s cosmological scheme. “From Kant to Schelling to Process Metaphysics: On the Way to Ecological Civilization” Here is a sample: Schelling’s work…
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Jonathon Keats: What the World Needs is More Curious Amateurs
Jonathon Keats: What the World Needs is More Curious Amateurs. Or as the poet John Keats described it, we need more people capable of “negative capability.”
Footnotes2Plato 