Category: Kant
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Whitehead’s Quantum of Explanation: Thinking with Auxier and Herstein
“Our central idea is that concrete existence explains the abstract aspects of experience and not vice-versa.” -Auxier and Herstein “So long as necessity is taken to be the guarantor of rationality, the conception of rationality advocated will be as useless to science as it is to practical life.” -Auxier and Herstein Below I offer some…
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the nature of consciousness and what to do about it, a dialogue
Here I am with Aaron Weiss, scholar of Tibetan Buddhism and doctoral candidate at CIIS, talking about the nature of consciousness and what to do about it. The first talk was filmed back in April; the second was filmed in September as a follow-up.
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Spring online course at CIIS.edu – Whitehead’s Adventure in Cosmology
Auditors are welcome, though space is limited. Email me at msegall@ciis.edu for more information. One of our core texts in this course will be my Physics of the World-Soul (a new third edition soon to be published).
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Schelling’s Philosophy of Freedom
The following was originally written in 2012 as a chapter in a short book titled Philosophy in a Time of Emergency. It feels relevant given our current political situation, so I’m sharing it again. The Nature of Human Freedom By Matthew D. Segall The Naturphilosoph comes to understand “Nature as subject.”1 This is not the Kantian…
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“From Final Knowledge to Infinite Learning, with Chaudhuri, Whitehead, and Deleuze”
Next weekend, CIIS is hosting a conference called “1968 Revisited.” I’ll be presenting on a panel on Saturday, September 29th at 10am called “Pedagogy and Experimental Philosophy” with Jacob Sherman and Joshua Ramey (moderated by Debashish Banerji). Below is a draft of my panel presentation, titled “From Final Knowledge to Infinite Learning, with Chaudhuri, Whitehead,…
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Pluto and the Underworld of Scientific Knowledge Production
A Slovakian visual artist, András Cséfalvay, recently invited me to submit a video for inclusion in his upcoming exhibition in Prague focused on the cultural significance of Pluto (my video is embedded below). Back in 2006, Pluto was demoted from its planetary status by the International Astronomical Union. Following the flyby of NASA’s New Horizons…
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Participatory Spirituality in an Evolving Cosmos
Here’s my talk from the INTERSECT: Science & Spirituality conference in Telluride, CO earlier this summer. It’s titled “Participatory Spirituality in an Evolving Cosmos”
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Jung’s Archetypes and Jordan Peterson’s Use of Them
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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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Whitehead’s Way Beyond Postmodernism
Based on this paper delivered at the 2015 International Whitehead Conference.
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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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Lectures on Timothy Morton’s “Humankind: Solidarity with Nonhuman People”
Process and Difference in the Pluriverse (opening lecture) My Spring course at CIIS.edu finishes up this week with a set of modules on Timothy Morton’s book Humankind: Solidarity with Nonhuman People (2017). Earlier in the semester, we read works by Plato, William James, Catherine Keller, William Connolly, Bruno Latour, Anne Pomeroy, and Donna Haraway. Below, I…
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The Nature of Consciousness and What to Do About It
A dialogue with Aaron Weiss last week at our graduate program retreat.
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Fall 2018 Online Course: “Mind & Nature in German Idealism”
I’ll be offering this course for the second time in Fall 2018 at CIIS.edu (the semester runs from late August through mid-December). Special students and auditors are welcome to enroll! Email me at msegall@ciis.edu for more information about registration.
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Bruno Latour’s “Facing Gaia”
I’m sharing two lectures recorded for my online course this semester, Process and Difference in the Pluriverse. In these two modules, we are studying Latour’s recently translated book Facing Gaia. Chapters 1-4: Chapters 5-8:
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Process and Difference in the Pluriverse: Plato, William James, & W.E.B. Du Bois
I’m sharing the lecture from the first module of my course this semester at CIIS.edu, PARP 6135: Process and Difference in the Pluriverse. The lecture discusses Plato’s Republic, William James’ pluralism, and W.E.B. Du Bois’ critical inheritance of James’ philosophy. Here’s a PDF transcript of the lecture
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Process & Difference in the Pluriverse, an online course at CIIS.edu
A trailer for my course being offered this Spring at CIIS.edu. PARP 6135 Process and Difference in the Pluriverse will explore the ethical, social, political, and ecological implications of process-relational philosophy. You could call it a course in applied or experimental metaphysics. We will read and discuss texts by radical empiricist William James, revolutionary sociologist WEB…
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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…

