Category: Modern Philosophy
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Catherine Keller: The Cosmopolitical Entanglements of Process-Relational Theology
In what follows, I offer some reflections on the feminist process theologian Catherine Keller’s book Cloud of the Impossible: Negative Theology and Planetary Entanglement (2015). Keller poetically folds her refreshingly open theological orientation into an array of important planetary topics,—including the ethical implications of quantum entanglement (chapter 4), the poststructuralist dissolution of substance (chapter 5)…
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Politics and Pluralism in the Anthropocene
Notes from a talk I gave at CIIS this past March titled “Politics and Pluralism in the Anthropocene” Here’s the video of the whole panel: https://youtu.be/sgoAZV4VVsc Foucault on Hegel: “[T]ruly to escape Hegel involves an exact appreciation of the price we have to pay to detach ourselves from him. It assumes that we are aware of the…
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The Schelling & Hegel Tapes
I’m sharing some clips from a live video conference session a few days ago with students in my online course this semester, “Mind and Nature in German Idealism.”
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Integrating Space-Time: Non-Dual Idealism, or Physics of the World-Soul?
Metaphysics is serious play. Serious because (if done well) it demands a reckoning with death, with limit as such, with finitude and necessity. Play because (if done well) it frees us from our perceived finitude to partake in the process of realization itself. Materialism and idealism, though mutuality exclusive as metaphysical positions, are nonetheless symbiotically…
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Whitehead’s Radically Empirical Theory of General Relativity
“The doctrine of relativity affects every branch of natural science, not excluding the biological sciences. . . . Relativity, in the form of novel formulae relating time and space, first developed in connection with electromagnetism. . . . Einstein then proceeded to show its bearing on the formulae for gravitation. It so happens therefore that…
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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 Stars Lead Us To Wonder: a PCC Forum with Richard Tarnas and Brian Thomas Swimme
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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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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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“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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Panel Presentation at “1968 Revisited” Conference
The East-West Psychology department is hosting a conference at CIIS on September 28-30, 2018. You can read more about it and register here: https://www.ciis.edu/ciis-news-and-events/campus-calendar/1968-revisited I’ll be presenting on a panel called “Pedagogy and Experimental Philosophy” on Saturday, September 29th at 10am. Other panelists include Joshua Ramey and Jacob Sherman. My presentation title is “From Final Knowledge…
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Mutations podcast interview
Thanks to Jeremy for hosting a great conversation! LINK to Podcast
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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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INTERSECT: Science & Spirituality (more conference reflections)
John Hausdoerffer Brian Thomas Swimme
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Living in a Complex World (a trialogue)
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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)
Footnotes2Plato 