FROM THE FOOTNOTES2PLATO ARCHIVE
Category: Plato
Explore the evolving conversation, or begin with a guide to its central questions.
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Platonic Space, Organic Agency, and Creative Evolution
One of the important ideas that Tim and I discussed last night was his threefold differentiation of the inquired (natural science), the speculative (metaphysics), and the prosaic (everyday experience). I…
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A History of Life from Plato and Descartes to Darwin and Lovelock (My Frontiers of Knowledge talk in Aspen, CO)
I was back in Aspen, CO this past weekend for the second annual Frontiers of Knowledge event at Wheeler Opera House. I presented alongside David Peña-Guzman (who you’ll hear in…
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360 Platonism
This seminar was hosted by Joe Lightfoot here in Chiang Mai. In the talk, I reprised some ideas I shared in a post a few years ago: Plato and Platonism: Dividing the…
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Between Matter and the One: Exploring Plotinus’ Large Logos Model
Max Wade: My dissertation was on Plotinus’ ontology of artifacts, basically looking at Plotinus as a philosopher of technology. It was a fun project. It opens up a lot of…
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On Genesis: Toward a New Evolutionary Theology
The Rosy Crux The central issue is not simply whether Hegel is right, or whether we can derive a more empirically grounded metaphysics than absolute idealism from Darwin’s humble hypothesis…
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Thinking Things with Graham Harman: Whitehead’s Way Beyond Philosophies of Human Access
Rahul Samaranayake has had me on his podcast a few times over the years, including an especially generative conversation with Peter Rollins last year. This time he invited me and Graham Harman into dialogue.…
Albert Einstein, Alfred North Whitehead, Ancient Philosophy, Aristotle, Bruno Latour, David Chalmers, Descartes, Emmanuel Levinas, Evan Thompson, Fichte, Gilles Deleuze, Graham Harman, Hegel, Heidegger, Henri Bergson, Hume, Isabelle Stengers, Kant, Modern Philosophy, Plato, Schelling, Slavoj Žižek, speculative realism, Spinoza, Steven Shaviro, Wittgenstein -
Ontologizing Enactivism: Worldmaking with Ezequiel Di Paolo (dialogue with Tim Jackson)
Timothy Jackson and I were back in the saddle, this time to discuss Ezequiel Di Paolo’s article seeking an enactive ontology: Di Paolo, E. A. (2023). F/acts: Ways of enactive worldmaking. Journal…
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A Hegelian Tour of Philosophy from Parmenides to the French Revolution
A slightly revised transcript of my introductory lecture from a course on Hegel’s Absolute Idealism. I just want to begin by noting that Hegel’s time was a time of revolution…
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Philosophies of Ontogenesis: Evolution by Artistic Selection
First, have a listen to Timothy Jackson’s recent Lepht Hand podcast about the ontogenetic stance: Then have a read of his essay on Darwin, Simondon, and Battaile and the importance of a…
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Islam and the West: Dialoging with Jared Morningstar
In my recent conversation with Jacob Kishere as part of his “Christianity beyond itself” series, we attempted to navigate the ways the “Christ impulse” can so easily get hijacked by culture-war crusader…
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Between the Speculative and the Prosaic: Life, Imagination, and Individuation
Timothy Jackson and I went deep into descendental philosophy and aesthetic ontology, core concepts developed in my last book Crossing the Threshold (2023). I try to argue against both scientistic neutrality and dogmatic…
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The Return of Form in Biology: Thinking Through Platonic Morphospace
The mystery of biological form has led some biologists, most prominently Michael Levin, back to Plato’s theory of Ideas. Levin is driven primarily by the surprising empirical findings of his lab.…
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Jung, Simondon, and the Ontogenesis of Philosophy
We just wrapped the “Forever Jung” conference co-hosted by CIIS and the San Francisco Jung Institute. Tim couldn’t be with us in person, but I enjoyed his Zoom presentation on Jung and…
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Remembering the Repressed with Carl Jung and Rudolf Steiner
Judi: Hello, everybody. It’s my great pleasure to introduce Matt Segall. Matt is a PhD, a transdisciplinary researcher, philosopher, and teacher applying process-relational thought across the natural and social sciences. He…
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Birthing a New Cosmology (reflections on my dialogue with Alexander Beiner)
I enjoyed dialoguing with my friend Alexander Beiner this morning. The recording will be published on Kainos soon. He asked whether I had a sense for whether the atheistic, secular orientation in…
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Creativity and the Cross: Martinus, Bergson, and Whitehead in Dialogue
A conversation with Pedro Brea and Karsten Jensen. LLM generated transcript below. Matt Segall: Hey, Karsten. Pedro Brea: Hey! Karsten Jensen: Hi, Matt! Hi, Pedro! I’m so happy you both agreed to have…
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In Defense of Participatory Platonism: Dialoging with Tim Jackson about Dan McQuillan’s Critique of Data Science as Machinic Neoplatonism
Tim and I read McQuillan, Dan. Data Science as Machinic Neoplatonism. Philos. Technol. 31, 253–272 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-017-0273-3 Key themes discussed: The critique of vulgar vs. authentic Platonism in data science Process-relational philosophy…
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It from Bit from Chit: Philosophizing at the Threshold of Artificial Intelligence (dialogue with Robert Prentner)
Summary of my dialogue with Robert Prentner: I apologize for the sound quality, but there is a full transcript below! Robert began by explaining his shift from skepticism to engagement…
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Alchemy, Technology, and Individuation in Novalis, Simondon, and Jung (dialogue with Tim Jackson)
Timothy Jackson: I really do think Simondon is becoming a very timely figure, and I think it’s probably underappreciated that his stated goal is to refound—have a novel axiomatic for the…
