Category: Religion
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“Retrieving Realism: A Whiteheadian Wager” published in IJTS
Retrieving Realism: A Whiteheadian Wager (PDF) Published in International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, Volume 36, Issue 1 (2017) Abstract: This essay argues that the organic realism of Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) provides a viable alternative to anti-realist tendencies in modern and postmodern philosophy since Descartes. The metaphysical merits of Whitehead’s philosophy of organism are unpacked in…
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My Online Course this Fall: PARP 6133 – Whitehead’s Adventure in Cosmology
I’m teaching another online graduate course for CIIS.edu this Fall (Aug-Dec) called Whitehead’s Adventure in Cosmology: Toward a Physics of the World-Soul (PARP 6133). Here is the proposed syllabus. Auditors and Special Students are welcome to enroll. Email me at msegall@ciis.edu for more information about how to do this.
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Erowid’s Psychedelic Encyclopedia at CIIS
This conversation with Earth and Fire Erowid (of erowid.org) at CIIS back in January was supposed to be recorded for a podcast, but alas, due to technical difficulties, the sound crew was unable to record it. Lo and behold, I just came across this video of the event, taken by someone in the audience. Thanks, whoever…
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Fragments on Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit
Below are a few reflections after teaching a module on Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit this past week. My natural inclinations draw me to Schelling’s Naturphilosophie, but every time I return to Hegel’s writing after some time apart I start to worry I’ve allowed myself to fall into a caricatured understanding of his trickster-like dialectical method. I’m reminded of…
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Mind and Nature in German Idealism: A Spring Course at CIIS
There’s still a few weeks left to enroll in my spring course at CIIS.edu as an auditor or special student. Mind and Nature in German Idealism will start on January 17th and run until May 8th. Email me if you are interested and I can share the syllabus and/or enrollment instructions (msegall@ciis.edu).
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Mind and Nature in German Idealism, a graduate course
I’m very excited to teach a 10-week online course at CIIS next semester (Spring 2017, running from Jan – Mar) called Mind and Nature in German Idealism. The course includes readings and lectures on Kant, Fichte, Goethe, Hegel, and Schelling. Note that you do not need to be enrolled in a graduate program at CIIS in…
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Physics of the World-Soul: Whitehead and Cosmology (2nd edition)
I decided to revise and republish a second edition of my 2013 monograph on the relevance of Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophy of organism to contemporary scientific cosmology. It should be available in paperback in a few weeks. Here is a PDF if you prefer an electronic version.
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A talk on Ecodelic Philosophy at the Symbiosis Gathering
I’m headed back to the Symbiosis Gathering later this year. I’ll be offering a talk on the role of psychedelics–or “ecodelics” as author Richard Doyle refers to them–and the philosophical insights they engender that may be of service to steering through our planetary crisis. When ingested in carefully crafted ceremonial containers, ecodelics reveal the deeper connections and interpenetration of…
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My first course, Spring 2017 at CIIS
I’ll be teaching my first graduate level course next Spring at CIIS. I have a lot of reading and research to do between now and then.Please do add to my list of books or articles if you have resources relevant to the topic. Speaking of which, poet-activist Drew Dellinger gave me a ton of leads in…
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Defeating Daesh
It is clear that American foreign policy and Western colonialism more generally have played a huge role in fanning the flames of “Islamic” terrorism. I’m heartened by the many peaceful Muslims who are speaking up to say that terrorists are most definitely NOT Muslims, including this brave fellow: Be that as it may, these suicide…
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Religion, Ecology, Race, and Cultural Evolution
“Today we cannot ignore that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach and should integrate justice in discussions on the environment to hear both the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor.” -Pope Francis (n.49) Pope Francis released his encyclical last week. The English translation is HERE. I have only…
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Pope Francis an Integral Ecologist?
Next week, Pope Francis will release an encyclical on the role of Catholics in the ecological crisis. According to John Grimm (Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale University), “Francis will likely bring together issues of social justice and economic inequity into relationship with our growing understanding of global climate change and environmental trauma.” By…
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Neil DeGrasse Tyson on 60 Minutes.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/neil-degrasse-tyson-astrophysicist-charlie-rose-60-minutes/That little dot, Tyson tells us, is Earth, as photographed from Saturn by the Cassini spacecraft. But an earlier photograph was even more world-shattering, that taken of “earthrise” on the Moon by astronaut William Anders. This image, says Tyson, gave birth to the cosmic perspective in the collective imagination. He traces the origins of the ecological…
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The Religion of Reason (with Steven Pinker and Rebecca Newberger Goldstein)
Hard to disagree with too much of what Pinker and Goldstein say about Reason. Yay Reason, right?! They also make a very persuasive case for (neo)liberal capitalism. Pinker’s bit about empathy was a nice reprieve, but Goldstein shut him up fast by recounting Reason’s historical march toward the Good. In the end, I prefer Schelling’s, Hegel’s,…
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Video of “The Psychedelic Eucharist: Toward a Pharmacological Philosophy of Religion”
A lecture I delivered yesterday (Sept. 29th, 2014) at CIIS for ERIE. Lecture notes
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Evan Thompson @ CIIS on Neuroscience, Meditation, and Self-Enaction
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Tomorrow @ CIIS: Rick Tarnas and Brian Swimme – “Radical Mythospeculation and a Second Axial Age”
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“Religion and Ecology: Developing a Planetary Ethic” by Whitney Bauman
“From a planetary perspective, truth is seen as the coconstruction of truth regimes. Our understandings of the world and the technologies of those understandings begin to create those worlds that we are persuaded most toward. In other words, one of the reasons modern science became so pervasive is that its truth regime–including the medical, communication,…
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Process, Relationality, and Individuality: Graham Harman and Alfred Norht Whitehead (response to Jonathan Cobb)
Relevant links to the argument between me, Levi Bryant, and Graham Harman: Levi Bryant Mis-reading Whitehead? Harman’s response to me Whitehead’s Process Atomism (Response to Graham Harman) Object as subject-superject, or why Harman is wrong about Whitehead Occasionalism in Whitehead and Harman Harman’s Crucified Objects and Whitehead’s God: More on Withdrawal
Footnotes2Plato 