"The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato." —Alfred North Whitehead
Below are parts 1 and 2 of my dialogue with toxinologist and evolutionary philosopher Timothy Jackson. We discuss everything from the philosophy of science and evolutionary epistemology, to the social and cultural impact of evolution, to the full-blown evolutionary cosmologies of thinkers like Whitehead and Peirce. https://youtu.be/MjPl70-ZSLU https://youtu.be/9hTPjXvjqjA
Had a great time discussing Whitehead's cosmology with Tripp. Check it out here: https://trippfuller.com/2021/09/13/matthew-segall-cosmology-consciousness-and-whiteheads-god/ We discussed topics including: the allure of Whitehead’s vision of mind in nature (knowledge as 'an adjunct within things known')the potential of a process engagement with different natural scientific problems, including the origins of lifethe problems with reductionismwhat is in the [...]
I had a great conversation with Joe Moore of Psychedelics Today a couple months back, and the podcast was just released today. Have a listen. In this episode, Joe interviews philosopher, author, and assistant professor in the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program at California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco: Matthew D. Segall, Ph.D. [...]
https://youtu.be/ogdHlOEoN2A Dr. Torday is Professor of Evolutionary Medicine at UCLA: https://www.evmed.ucla.edu/torday/ For more on the cellular theory of evolution: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4447538/ More about the Cobb Institute Science Advisory Committee: https://cobb.institute/science-advisory-committee/
https://youtu.be/buU93ZSS5Xk Seb and I discussed the history and contemporary status of the natural sciences and their relationship to philosophy and metaphysics.
I interviewed Rupert Sheldrake as part of a new series for the Cobb Institute. I'll be speaking with a number of scientists who have been influenced by Whitehead. https://youtu.be/Ok7n4baI6KA
Thanks to Bruce Alderman at The Integral Stage for moderating. https://youtu.be/rRxL_6DeIV0
I'm posting a revised version of a long essay I wrote a decade ago. It draws on thinkers including Sri Aurobindo, Jean Gebser, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, William Irwin Thompson, Francisco Varela, Alfred North Whitehead, and Alf Hornborg in search of a more integral approach to economics. I had not yet encountered the social ecology [...]
Here's the recent debate between Richard Dawkins and Bret Weinstein on the relationship between cultural and biological evolution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYzU-DoEV6k Here are two response videos from me arguing for the relevance of Francisco Varela and Evan Thompson et al.'s theory of autopoiesis and Alfred North Whitehead's Philosophy of Organism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jx06_OY6gU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DnL0_fydic Some relevant essays that [...]
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.
[Written partially as a response to some discussion over in The Skeptical Zone]: Physicalism is the idea that the universe is fundamentally composed of entirely blind, deaf, dumb–DEAD–particles in purposeless motion through empty space. For some reason, these dumb particles follow the orders of a system of eternal mathematical laws that, for some reason, the [...]
[Update 4/19: listen to the interview here] On Thursday at CIIS, I'll interview physicist and novelist Alan Lightman, author of the just published Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine (2018). As of this writing, Lightman's book is #1 in Metaphysics on Amazon.com.* Lightman begins his reflections in a cave in Font-de-Gaume, France, famous for its adornment of [...]
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: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GbyVd1TnSU& Chapters 5-8: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehSKBds7RdE
Above is my response to the recent conversation between Krauss, Dennett, and Pigliucci. If you don't know the context of their meeting, see the links below. I agree with Dennett that cosmology is an area of natural science where we are not even close to being done with philosophy. My own small contribution to the [...]
Footnotes2Plato 