Category: Rudolf Steiner
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“Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and the Invention of the Self” by Andrea Wulf
I joined Rupert Sheldrake and David Lorimer to discuss Wulf’s brilliant book on the “Jena set” (the Schlegels, Schiller, Goethe, Caroline, Novalis, Schelling, etc.).
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Transcendent Love and the Possibility of Revolutionary Political Change
I’ll be joining Cadell Last on Philosophy Portal next week to discuss the relationship between politics and love. At least as I relate to the topic, this is fundamentally a question of political theology. I’ve explored this terrain frequently over the years (eg, this process theological response to Carl Schmitt). In this post, I’ve dug up some old exchanges with Levi…
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Artificial Intelligence, Moral Imagination, and Spiritual Evolution (dialogue with Roman Campolo)
Roman and I had another wide-ranging dialogue. Topics traversed include:
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Dying to be Born (Dialogue with Roman Campolo)
Roman and I sat down for another dialogue. Topics discussed this time include: anatman, evil, relevant novelty, death, the ontological argument for the existence of God and its discontents, and other such matters.
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Renewing Philosophy (Dialogue with Tim Adalin)
Tim Adalin hosted me on his Voicecraft podcast to discuss process philosophy and its applications. The conversation opened with an exploration of the relationship between philosophy, the elite, and democracy (particularly its susceptibility to tyranny and the importance of wise leadership over populism). I emphasized the role of education in a democratic society, proposing a culture…
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Human Freedom and the Future of Spirituality (Dialoguing with Roman Campolo)
Roman is a songwriter based out of Los Angeles with credits for K-Pop band BTS and legacy artists like Elton John and Stevie Wonder. The first 15 minutes of this didn’t record because of a technical glitch, but we felt the rest was worth sharing. We explore questions like: Where does spirituality fit into (post)modern…
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Transcendent Naturalism: Dialoguing with John Vervaeke and Gregg Henriques
Here is the first of two conversations that I’ve recently recorded with John Vervaeke and Gregg Henriques as part of the “Transcendent Naturalism” series. Part two is available here. Transcendent Naturalism and Process Philosophy: The episode begins with some of my reflections on the “transcendent naturalism” that John and Gregg have been laying out in…
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Prehension: Is Experience Fundamental?
Brendan Graham Dempsey and I connected again to continue our discussion, this time focusing on Whitehead’s concept of “prehension.” I explained that, contrary to Ken Wilber’s placement of the concept in the upper left (individual-interior) quadrant of his AQAL map, prehension does not entail just an internal or subjective experience. It’s a transformative process where…
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Debating the Place of the Human in Cosmology with Brendan Graham Dempsey
After some back and forth in his Facebook group, Brendan was gracious enough to invite me on his Metamodernism podcast to discuss several core ideas, including the nature of scientific inquiry, the role of human experience in understanding the cosmos, and the limitations of mechanistic models in science. We discussed the intersection of philosophy, science,…
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Steiner and Whitehead on the true relationship between Sun, Moon, and Earth
Below is a slide from my summary at this morning’s Urphänomen reading group. We are reading Rudolf Steiner’s “Interdisciplinary Astronomy” lecture cycle (GA 323), originally delivered in January 1921. A video of my summary of Lecture 14 is also embedded below. Here’s a link to the text of Steiner’s lecture. In this particular lecture, Steiner…
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Cosmic History in Steiner and Whitehead (dialogue with Formscapes)
This was a really fun conversation with Formscapes (check out his content on YouTube). The dialogue begins with Whitehead’s ideas on hybrid prehension and how they might relate to Steiner’s cultivation of higher organs of spiritual perception. Whitehead appears to have been open to esoteric ideas, based on some evidence that he tried contacting his…
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Summary Reflections on Rudolf Steiner’s “Interdisciplinary Astronomy” (GA 323)
Our Urphänomen reading group is back in action, this time reading Steiner’s lecture cycle titled Interdisciplinary Astronomy (1921, GA 323). Frederick Amrine recently published a wonderful new translation. Earlier this week I summarized lecture 5 (video above). Below is a rough transcript of my reflections: The key issue here for Steiner is that we need…
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Whitehead’s Philosophy of Organism: Turning Idealism Inside Out [draft article]
Below is a draft of a chapter I was asked to write for a book on Cambridge Idealism. It is still a bit rough in places and I’ll be continuing to update it in the coming weeks and months. I’ll be presenting some of the ideas explored in it at the International Whitehead Conference in…
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From German Idealism to Anthroposophy: The Spiritual Scientist Podcast
Mick Young invited me on his Spiritual Scientist podcast to discuss the importance of German Idealism in Rudolf Steiner’s development. I introduce the concept of ‘etheric imagination’ as a form of cognition by which we can consciously participate in the formative forces responsible for generating living organisms, including our own bodies. Participating in these etheric…
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The End of “Philosophy of Freedom”
Our study of Steiner’s book isn’t merely an intellectual exercise; it represents a form of fellowship that has been palpable throughout our journey. Even though it’s saddening to conclude today, remember that we are merely finishing this book, with much more lying ahead of us. My lecture focuses on the final chapter, “The Consequences of…
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Topological Inversions in the Life, Death, and Rebirth of Human Beings (lecture by Rudolf Steiner during WW1)
Rudolf Steiner Nachlass-VerwaltungTranslated by ChatGPT4 GA 174b – Lecture Eight Stuttgart, March 15, 1916 CLICK HERE FOR A PDF OF THIS LECTURE TRANSCRIPT The last time we spoke here, during my previous presence, we examined some spiritual facts that relate to the life of the human soul after the human has passed through the gateway…
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Rudolf Steiner and Racism
Update Jan 31, 2024: The conversation continues on our Urphänomen Substack page. As a teacher, I do my best to actively encourage deep and sustained dialogue about the racism, implicit or explicit, that shows up in the statements or actions of any figure studied with my students. Many modern European and American thinkers, including all…
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The Integral Stage Authors Series (interview by Layman Pascal about “Crossing the Threshold”)
I’ve pasted the transcript below with timestamps (this is autogenerated from YouTube and so has some errors, but it is readable!). 0:34 welcome back to the author series on guess what The Integral Stage. I’m Layman Pascal on behalf of myself, Bruce 0:41 Alderman, and the Unspeakable future of life on Earth. And today we’re…
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Pre-order my new book ‘Crossing the Threshold’
My new book Crossing the Threshold: Etheric Imagination in the Post-Kantian Process Philosophy of Schelling and Whitehead is now available for pre-order (thanks to Revelore Press/Integral Imprint). Orders ship on Earth Day (April 22). “Segall’s new book is a sustained blissful effort to re-infuse 21st century thought with the courage, generosity, and imagination that he himself…