Footnotes2Plato

“The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.”
–Alfred North Whitehead

Category: William James

  • Contemporary Natural Philosophy Needs a New Theory of Forms

    In this disputation with Jacob Given and Adam Robert, I was defending the thesis that contemporary natural philosophy needs a new process-relational theory of forms, and that Whitehead’s notion of eternal objects can play that role. Adam and Jacob structured the session as a kind of updated medieval disputatio: I offered a thesis and initial…

  • 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 theology. I believe that any attempt at thinking the most general conditions of reality inevitably touches the spiritual. If it did not then natural science…

  • 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 academia is thawing, opening room for alternatives to physicalism. I do sense that! Panpsychism and idealism are the two broad categories that capture much of…

  • Notes from the Edge of the Ordinary

    Recapping my time in the twilight zone between physics and psi in Charlottesville, Virginia two weeks ago. I left the DOPS Psi Theory Meeting feeling like I’d been sitting around a camp fire telling ghost stories at the edge of a new continent. In fact, we spent the week together in the Marriott Hotel’s appropriately named Louis…

  • My Biophilosophy Conference Talk: Romanticizing Evolution with Schelling, Peirce, and Whitehead

    Below is my talk at the “Revitalizing Biophilosophy” conference I co-hosted earlier this week. It is based on a long paper I am working on both for this conference and for “Cognizing Life,” another conference that I’ll present at next week in Tübingen, Germany (there is a free livestream option if you’d like to tune…

  • Infinite Intimate: Dialoguing with Marc Gafni and Zak Stein

    Matt Segall: Hi Marc, pleasure to meet you. Marc Gafni: Good to meet you, Matt. Matt Segall: Really, as I said in my email, it’s an honor and it’s humbling to get to talk to you and Zak. I’ve had a chance to spend a little time with Zak. But yeah, great to connect with you. Where are…

  • Rhythms of the One: Bergson on Plotinus (Dialogue with Pedro Brea and Jack Bagby)

    Our conversation felt like an improvised rhythm of tangents. But as I joked to Pedro, a perfect circle is made of infinitely many tangents. What might appear like digression is often an expression of the deeper topology of thought, where every seeming sidetrack curves back toward the center.  Plotinus’ νοῦς (nous) floats above space and…

  • “Psychedelic Realism”: My presentation at Breaking Convention

    Below is an audio version and edited transcript of my talk at Breaking Convention last week, hosted by the University of Exeter. Video should be available in the coming weeks.  Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes (Introduction) It is my pleasure to introduce our next speaker, all the way from California: Dr. Matthew David Segall. Matt is an Associate…

  • Renewing Religion: Dialogue with Philip Goff and Brendan Graham Dempsey

    Brendan Graham Dempsey and I sat down with Philip Goff to discuss all things “pan”: panmatheism, panentheism, pangentheism, panpsychism… oh, and Christianity! Philip describes how he arrived at panpsychism: after initially embracing physicalism and even flirting with illusionism, he came to feel that reducing the mind to physical processes was incoherent. Turning to thinkers like Thomas Nagel, David Chalmers,…

  • Science and Religion in a Participatory Cosmos

    Last night I was invited by the Center for Christogenesis at Villanova University to share some thoughts on how the science/religion dialogue may be transformed by a participatory approach to cosmology. The video will be made available in a few weeks to those who register with the Center. I began by playfully suggesting I’d be proceeding as…

  • Processing Plotinus: A Bergsonian Reading

    I was joined again by Pedro Brea (we discussed Bergson and Whitehead a few weeks ago) and now also by Jack Bagby(a colleague of mine at CIIS). We discussed Jack’s translation of Bergson’s lectures on Plotinus (1898-99). We also discussed an essay by Wayne J. Hankey on Bergson and Plotinus.  Although I had previously known Plotinus influenced Bergson, our discussion highlighted…

  • Whitehead’s Revolutionary Concept of Prehension (Thinking with Tim Jackson and Charles Hartshorne)

    Tim Jackson and I discussed Hartshorne’s article, “Whitehead’s Revolutionary Concept of Prehension.” Charles Hartshorne offers a detailed and insightful examination of Alfred North Whitehead’s process-relational philosophy. Hartshorne, who served as Whitehead’s assistant at Harvard University during the 1920s, was also profoundly influenced by Charles Sanders Peirce, whose papers he edited during that same period. This background…

  • Process Metaphysics Meets Possibilist Physics (Dialoguing with Ruth Kastner)

    Ruth Kastner and I first met several years ago in the context of a seminar series focused on plasma physicist and philosopher Timothy Eastman’s work. Ruth also participated in the “Metaphysics and the Matter With Things: Thinking With Iain McGilchrist” conference I co-hosted at CIIS last March. We’ve been meaning to sit down to see what bridges might…

  • Process, Reality, and Context: Timothy E. Eastman Unties the Gordian Knot – Summaries of the Seminar Series

    Below is a detailed summary of each of the nine seminar sessions that ran monthly from June 2021 through February 2022 focused on Dr. Timothy Eastman’s book, Untying the Gordian Knot: Process, Reality, and Context (2020). This event was sponsored by the Cobb Institute’s Science Advisory Committee, which I chair. You can read my review of…

  • Review of Vol. 2 of ‘The Harvard Lectures of Alfred North Whitehead’

    Below is a draft of my review of: BRIAN G. HENNING, JOSEPH PETEK, and GEORGE LUCAS, eds. The Harvard Lectures of Alfred North Whitehead (1925-1927): General Metaphysical Problems of Science. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021: lxii + 511 pages. The version that is eventually published in Process Studies will likely need to be about half this length, so I’m…

  • Experiential Philosophy, Psychedelic Entities, and Naturalistic Reincarnation: Cheltenham and UK Philosophers Interview

    I recorded this dialogue with Matthew Gray of the Cheltenham and UK Philosophers group a few days ago. A transcript is below. Introduction and Matt Segall’s Credentials Matt Gray: “Hey guys, it’s Matt Gray from Chelam UK Philosophers here, um, just had a fantastic conversation with Matt Segall, the renowned process philosopher, um, he’s a well-decorated,…

  • God Beyond and Within (Dialogue with Roman Campolo)

    Below is a ChatGPT summary of my conversation with Roman (which I’ve reviewed for accuracy). You can find the exact transcript on Substack. Roman began by sharing his thoughts on a documentary he recently watched about Mount Athos, a place he had not known about before. He explained that Mount Athos is an island off…

  • The Evolution of Consciousness and the Destiny of America (Dialogue with Formscapes)

    In a spontaneous three-hour livestream, Kehlan and Matt explored the thoughts of influential thinkers and the implications of America’s Pluto Return. They discussed consciousness evolution, materialism’s challenges, and the spiritual mission of the U.S. They expressed concerns over populism and the need for a moral vision amidst societal fragmentation, emphasizing a harmonious approach to spirituality…

  • Discussing Whitehead with Jeffrey Mishlove on “New Thinking Allowed”

    It was a real pleasure to join host Jeffrey Mishlove on his show, New Thinking Allowed. He invited me on to discuss (surprise, surprise) the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century. We explored Whitehead’s historical context, his engagement with contemporaries like Bertrand Russell, F.H. Bradley, and Ludwig…

  • Reflections on the Whitehead Centennial at Emerson Hall

    My trip to Harvard gave me occasion to reflect not only on Whitehead’s legacy, but on his resonances with Emerson and their shared vision of philosophical education. It was raining Thursday afternoon when I arrived in Cambridge. My room at The Friendly Inn was a few blocks from Harvard Yard, and with the rain slowed…

  • C. S. Peirce’s “A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God” (1908)

    In his 1908 essay, “A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God,” Charles Sanders Peirce offers a “humble hypothesis” meant to be accessible to the expert logician and clodhopper alike. God is identified as the ens necessarium, or the necessary being. This necessary being, according to Peirce, is the creator of all three (or at least…