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: Wittgenstein

  • Metaphysics and Theology (a dialogue with Jacob Sherman)

    This dialogue with my colleague Jake Sherman was recorded last week at our graduate program’s annual retreat.  Below is a transcript:  Matt: Welcome, everyone. Thanks for joining us this afternoon for a dialogue on metaphysics and theology, which I hope will be both interesting and entertaining. You should have found the score cards on your seat to decide…

  • The Invariance of Variation: Or Why Metaphysics Must Become Ungrounded (Dialogue with Tim Jackson)

    Above, Tim Jackson and I dialogue about a number of conversations we watched, including: Matt Segall: So this is going to be laid back. We didn’t read anything, but we did listen to a whole bunch of conversations. I guess three. Okay, I threw another one in there. So, there’s the Levin and Deacon dialogue…

  • Why the World is Unfinished: Whitehead in 20 Minutes

    The following reflections are based on transcribed excerpts from a recent podcast that should appear at the end of the year and that I will be sure to share. Do I consider myself a Whiteheadian? On the one hand, obviously yes—he is certainly the most influential philosopher for me. But at the same time, I…

  • 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…

  • Toward a Goethean Astronomy: Reflections on Rudolf Steiner’s “Interdisciplinary Astronomy” (GA 323)

    The following are quickly edited transcripts of my introductory remarks at six of our Urphänomen reading group sessions that began back in August of this year. I’ve included some screenshots of the slides I refer to below, but most of them are animated. You’ll have to watch the embedded videos to see the full context…

  • 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…

  • Audio of my International Whitehead Conference presentation at Munich School of Philosophy

    This talk was delivered on July 29th, 2023 at 4:30pm at the Munich School of Philosophy. Thanks to Godehard Brüntrup for chairing the session. You can find the paper I am summarizing here: “Whitehead’s Philosophy of Organism: Turning Idealism Inside Out“

  • 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…

  • Standing Firm in the Flux: On Whitehead’s Eternal Objects (draft article)

    Standing Firm in the Flux: On Whitehead’s Eternal Objects (draft article)

    The article to follow is a draft posted here for your review. As usual, I invite your comments and criticisms (Note that I have been continually updating the draft below in light of helpful feedback and my own ongoing reflection: the doctrine of eternal objects is a deep ocean, but hopefully this study at least…

  • Dialoging with John Torday about Cellular Evolution

    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/

  • “Philosophy Chat” dialogue on Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Whitehead

    “Philosophy Chat” dialogue on Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Whitehead

    Had a great chat with Marty yesterday on his podcast “Philosophy Chat.” We covered a lot of territory… those interested in German Idealism, Naturphilosophie, and Process-Relational Philosophy will have plenty to chew on.

  • Goethe’s Study of Metamorphosis in Light, Leaf, and Bone

    Goethe’s Study of Metamorphosis in Light, Leaf, and Bone

  • Meta-Linguistics (dialoguing with Layman Pascal)

    Meta-Linguistics (dialoguing with Layman Pascal)

    Thanks to Bruce Alderman, Layman Pascal, and The Integral Stage for another great conversation! Here’s Bruce’s description: How does our understanding of the relationship between language and reality evolve as we develop, individually and culturally? What does it mean for language to be the house of being? Is there any sense in seeking a universal…

  • Lecture and notes on Part I of Whitehead’s “Process & Reality”

    Lecture and notes on Part I of Whitehead’s “Process & Reality”

    This Fall at CIIS.edu, I’m teaching an online advanced seminar on Whitehead’s magnum opus, Process & Reality. Here are my reflections on Part I of Process & Reality, “The Speculative Scheme.” Note that I discuss Richard Rorty’s conference presentation during a symposium on Whitehead at Stanford back in April 2006. Isabelle Stengers and Donna Haraway were…

  • Book Review of Dreyfus & Taylor’s “Retrieving Realism”

    World Futures: The Journal of New Paradigm Research just published my review of Hubert Dreyfus and Charles Taylor’s book Retrieving Realism (2015). Read my review here (it may be behind a paywall, sorry about that). I have another expanded article on their book coming out very soon in the International Journal of Transpersonal Studies that…

  • Tribute to Wittgenstein

    There was a period of about 3 months back in college when Wittgenstein was all I could read (this essay emerged out of that period). His genius had infected me. I was sure his solutions had dissolved all my philosophical problems (indeed, I thought he’d cured me of philosophy). Of course, back in college, I…

  • Curing Philosophy

    Wittgenstein’s model philosopher would act like a physician, though instead of trying to cure physical ailments, he would attempt to relieve metaphysical tension. The philosopher is a doctor of the mind, more commonly known as a psychologist. His task is to keep the language from misunderstanding itself. This, in turn, prevents people from becoming insane.…

  • Hofstadter, Wittgenstein, Varela: Loops, Language, Poesis

    The purpose of this essay is to display how the Enlightenment’s arête became its hamartia. In other words, it is to show how Modernity’s greatest virtue became its tragic flaw. Its virtue was to separate the Big Three: the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. This differentiation lead to all the positive aspects of Modern…

  • Wittgenstein and Language

    What is language? Wittgenstein’s early project was to define language in the terms most familiar to the Western tradition, running through Augustine up until Russell. His aim was to show that all philosophy consisted in defining the logical form of sentences. A certain proposition was thought to be isomorphic to a certain event in the…

  • The End of the Word (preliminary remarks)

    To engage in philosophy is to attempt to wake up from a dream. I had one once where I dreamt of these men’s thoughts: I believe one of the things Christianity says is that sound doctrines are all useless. That you have to change your life. (Or the direction of your life.) It says that…