FROM THE FOOTNOTES2PLATO ARCHIVE
Tag: god
Explore the evolving conversation, or begin with a guide to its central questions.
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Whitehead, Eternal Objects, and God
Those who take the time to familiarize themselves with Whitehead’s philosophy are almost always lead to praise him for the originality of his thought. He dissolves many longstanding problems by…
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The Beginning and the End of Positive Philosophy
In the Theaeteus, Plato has Socrates say that “wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.” In his Metaphysics, Aristotle echoes this by writing that “it was…
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Religion and Philosophy: Thinking, Feeling, and Willing the Absolute
“The object of religion is the same as that of philosophy; it is the eternal verity itself in its objective existence; it is God. Nothing but God and the unfolding…
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Harman’s Crucified Objects and Whitehead’s God: More on Withdrawal
Continuing the discussion that begin on Knowledge-Ecology earlier today, here are some highly speculative reflections after reading the first few pages of Graham Harman‘s Guerrilla Metaphysics (2005) again: I’m reminded that…
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God and the Chaosmos: Thinking with Catherine Keller
Several months ago, a discussion erupted across the SR/OOO blogosphere concerning the implications of various forms of nihilistic and theistic realism. Some of my critiques have since ended up in…
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Speculative Philosophy and Incarnationalism in Whitehead and Meillassoux
I’ve just finished Whitehead’s lectures on the philosophy of religion, published as Religion in the Making (1926). He intended these lectures to “show the same way of thought” displayed in…
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The Divine Function in Whitehead: Not Your Grandpa’s Occasionalism
In my last post in response Bob Woodard/Naught Thought‘s thoughts concerning the ontological fuzziness of process philosophy, I referred to Whitehead as an “occasionalist” without explaining exactly what I meant.…
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Whiteheadian Panentheism and Ralph Pred’s “Onflow”
I’ve just been skimming Ralph Pred’s naturalization of Whitehead’s process-experiential ontology (see Onflow: Dynamics of Consciousness and Experience, 2005). Pred attempts to naturalize Whitehead by explaining away the need for any divine function…
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Stephen Hawking explains the universe over on PZ Myers’ blog
I’ve jumped into a thread over at Pharyngula to offer my opinion of Hawking’s attempt to explain the Universe positivistically.
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Theism/Atheism: Imagination and Ontological Openness
There is no need to oppose one possibility with the other. Speculative philosophy’s task is to overcome the dualistic limitations of sense-understanding (subject v. object, quality v. substance) by way…
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Types of Explanation in Whitehead and Hegel
I’m still working my way through Hegel and Whitehead: Contemporary Perspectives on Systematic Philosophy (1986), ed. by George R. Lucas, Jr. Today I read Klaus Hartmann’s (University of Tubingen) essay,…
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God and Religious Experience in Whitehead: another response to Levi Bryant
Levi Bryant has problematized my attempt to clarify Whitehead’s position on the function of divinity in the universe. He writes: “You make the claim that without God there would be…
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Causality in Whitehead’s Panentheism
Plasticbodies has posted another volley in the theism-nihilism discussion, this time drawing attention to causality. He asks: What does process theology give us that a (process) naturalism cannot? Or, put…
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Religion and Philosophy: The God Problem
The discussion continues over on Levi Bryant’s blog. Bryant agrees with me that Whitehead’s conception of God does not fall prey to many of the ethical and epistemological criticisms he…
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Ontology and God: a further response to Levi Bryant
I posted the following as a comment to Bryant’s short response. Adam Robbert has a nice comment there, too. There is no necessary relationship between OOO (or ontology generally) and…
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SR/OOO and Nihilism: a response to Harman and Bryant
I’ve already posted a short response to Harman, but I wanted to re-visit the issues explored in that post concerning the difference between Homo Sapiens, as an object among objects,…
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Science, Art, Religion: The Role of Speculative Philosophy in the Adventure of Rationality
I’ve just completed Isabelle Stengers‘ formidable but rewarding text, Thinking With Whitehead: A Free and Wild Creation of Concepts (2011). The final chapters concern the viability of Whitehead’s theology, specifically…
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The Veil of Isis and the Meaning of Withdrawal
“A good maxim,” writes Nietzsche, is too hard for the teeth of time, and all the millennia cannot succeed in consuming it, though it always serves as nourishment…(Human, All Too…
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Factish God(s)
The following is my comment posted in response to a blog by Sam Mickey about the potential of an object-oriented theology. Postsecularity might also be termed “the After Age.” Perhaps…
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…the meaning of disaster…
Some of my thoughts concerning the still unfolding tragedy in Japan… —————– I take up philosophy largely to defend meaning and cosmos from the nihilism and chaos at the root…
