"The safest general characterization of the philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato." —Alfred North Whitehead
[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 …
Continuing a dialogue in the comments of my last post, particularly the question of whether rocks have agency... An organic realism would suggest that some processes within rocks do have varying degrees of agency. Crystallization is telic. Atoms are self-organizing ecopoietic agents. The periodic table of elements is a taxonomic hierarchy that sorts different species …
Thanks to Adrian Nelson for hosting this conversation on his YouTube channel Waking Cosmos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-AhdpnlasM
Section III: Alienation from Nature, How it Arose Track 3: Late Modernity and Its Re-Imagining (Lebus Hall, 201) Friday, June 5 2:00 PM – 2:45 PM Track Session #1a – Tam Hunt “Absent-minded science and the ‘deep science’ antidote” 2:45 PM – 3:30 PM Track Session #1b – Christian de Quincey “A Radical Science of …
Bernardo Kastrup, a computer engineer who has written a few books on metaphysics, recently posted a short essay called "The Threat of Panpsychism: A Warning." I found the essay somewhat encouraging if only because it is another signal that contemporary philosophy (both within and outside academia) is moving beyond the tired "materialism v. anything else" debate and toward more interesting …
Continue reading "The Threat of Panpsychism?: A response to Bernardo Kastrup"
Levi Bryant offered some ideas about materialism earlier this week over at Larval Subjects. I read and commented on his post while screeching through the BART transbay tube on my commute home from work. My comment, asking about "ontological constructivism," was rushed and ill formed. Now that I'm moving more slowly, and have a keyboard large enough for all ten of …
Continue reading "Beyond Materialism and Idealism, a Philosophy of Organism?"
