Footnotes2Plato

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

Tag: Naturphilosophie

The Schelling & Hegel Tapes

I’m sharing some clips from a live video conference session a few days ago with students in my online course this semester, “Mind and Nature in German Idealism.”

November 27, 2018
Schelling’s Philosophy of Freedom

The following was originally written in 2012 as a chapter in a short book titled Philosophy in a Time of Emergency. It feels relevant given our current political situation, so I’m sharing it again. The Nature of Human Freedom By Matthew D. Segall The Naturphilosoph comes to understand “Nature as subject.”1 This is not the Kantian…

October 26, 2018
Why German Idealism Matters (The Side View)

My friend and colleague Adam Robbert has just launched The Side View. There is a ton of content on the site already, including articles and podcasts. Listen to Adam’s short description of the site’s aim here. Here’s a link to my contribution, “Why German Idealism Matters,” wherein I briefly lay out the transformative contributions of…

October 4, 2018
Fall 2018 Online Course: “Mind & Nature in German Idealism”

I’ll be offering this course for the second time in Fall 2018 at CIIS.edu (the semester runs from late August through mid-December). Special students and auditors are welcome to enroll! Email me at msegall@ciis.edu for more information about registration.

March 7, 2018
Video of my lecture: an introduction to German Idealism/Romanticism

Below is my lecture on German Idealism and Romanticism given yesterday (Sept. 30) for MA students enrolled in an Introduction to Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness course at CIIS.

October 1, 2014
The Difference Between Kant’s and Schelling’s Philosophies of Nature

A lecture I gave earlier this week in a class at CIIS on Spirit and Nature.

October 11, 2013
Iain Hamilton Grant Interview

Leon Niemoczynski has posted a FANTASTIC interview with Iain Hamilton Grant. A small sample to wet your appetite: As directly as possible, Idealism is that philosophy that affirms the reality of the Idea. The point is not that any account of reality must be from the standpoint of the Idea, of the Ideal, or that the conceptual…

April 10, 2013
[Introduction] The Relevance of Whitehead’s Philosophy of Organism to Contemporary Scientific Cosmology

Introduction: From Physics to Philosophy “…how shallow, puny, and imperfect are efforts to sound the depths in the nature of things. In philosophical discussion, the merest hint of dogmatic certainty as to finality of statement is an exhibition of folly.” -Whitehead1 “Philosophy begins in wonder. And, at the end, when philosophic thought has done its…

December 10, 2012
[Rough Draft] “The Re-Emergence of Schelling” – Metaphysically (un)grounding the natural sciences

For a PDF of the entire essay, click The Re-Emergence of Schelling: Philosophy in a Time of Emergency. Metaphysically (un)grounding the natural sciences Schelling’s almost complete absence in Anglophone natural philosophy for more than 150 years (aside from his powerful effects on Coleridge,168 Peirce,169 and Emerson,170 and through the intermediary of Naturphilosoph Alexander von Humboldt, his…

August 7, 2012
[Rough Draft] “The Re-Emergence of Schelling” – The difference between Hegel’s and Schelling’s system of philosophy

For a PDF of the entire essay, click The Re-Emergence of Schelling: Philosophy in a Time of Emergency. The difference between Hegel’s and Schelling’s system of philosophy Early in his philosophical career while still a high school teacher in Nuremberg,116 Hegel suggested that, as a schoolmaster of philosophy, he is committed to the belief that philosophy…

August 7, 2012
[Rough Draft] “The Re-Emergence of Schelling” – Literature review

Again, sorry for the lack of italics. I don’t know how to paste from Pages while keeping the formatting. For a PDF of the document (with italics in tact!), click: The Re-Emergence of Schelling: Philosophy in a Time of Emergency. Literature review This section assesses the reasons for the contemporary resurgence of scholarly interest in Schelling.…

August 7, 2012
[Rough Draft] “The Re-Emergence of Schelling: Philosophy in a Time of Emergency” – Preface and Philosophical Biography

Below are the first two sections of the essay. I’ll be posting other sections in the next few days. For a PDF of the whole document, click: The Re-Emegence Schelling: Philosophy in a Time of Emergency. Unfortunately, the italicization of words and titles has been lost, and I don’t feel like going through to add it…

August 6, 2012
Rough draft of research paper on Schelling’s Contemporary Re-Emergence

I’ve just finished the rough draft of a comprehensive exam on the context of Schelling’s thought and the reasons for his contemporary resurgence (a list of recent scholarship). The most difficult section to write was definitely the one on the difference between he and Hegel’s approaches. I didn’t want to caricature Hegel, but nor did…

August 5, 2012
Schelling’s Pantheogenic Naturphilosophie

In his bok The Origin and Goal of History, Karl Jaspers’ claims that Schelling “clung with complete conviction to the theory that the creation of the world took place six thousand years ago, whereas today no one doubts the bone finds which prove man’s life on earth to have gone on far more than a hundred…

June 27, 2012
Reading “Incomplete Nature” by Terrence Deacon

Jason/Immanent Transcendence has written the first response for our summer reading group. Chapter 0 of Terrence Deacon‘s new book Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter introduces what he calls the “absential” features of the universe. According to Deacon, the defining property of every living or psychic system is that its causes are conspicuously absent from the…

May 23, 2012