Footnotes2Plato (@footnotes2plato.substack.com) Bsky

My Responses at Mind-at-Large Project’s “A New Dawn” Panel: Personhood, Participation, Imagination, and Mystical Theism A recap of my remarks on Day 2’s Mind-at-Large Conference Plenary Panel (also featuring Ed Kelly and Iain McGilchrist, moderated by Curt Jaimungal). I repeat the questions when relevant so you will know what Curt asked. 1. Well, I am tempted to take this in a direction that might sound a little idealistic, but when you ask what is real, I want to begin with human personhood as the most basic reality, at least the one most relevant to beings like us who would ask such a question.

My Responses at Mind-at-Large Project’s “A New Dawn” Panel: Personhood, Participation, Imagination, and Mystical Theism

A recap of my remarks on Day 2’s Mind-at-Large Conference Plenary Panel (also featuring Ed Kelly and Iain McGilchrist, moderated by Curt Jaimungal). I repeat the questions when…

3 days ago 1 0 1 0

Pealing Back the Veils LLM transcript of my chat with Seekers Mindtalks. Chapter 1: Exploring Reality and Consciousness Raj: What if the way you experience reality isn't reality itself? What if this constant feeling of disconnect, the low-level anxiety, the sense that something's missing isn't modern life, but just a misunderstanding of who you are? In this episode of Seekers Mind Talks, I sit down with Matt Segall, a visionary philosopher known for his work on consciousness and process philosophy, to explore why, despite more knowledge than ever, we feel more disconnected than ever.

Pealing Back the Veils

LLM transcript of my chat with Seekers Mindtalks. Chapter 1: Exploring Reality and Consciousness Raj: What if the way you experience reality isn't reality itself? What if this constant feeling of disconnect, the low-level anxiety, the sense that something's missing isn't…

2 weeks ago 1 0 0 0

Meet two of our "Frontiers of Knowledge" symposium speakers, Bruce Damer, PhD and Matthew Segall, PhD #consciousness #aspen #ciis

10 months ago 2 1 0 0

Poster image of blue water and "Save the Date" with an ocean and tail of a whale, promoting the 2026 event, "Frontiers of Knowledge"

Save the date! Frontiers of Knowledge returns to Aspen to explore "Consciousness in the Living World" on Sunday, August 23 for a full-day symposium at the Wheeler Opera House!

1 month ago 4 2 1 0

In Defense of Eternal Objects and God: On What Abides in Whitehead’s Process Philosophy Was there ever a time before metaphysics? Will there be a time after it? Pre and post, a priori and a posteriori, the here and now and the infinite Beyond: always and everywhere the opposites are meeting and making one another! We can strive to grow out of puerile metaphysics, but the claim to have transcended metaphysics entirely is not a sign of philosophical maturity.

In Defense of Eternal Objects and God: On What Abides in Whitehead’s Process Philosophy

Was there ever a time before metaphysics? Will there be a time after it? Pre and post, a priori and a posteriori, the here and now and the infinite Beyond: always and everywhere the opposites are meeting and…

1 month ago 3 1 0 0

Transcending the Culture War by Recovering Participatory Theism (Dialogue with Nathan Hawkins) Nathan Hawkins and I just finished a podcast recording (above) that I hope will contribute to amplifying the deeper notes that are still just barely audible beneath the surface noise of the culture war. We both agree that dialogue must replace partisan shouting, and that philosophy has an important public role to play in helping to bring such a shift about.

Transcending the Culture War by Recovering Participatory Theism (Dialogue with Nathan Hawkins)

Nathan Hawkins and I just finished a podcast recording (above) that I hope will contribute to amplifying the deeper notes that are still just barely audible beneath the surface noise of the culture war.…

1 month ago 3 0 0 0

How does it feel to be on your own?: Society and the Modern World A Whiteheadian Reading of Hartmut Rosa and Charles Taylor

open.substack.com/pub/footnote...

1 month ago 3 0 1 0

How does it feel to be on your own?: Society and the Modern World – A Whiteheadian Reading of Hartmut Rosa and Charles Taylor We finished our Hartmut Rosa reading group this morning (recordings are available here). I am grateful for Tripp Fuller’s invitation to study this text. It was my first time reading Rosa, and I found his sociological intervention convergent with many of my own ways of thinking. As I’ll relate below, Tripp and I had no trouble finding connections to Whitehead’s cosmology.

How does it feel to be on your own?: Society and the Modern World – A Whiteheadian Reading of Hartmut Rosa and Charles Taylor

We finished our Hartmut Rosa reading group this morning (recordings are available here). I am grateful for Tripp Fuller’s invitation to study this text. It was my first…

1 month ago 4 1 0 0

Sacred Swimmer I came to this cityat the edge of the continentas so many dreamers before mefollowing the westward winds of timelike the gold-glinting eyesof greedy men who mistook the ocean’s endless horizonfor a promise made only to them.I was destined by a different orenot yet hardened but still molten to the core,

Sacred Swimmer

I came to this cityat the edge of the continentas so many dreamers before mefollowing the westward winds of timelike the gold-glinting eyesof greedy men who mistook the ocean’s endless horizonfor a promise made only to them.I was destined by a different orenot yet hardened but still…

1 month ago 1 0 0 0

#surrealism

“Sky Fishing 2” - Catrin Welz-Stein, c. 2018

1 month ago 6 6 0 0

On God, Absolute Freedom, & the Post-Metaphysical Turn Revisiting My Dialogue with Matt Segall On Michael Brooks & CIIS

Here is my latest post following @footnotes2plato.substack.com dialogue with Graham Harman & my past podcast conversation with him on Michael brooks, CIIS, & the Left. Might be of interest to @nieaufgehenderrest.bsky.social & @mattpolprof.bsky.social followers.
www.erikhaines.org/p/on-god-abs...

1 month ago 2 1 0 0

Whitehead on the Aim of Philosophy YouTube video by Rahul Sam

Graham Harman and @footnotes2plato.substack.com discuss why philosophy is more than pure logical analysis. youtu.be/YPgiLm6nVso?...

2 months ago 5 1 0 2

The Logical Animal – Earth to Humanity: Put Down Your Maps The frogs are croaking on my left down in the Eel River, and on my right is the low roar of semis on the 101. This is nearly my last night in Humboldt County. I came out to the hot tub one last time to take in the night sky. It happened to be clear tonight, for a moment. The fog has already rolled in, but I was able to sneak a few prayers through to our astral ancestors before they vanished.

The Logical Animal – Earth to Humanity: Put Down Your Maps

The frogs are croaking on my left down in the Eel River, and on my right is the low roar of semis on the 101. This is nearly my last night in Humboldt County. I came out to the hot tub one last time to take in the night sky. It happened to…

1 month ago 0 0 0 0

Thinking Things with Graham Harman: Whitehead’s Way Beyond Philosophies of Human Access Rahul Samaranayake has had me on his podcast a few times over the years, including an especially generative conversation with Peter Rollins last year. This time he invited me and Graham Harman into dialogue. Below is the transcript. Whitehead popping Kant's phenomenal bubble. RAHULIt’s funny. I was reading some of your articles, Graham. You mention Whitehead quite a lot.

Thinking Things with Graham Harman: Whitehead’s Way Beyond Philosophies of Human Access

Rahul Samaranayake has had me on his podcast a few times over the years, including an especially generative conversation with Peter Rollins last year. This time he invited me and Graham Harman into dialogue.…

2 months ago 3 1 0 0

Thinking with rocks. These rocks, stacked by human hands along a canyon creek near Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, are not simply aggregates or piles. Neither are they simply the freely created artwork of humans. The left-hand stack of eleven rocks (if you count earth) towers toward the sky, together with its local and cosmic ecologies achieving the status of a self-organizing, living being.

Thinking with rocks.

These rocks, stacked by human hands along a canyon creek near Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, are not simply aggregates or piles. Neither are they simply the freely created artwork of humans. The left-hand stack of eleven rocks (if you count earth) towers toward the…

2 months ago 1 0 0 0

Poetics of Life and Death: Dialoguing with Andreas Weber Matt: Hi, Andreas. Good morning. Andreas: Good morning. Sorry to keep you waiting. Matt: That’s quite all right. Andreas: I was late anyway, and then Zoom decided it needed to do a new install, like in the old Windows times. Matt: Of course. Always another update. Andreas: Exactly. It’s not the first time it’s happened, but it always seems to happen when you’re already late and trying to get into a call, and you have no choice.

Poetics of Life and Death: Dialoguing with Andreas Weber

Matt: Hi, Andreas. Good morning. Andreas: Good morning. Sorry to keep you waiting. Matt: That’s quite all right. Andreas: I was late anyway, and then Zoom decided it needed to do a new install, like in the old Windows times. Matt: Of course.…

2 months ago 0 0 0 0

Ontologizing Enactivism: Worldmaking with Ezequiel Di Paolo (dialogue with Tim Jackson) Timothy Jackson and I were back in the saddle, this time to discuss Ezequiel Di Paolo’s article seeking an enactive ontology: Di Paolo, E. A. (2023). F/acts: Ways of enactive worldmaking. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 30 (11–12): 159-89. doi: 10.53765/20512201.30.11.159. Ezequiel will be joining us to present in the biophilosophy track at this summer’s International Whitehead Conference in China…

Ontologizing Enactivism: Worldmaking with Ezequiel Di Paolo (dialogue with Tim Jackson)

Timothy Jackson and I were back in the saddle, this time to discuss Ezequiel Di Paolo’s article seeking an enactive ontology: Di Paolo, E. A. (2023). F/acts: Ways of enactive worldmaking. Journal of…

2 months ago 4 2 2 0

A Hegelian Tour of Philosophy from Parmenides to the French Revolution A slightly revised transcript of my introductory lecture from a course on Hegel's Absolute Idealism. I just want to begin by noting that Hegel’s time was a time of revolution in Europe. The French Revolution, in many ways, shaped the political categories that all the modern liberal democracies have been assuming for the last couple of centuries. And here we are studying Hegel in a time when we are once again, I would say, on the verge of some kind of revolution—when perhaps those categories that have held sway for a few centuries are being dialectically overcome to bring forth something new that we’re struggling to see.

A Hegelian Tour of Philosophy from Parmenides to the French Revolution

A slightly revised transcript of my introductory lecture from a course on Hegel's Absolute Idealism. I just want to begin by noting that Hegel’s time was a time of revolution in Europe. The French Revolution, in many ways,…

2 months ago 1 0 0 0

Truth in the Making: On the Possibility of Metaphysics in a World-in-Process “…‘becoming’ is the transformation of incoherence into coherence.” -Whitehead (PR 25) “There is not one completed set of things which are actual occasions. For the fundamental inescapable fact is the creativity in virtue of which there can be no ‘many things’ which are not subordinated in a concrete unity. Thus a set of all actual occasions is by the nature of things a standpoint for another concrescence which elicits a concrete unity from those many actual occasions.

Truth in the Making: On the Possibility of Metaphysics in a World-in-Process

“…‘becoming’ is the transformation of incoherence into coherence.” -Whitehead (PR 25) “There is not one completed set of things which are actual occasions. For the fundamental inescapable fact is the creativity in virtue…

2 months ago 2 0 0 0

“Time and World” By Hartmut Rosa: Reading Group Invitation I want to invite you to join a new online reading group I’m co-hosting with my friend Tripp Fuller. We’re going to be working through Hartmut Rosa’s Time and World. The group will happen over Zoom in a seminar style with plenty of time for dialogue. If you’re a paid subscriber to either my Substack or Tripp’s, you’ll have access to…

“Time and World” By Hartmut Rosa: Reading Group Invitation

I want to invite you to join a new online reading group I’m co-hosting with my friend Tripp Fuller. We’re going to be working through Hartmut Rosa’s Time and World. The group will happen over Zoom in a seminar style with plenty of time for…

2 months ago 1 0 0 0

Thinking With David Krakauer Listening to David Krakauer on Jim Rutt’s “Worldview” podcast while making dinner made a few things snap into place for me. You can listen to it here: I appreciate how rigorously he avoids collapsing the epistemic into the ontological. Krakauer is very lucid about wanting to prevent effective theories from hardening into a metaphysics. His “Ouroboros” claim that you can start from physics, or from language, or from biology, and then close a circular explanatory chain is anti-foundationalist at the level of our…

Thinking With David Krakauer

Listening to David Krakauer on Jim Rutt’s “Worldview” podcast while making dinner made a few things snap into place for me. You can listen to it here: I appreciate how rigorously he avoids collapsing the epistemic into the ontological. Krakauer is very lucid about…

3 months ago 3 0 0 0

Philosophies of Ontogenesis: Evolution by Artistic Selection First, have a listen to Timothy Jackson’s recent Lepht Hand podcast about the ontogenetic stance: Then have a read of his essay on Darwin, Simondon, and Battaile and the importance of a “variation first” approach that replaces classical effective theory ontology with an account of ontogenesis. One consequence of such an approach is that we can only ever talk about ontolo…

Philosophies of Ontogenesis: Evolution by Artistic Selection

First, have a listen to Timothy Jackson’s recent Lepht Hand podcast about the ontogenetic stance: Then have a read of his essay on Darwin, Simondon, and Battaile and the importance of a “variation first” approach that replaces classical…

3 months ago 1 0 0 0

There’s no scientific evidence that consciousness exists. Evidence, in a scientific age, is usually thought of in a very specific way. We tend to assume evidence means empirical measurement: can I record this on a camera, or on some kind of detector? Can I transform what I observe—signals, data—from something tangible in the world into a mathematical model? Can I make predictions, and then go see whether those predictions are confirmed by the next observation?

There’s no scientific evidence that consciousness exists.

Evidence, in a scientific age, is usually thought of in a very specific way. We tend to assume evidence means empirical measurement: can I record this on a camera, or on some kind of detector? Can I transform what I observe—signals,…

3 months ago 4 0 1 1

Christ and Ceasar: Christian Nationalism in the News I wish I didn’t care that Nick Fuentes’ star continues to rise. I wish it didn’t matter. But I fear Christian nationalist Joel Webbon may be right when he says (in the first of a series of new inte…

Excellent reflection on the hideous distortion of the person and message of Christ by so-called 'Christian Nationalists'

Matthew David Segall (@footnotes2plato.substack.com) - Christ and Ceasar: Christian Nationalism in the News

footnotes2plato.com/2026/01/07/c...

3 months ago 10 4 1 0

Islam and the West: Dialoging with Jared Morningstar In my recent conversation with Jacob Kishere as part of his “Christianity beyond itself” series, we attempted to navigate the ways the “Christ impulse” can so easily get hijacked by culture-war crusader energy. Spiritual renewal thereby risks being conflated with civilizational chauvinism. Midway through our dialogue, Islam came up. I felt how ill-equipped I am for that encounter, and how quickly a conversation that should be healing can instead further inflame civilizational divisions that have been raging for a millennium, more recently under the shadow of weapons of mass destruction.

Islam and the West: Dialoging with Jared Morningstar

In my recent conversation with Jacob Kishere as part of his “Christianity beyond itself” series, we attempted to navigate the ways the “Christ impulse” can so easily get hijacked by culture-war crusader energy. Spiritual renewal thereby risks…

3 months ago 0 0 0 0

Flights and Perchings: A 2025 retrospective and a look ahead as I turn 40 As the new year begins, I decided to take a look back at my speaking engagements in 2025. I turn 40 later this month, so this has been an occasion not only to recollect the recent course of my intellectual development, but to imagine how to shape what I hope will be at least another 40 years of life loving wisdom here on planet earth.

Flights and Perchings: A 2025 retrospective and a look ahead as I turn 40

As the new year begins, I decided to take a look back at my speaking engagements in 2025. I turn 40 later this month, so this has been an occasion not only to recollect the recent course of my intellectual development, but…

3 months ago 0 0 0 0

Christ and Ceasar: Christian Nationalism in the News I wish I didn’t care that Nick Fuentes’ star continues to rise. I wish it didn’t matter. But I fear Christian nationalist Joel Webbon may be right when he says (in the first of a series of new interviews) that Fuentes is “not merely the most controversial man in America” but for men under 45 “the most significant.” …

Christ and Ceasar: Christian Nationalism in the News

I wish I didn’t care that Nick Fuentes’ star continues to rise. I wish it didn’t matter. But I fear Christian nationalist Joel Webbon may be right when he says (in the first of a series of new interviews) that Fuentes is “not merely the most…

3 months ago 3 0 1 0

Simone Weil and the Sacred Heart of Humanity (dialogue with Pedro Brea and Karsten Jensen) We discussed Simone Weil's "Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation." You can read it here: Transcript: Matt Segall: Well, I really enjoyed our last conversation, and I haven’t read much Simone Weil, so this was a real treat—to hear her perspective on our obligations, human obligations, and her framing of what we usually call human rights. And the way she grounds that in the sacredness of the human heart and our connection to the good, I found quite moving, and I believe correct.

Simone Weil and the Sacred Heart of Humanity (dialogue with Pedro Brea and Karsten Jensen)

We discussed Simone Weil's "Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation." You can read it here: Transcript: Matt Segall: Well, I really enjoyed our last conversation, and I haven’t read much Simone Weil, so…

3 months ago 1 0 0 0

Anthroposophy and Critical Race Theory: Rudolf Steiner at Harvard Divinity School A few days ago, I shared a conference retrospective about Harvard Divinity School’s Rudolf Steiner centennial: I’ve since had a chance to listen carefully to another talk on the subject of racism in Steiner’s work by Gopi Vijaya. You can listen to it below: I appreciate the methodological clarity that Gopi brought to this topic, which helpfully clears the ground for a renewed spiritual scientific inquiry that invites us to “jump in and swim” alongside Steiner.

Anthroposophy and Critical Race Theory: Rudolf Steiner at Harvard Divinity School

A few days ago, I shared a conference retrospective about Harvard Divinity School’s Rudolf Steiner centennial: I’ve since had a chance to listen carefully to another talk on the subject of racism in Steiner’s work by…

3 months ago 0 0 0 0

Romantic Imagination and the Recovery of Nature’s Intrinsic Value: Whitehead, Barfield, and Our Crisis of Perception (transcript) Over on Substack, I shared an essay based on the transcript of my remarks at a presentation earlier today for the Center for Process Studies. You can read that essay here. Below is the exact transcript of my remarks: I am going to be discussing some ideas from one of Owen Barfield’s essays, “Where Is Fancy Bred?,” about the nature of imagination, and linking them to Whitehead’s protest against the bifurcation of nature and his sense that imagination is of profound philosophical significance as a way of knowing—as a means of contacting a deeper layer of reality than our physical senses might otherwise allow.

Romantic Imagination and the Recovery of Nature’s Intrinsic Value: Whitehead, Barfield, and Our Crisis of Perception (transcript)

Over on Substack, I shared an essay based on the transcript of my remarks at a presentation earlier today for the Center for Process Studies. You can read that essay…

4 months ago 0 0 0 0

Posts by Footnotes2Plato