Context The following reflections grow out of my live dialogue with Bonnitta Roy about the metaphysics of value. She’ll be sharing the discussion in her pop-up school for those who subscribe. Here I wanted to offer some further reflections on what was stirred up in me. A few orienting points: First, we wanted our philosophical conversation to […]| Footnotes2Plato
A conversation with Pedro Brea and Karsten Jensen. LLM generated transcript below. Matt Segall: Hey, Karsten. Pedro Brea: Hey! Karsten Jensen: Hi, Matt! Hi, Pedro! I’m so happy you both agreed to have this conversation with me, and I really look forward to it. Matt Segall: Likewise. My exposure to Martinus was through you, Karsten, and I really appreciated […]| Footnotes2Plato
One of the philosopher Slavoj Zizek’s best-known jokes is set in Poland in 1981, shortly after martial law was declared. After the 10PM curfew, military patrols could shoot on sight anyone who was still in the streets. At ten of ten, two soldiers saw a man walk hurriedly by. One soldier promptly shot him. Alarmed,... Source| H-Diplo|RJISSF
[D’Ernst Cassirer, (Breslau, 1874 – New York, 1945) nous avions mis en ligne « La technique des mythes politiques modernes« , dernier chapitre de son ouvrage Le Mythe de l’Etat, où le philosophe juif allemand en exil depuis 1933 analyse, juste avant sa mort, l’origine, la structure et la technique des mythes politiques et les conditions d’apparition […]| Les Amis de Bartleby
A transcript of my talk at the Cognizing Life conference in Tübingen, Germany July 18, 2025. Other contributors at the Cognizing Life conference include: Benjamin Bembé (Witten), Bohang Chen (Zhejiang), Luke Fischer (Sydney), Andrea Gambarotto (Wien), Levi Haeck(Ghent), Craig Holdrege (Ghent, NY), Christoph Hueck (Tübingen), Philippe Huneman(Paris), Jan Kerkmann (Freiburg), Dalia Nassar (Sydney), Daniel Nicholson (Fairfax), Gregory Rupik (Toronto), Ulrich Schlösse...| Footnotes2Plato
I recently published an article in the WSJ (see here) titled, ‘AI Doesn’t Care if You’re Polite to It. You Should Be Anyway.’ That article was based on a longer, more fleshed out articl…| ThinkJudaism
Introduction One of the most interesting, but also obscure and difficult parts of Kant's critique is schematism. Every time I reflect on generalisation in Machine Learning and how concepts should be grounded, it always leads to the same central problem of schematism. Friedrich H. Jacobi said that schematism was "the most wonderful and most mysterious| Terra Incognita
Tevin Naidu recently hosted me on his Mind-Body Solutions podcast. Above is the video and below is an edited and somewhat condensed transcript. Tevin: I have shaped today’s episode around your pape…| Footnotes2Plato
In this conversation, Mahon McCann invited me to reflect on what he referred to as a metaphysical revolution in natural science—gesturing toward the shift I and others have been tracking across dis…| Footnotes2Plato
Virtual Summer School: Feminist Critiques of Kant’s Views on Women & Human Progress Organized by Olga Lenczewska, co-taught by Helga Varden and Holly Wilson Session 1: June…| BIOPOLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
Ruth Kastner and I first met several years ago in the context of a seminar series focused on plasma physicist and philosopher Timothy Eastman’s work. Ruth also participated in the “Metaph…| Footnotes2Plato
Below is a draft of my review of: BRIAN G. HENNING, JOSEPH PETEK, and GEORGE LUCAS, eds. The Harvard Lectures of Alfred North Whitehead (1925-1927): General Metaphysical Problems of Science.&n…| Footnotes2Plato
A near verbatim transcript: Matt Segall: Hey, Tim. Timothy Jackson: Hey, Matt. How are you? Matt Segall: Hanging in there, doing all right. Yeah. Matt Segall: Nice shirt. Timoth…| Footnotes2Plato
I just finished listening (at x2 speed!) to Tyler Goldstein’s very long but also very insightful YouTube commentary (see above) responding to my recent dialogue with Curt Jaimungal (“What is …| Footnotes2Plato
Below is a rough transcript of my dialogue with Sam. Sam: Do you mind just giving a definition? What is mechanistic materialism? Matt: Mechanistic philosophy emerges in the 16th and 17t…| Footnotes2Plato
Below are some excerpts and more or less stream of consciousness reflections upon reading the student notes from Rudolf Steiner’s so-called “Light Course” (GA 320; Dec 1919-Jan 1920). The number he…| Footnotes2Plato
Coercion is both presumptively wrong and undermines the responsibility of the person coerced. How do these two features of coercion hang together, and what explains why? In this paper, Japa Pallikkathayil offers a rich and original account. She focuses on cases of “volitional” coercion (hereafter, simply coercion)—where one agent tries to alter another person’s choice—rather … Continue reading Japa Pallikkathayil, “The Possibility of Choice: Three Accounts of the Problem with C...| Political Not Metaphysical