Is a fire truck really a fire truck? Is a truck really a truck? Is anything really what it is? We assume that things really are what they appear to us to be. This assumption …
“To Thing”: A New Verb
Thing (v). to thing, thinging. 1. To create an object by defining a boundary around some portion of reality separating it from everything else and then labeling that portion of reality with a name. One …
The Reality of the Immediately Present – William James and Rudolf Steiner
Some things in reality force themselves upon us immediately. They appear spontaneously without provocation and they impress themselves upon our senses in ways that we cannot withstand. These things surely must be real. Direct sense …
Do we ever Know Anything for Sure? – The Fallibalism of Charles Sanders Peirce
When we say something is true, what we usually mean is that the words that we are using or the idea that we are holding in our head corresponds to some actual event or thing …
The Evolving Truth of Pragmatism
In response to my last two posts a number of good points have been raised that I would like to start to address. Catherine has championed the idealism of Plato and Steiner against the Pragmatic …
Integral Emergence vs. Co-evolution
Integral Emergence is a term you might hear used to describe how multiple aspects of reality arise simultaneously. This idea is important to any understanding of Pragmatism; and it is also central to Ken …
Nothing Exists Independently
One of the foundational insights of Pragmatism is that reality only exists in relationship. Nothing that is absolutely independent is real. Absolute Oneness is identical with absolute nothingness. Any concept of oneness that exists can …
Charles Sanders Peirce’s Nonduality
Here are some final thougts about my topic for the science and nonduality conference next week. If anyone who reads this blog happens to come to that event please introduce yourself to me. Peirce’s inquiry …
The Evolutionary Design of Charles Sanders Peirce
On January 17, 1884 Charles Sanders Peirce presented a paper called “Design and Chance,” to the members of the Metaphysical Club, an organization that he had founded during the brief time that he taught at …
The Inquiring Mind of Charles Sanders Peirce
At the science and nonduality conference I intend to make the subject of evolutionary ways of thinking part of what I present. I believe that the American Pragmatists were practicing an evolutionary form of thinking …
Emerson’s Process Philosophy
The American Pragmatists outlined in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries a profound evolutionary process philosophy. The view of reality they explored was one in which all of reality was seen as an unending …
Spiritual Realism and Process Philosophy
As I have read through Emerson’s writing I see two aspects to his metaphysics. On the one hand he describes a spiritual Realism in which the collective human soul of humanity exists in a transcendent …
The Holistic Vision of Ralph Waldo Emerson
I am sorry that I missed a post this week due to travel, but I am excited to share more from Ralph Waldo Emerson. As we understand more how Emerson’s thought developed we see the …
The Conscious Evolution of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Part 1
The influence of Ralph Waldo Emerson on the future trajectory of American philosophy probably cannot be over-estimated. He held a metaphysical vision of an evolving universe. His idealism with its dualistic character would be largely …
My Initial Encounter with the Radical Inquiry of Charles Sanders Peirce (Part II)
What I was confronted with in myfirst encounter with Peirce was not the skepticism of Descartes that assumes everything is untrue and then builds from there. It was a more evolutionary skepticism that assumes that …
The Radical Inquiry of Charles Sanders Peirce
I first encountered the radical inquiry of Charles Sanders Peirce while reading his essay entitled, “Design and Chance,” a paper Peirce used as the basis for a lecture he gave on January 17, 1884 to …
Cosmos, Consciousness and Culture
It was almost exactly one year ago today that I started this blog so I guess this is my first anniversary post. I started the blog because I wanted to explore the relationship between classical …
John Dewey and Cultural Evolution
What I see in John Dewey’s Instrumentalism is a compelling theory of how the evolution of culture can be consciously guided. Dewey’s ideas about directing the further development of culture rest squarely on his understanding of objects …
Communication and the Mind
I still have a few more thoughts about John Dewey’s profound book “Experience and Nature” to develop in this post and the next before I get to explain what hit me while I was reading …
Embracing Constant Flux
I am on a roll with John Dewey. I was reading through his book “Experience and Nature” for the second time and something finally clicked and I started to see what he was getting at. …