Part Two of my book Shadowing the Anthropocene (open access to all) outlines a system of “bodymindfulness” practice rooted in the mindfulness meditation system of Shinzen Young, but extended triadically to account for the active nature of living. Here are a couple of comments on and tweaks to that system, which I’ll refer to as […]
Search Results for 'process-relational'
Comments on process-relational meditation
Posted in Process-relational thought, Spirit matter, tagged Buddhism, experience, meditation, mindfulness, pre-G, Shadowing the Anthropocene, Shinzen Young, spiritual practice on April 17, 2020 | 4 Comments »
Process-relational readings
Posted in Philosophy, Process-relational thought, tagged new materialism, Ontology, epistemology, organization studies, process research, process-relational thought, relational theories, relationalism, speculative realism, sustainability science, sustainability studies, Whitehead on March 21, 2020 | 1 Comment »
A very helpful analytical review of the “relational paradigm in sustainability research, practice, and education” has just been published online by Ambio. While it’s limited to a certain selection of key publications, the article, by European sustainabililty researchers Zack Walsh, Jessica Bohme, and Christine Wamsler, covers the terrain of “relational approaches” to ontology, epistemology, and […]
Updated process-relational theory primer
Posted in Philosophy, Process-relational thought, tagged C. S. Peirce, process philosophy, process-relational thought, Whitehead on June 2, 2019 | Leave a Comment »
I originally presented a “primer” to process-relational philosophy on this blog back in 2010. A substantially updated version of it is part of my book, Shadowing the Anthropocene. Here it is as a stand-alone, 10-page PDF file.
Peirce-Whitehead-Hartshorne & process-relational ontology
Posted in Philosophy, Process-relational thought, tagged Deleuze, Hartshorne, Peirce, Whitehead on June 9, 2010 | 6 Comments »
The following are some working notes following up on my previous post on the relationship between Charles Sanders Peirce and Alfred North Whitehead, specifically on Peirce’s logical/relational/phenomenological categories (firstness, secondness, thirdness) and Whitehead’s notion of prehension and the “actual occasion.” It’s become clear to me since writing that post that any rapprochement between the two requires going through Charles Hartshorne (which is something I had been resisting due to the theological cast of many of Hartshorne’s writings, but I’ve come to see that it’s unavoidable). [. . .]
This asymmetry is what gives process-relational ontology, at least the kind exemplified by these three thinkers, its evolutionary character and forward momentum. It is also what makes it different from relational philosophies for which all things are symmetrically related to all other things, resulting in the kind of formless, changeless “ontological stew” that Graham Harman (and sometimes Levi Bryant) has critiqued (to which I’ve responded in posts like these).
The death trip and science’s experiential “blind spot”
Posted in Science & society, Spirit matter, tagged Adam Frank, dual-aspect monism, Evan Thompson, experientialism, Marcelo Gleiser, mind-body, mind-body dualism, near-death experience, Niagaras of beauty, nondualism, panpsychism, parapsychology, phenomenology, physicalism, process-relational ontology, Terence McKenna on April 5, 2024 | 1 Comment »
The study of so-called “near-death experiences” is fascinating, as it is one of those areas that remain most mysterious to science, yet which empirical evidence suggests is very consequential to those who undergo it. By now we’ve all likely heard of the countless reports of people journeying through tunnels toward sources of light, being greeted […]
Musical process and reality
Posted in Music & soundscape, Process-relational thought, tagged Alfred North Whitehead, composition, Heliocentric Worlds, improvisatio, improvisation, jazz, music, process philosophy, Sun Ra, Whitehead on March 19, 2024 | 2 Comments »
A lot has been written about music and the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze: for instance, on Deleuze and music theory, on music after Deleuze, and on Deleuze’s “Thought-Music,” and there’ve been some valiant efforts to put Deleuze to music, like this one, this one, and this one, and several related to Deleuze and Guattari’s Thousand […]
Race-shifting, gender transitioning, & other identity moves
Posted in Cultural politics, tagged cultural identity, gender politics, gender transitioning, identity, identity politics, indigenous, Indigenous sovereignty, Kim Tallbear, late capitalism, pretendianism, race-shifting, self-indigenization, transgender, Vermont on May 5, 2023 | Leave a Comment »
These thoughts, written in the aftermath of a half-day conference on race-shifting (first part viewable here) and influenced by Kim TallBear’s critique of identity, have me going out on a limb, for reasons that are likely pretty obvious. But I will persevere with them, and ask that you read them through to the end before reacting to isolated parts of the […]
R.i.p. Tom Verlaine (relationalism & earth jazz redux)
Posted in Music & soundscape, tagged Grateful Dead, improvisation, Marquee Moon, Miles Davis, musicology, object-oriented ontology, relationalism, television, Tom Verlaine on January 29, 2023 | Leave a Comment »
Television guitarist and songwriter Tom Verlaine has passed away. In his honor, I’m reposting something I wrote back in 2010, a version of which made it into Shadowing the Anthropocene. Much of it deals with the objects-versus-relations debate that was occupying the then very active “speculative realist” (“new materialist”) blogosphere. The first video captures Verlaine […]
Žižek’s belated reply
Posted in Spirit matter, tagged Buddhism, Lacan, Slavoj Žižek, Žižek on January 6, 2023 | 3 Comments »
Slavoj Žižek has “belatedly” replied, in The Philosophical Salon, to some things I wrote in 2009 about his Lacanianism and his understanding (some would say misunderstanding) of Buddhism, and to other critiques of the latter. In his reply, he later mistakes another author — of the blog And Now For Something Completely Different — for […]