Living Philosophy

In this Plutopia News Network podcast, Charles Herrman interviews philosopher Randall Auxier about his unconventional academic path, process philosophy, and personalism, exploring how his early struggles with formal instruction led him to self-directed study and original interpretations of thinkers like Peirce, Whitehead, Bergson, Dewey, and Royce. Auxier critiques mainstream academia for discouraging originality and enforcing conformity, argues that philosophy is a way of life rather than a profession, and explains his view of “process personalism,” in which personhood is relational, dynamic, and present throughout reality in varying degrees. He challenges individualism, defends communities as primary moral persons, critiques corporate personhood as sociopathic, and aligns his thought with pragmatism, radical empiricism, and process traditions that emphasize becoming, value, and shared meaning over static doctrines or institutional authority.

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Randall Auxier:

From the very beginning, I had difficulty finding teachers, and so kind of had to teach myself this stuff… and most people regard it as enormously difficult stuff. And so, in a way, it was a challenge to not have a teacher, and in a way, it was a blessing. Because if I had a teacher, I might have fallen into whatever that teacher thought about this material. Because that’s the natural thing to do, is to pay attention to your mentors and the people you respect. As it turned out, since I had no one to teach me this stuff — I mean, my professors were perfectly content for me to study it, but they said, you know, we don’t read this stuff. We don’t know what you’re talking about. And so I ended up having to sort of make it up, in the sense of make up my own interpretations of these people’s very difficult ideas. And that ended up being pretty good, actually, for me, because I don’t think that I would have been satisfied with anyone else’s version of this stuff.

Here I am slowly spining a yarn of Bernard Charbonneau 🧶

#development #revolution #conformism #progress #personalism #State #nationState #anarchism #anarchy #technoCriticism #technique #bureaucracy #technocracy #industry #economy #capitalism #spectacle #property #ecology #ecologists #environmentalism #environmentalists #goodLiving #city #rurality #historyOfIdeas #philosophy #politics #vote #elections #Charbonneau #BernardCharbonneau #longThread #yarn

George Bourne, Presbyterian minster, on slave-holding pastors. Afraid to share the texts; anything said is an edited mockery. They have no pity for the enslaved persons, whom they have sold for a pair of sandals.

There is power in access to original texts.

What aspects of doctrine would slaveholders fear getting into the hands of their slaves? Are you teaching those aspects as well?

#christian #remnantchurch #spreadthegospel #politics #personalism

William Paley, Anglican minister and apologist, talks on locally relevant preaching, based on Jesus having different messages for different people: hypocrisy, resurrection, sectarian hate, “comprehensive benevolence”, Jewish orthodoxy.

How many “preach locally” on all of these? Benevolence up there with resurrection??? Do you remain silent if you have a good ally on one of these but is in left field on your least favorite?

#christian #godislife #personalism #dispensational #communityimpact

This is a really interesting analysis of MLKjr’s theology with an eye to teasing out and establishing its integral connection with personalism (not just the Boston brand, but also elements he picked up at Morehouse and Crozer). My first encounter with Burrow and I’ve learned a lot from him.

#theology #personalism #MLKjr