Damn the Absolute‪!‬ Jeffrey Howard

School boards and state governments have been locked in intense debates over what counts as history and whose history ought to be taught. Many of these wrestles orbit around events and cultural beliefs that the pragmatist philosopher Cornel West might refer to as “catastrophes.”
Some voices are eager to bury, ignore, or sterilize many of the truly horrendous deeds that have happened in the United States. Slavery. Segregation. Jim Crow. Genocide. The exploitation of workers. And the list goes on.
This inability to process the pain, guilt, or shame many of these events provoke in people is, arguably, a major contributing factor to the polarization, dehumanization, and political corrosiveness we encounter in both the national discourse and our local communities. 
Brad Elliott Stone and Jacob Goodson believe the answer can be found in building beloved community.
They draw from the philosophies of Josiah Royce, Martin Luther King Jr, Cornel West, and William James. In their new book, Building Beloved Community in a Wounded World, they argue for ways in which we can heal the wounds inflicted on all of us by racism and economic injustices, both past and present. 
Here are just a few of the questions considered throughout the conversation.
Should building beloved community be focused locally, nationally, or globally? What does it take to effectively respond to the cries of the wounded? And, how can communities better work through the emotional pain of past wrongs?
Brad Elliott Stone is Professor of Philosophy and Associate Dean in the Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California.
Jacob L. Goodson is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas.
Show Notes
Building Beloved Community in a Wounded World by Jacob L. Goodson, Brad Elliott Stone, and Philip Rudolph Kuehnert (2022)
Introducing Prophetic Pragmatism: A Dialogue on Hope, the Philosophy of Race, and the Spiritual Blues by Jacob L. Goodson and Brad Elliott Stone (2019)
Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity by Richard Rorty (1989)
The American Evasion of Philosophy by Cornel West (1989)
“Pragmatism and the Tragic Sense of Life” by Sidney Hook (1960)
The Tragic Sense of Life by Miguel de Unamuno (1954)
Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking by William James (1907)
“Tender-Minded vs. Tough-Minded Thinkers” by Jeffrey Howard (2023)
S2E02 Fear of Breakdown in American Democracy w/ Noëlle McAfee (2022)
“American Democracy and Its Broken Bargaining Tables” by Daniel Layman (2021)
“Rortian Liberalism and the Problem of Truth” by Adrian Rutt (2021)
S1E12 Philosophers Need to Care About the Poor w/ Jacob Goodson (2021)
S1E19 Buddhist Reflections on Race and Liberation w/ Charles Johnson (2021)
S1E01 Richard Rorty and Achieving Our Country w/ Adrian Rutt (2020)
Music Credits
“Happy Americana” by ABCDmusic
“Empty Bottle, Empty Bed” by Mini Vandals
“Thinking Blues” by Bessie Smith
“Nobody’s Dirty Business” by Mississippi John Hurt
“That’s All Right” by Arthur Crudup
“Sissy Man Blues” by Kokomo Arnold


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The German philosopher Hegel gives us a useful tool for understanding the history of ideas: thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.
We can see this clearly in the movement from the Enlightenment to romanticism to modernism and postmodernism—each intellectual movement a reaction to its predecessor, integrating what works from the previous era with new solutions to meet the demands of new problems. 
But, where does that leave us now? What comes next after postmodernism?
Odds are, we’re already in it this new intellectual movement. 
A growing number of people have become worn out with deconstruction and the postmodernist impulse to doubt everything, to dismantle every concept and institution. It’s become apparent this exercise which started out as emancipatory and liberating has congealed into its own set of dogmas and less-than-productive ways of being. 
Eager to revitalize a more constructive mindset and free us from postmodernism’s long shadow, as he calls it, Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm makes a case for what he hopes will come next. He argues this in his recent book Metamodernism: The Future of Theory (2021).
Chair and professor of religion and chair of science and technology studies at Williams College, he aims to take us through postmodernism to metamodernism, to establish a new approach to producing what he calls “humble knowledge.” He’s trying to create a paradigm shift, not just describe what is happening. 
He believes metamodernism is about the future of all disciplines, especially the human sciences. Ultimately, metamodernism is about hope. It’s a vision whose ethical and political goals are rooted in compassion and multispecies flourishing. 
And here are a few things we consider during our conversation:
How does metamodernism utilize skepticism without falling prey to either nihilism or a dogmatic doubting of everything? Why has postmodernism possibly, I say, possibly, reached a dead end? What is the relationship between metamodernism and Pragmatism? And what pressing political or social problems can metamodernism help us solve?
 
Show Notes: The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity and the Birth of the Human Sciences by Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm (2017)
“The Task of the Translator” in Illuminations: Essays and Reflections by Walter Benjamin (1968)
“What Is a ‘Relevant’ Translation?” by Jacques Derrida (2001)
“An Interview with Moyo Okediji on Metamodernism” by Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm (2022)
“Black Skin, White Kins: Metamodern Masks, Multiple Mimesis” in Diaspora and Visual Culture: Representing Africans and Jews by Moyo Okediji (1999)
Metamodernism: The Future of Theory by Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm (2021)
S1E07 Charles Peirce and Inquiry as an Act of Love w/ David O’Hara (2021)
Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature by Richard Rorty (1979)
S2E03 Literature Must Be an Unsettling Force for Democracy w/ Elin Danielsen Huckerby (2022)
“Rortian Liberalism and the Problem of Truth” by Adrian Rutt (2021)
“Truth as Pragmatism’s Only Hope” by Jon Alan Schmidt (2022)
“Why We Won’t Ever Arrive at Truth” by Ian Cran (2022)
“The Power of One Idea” by Jeffrey Howard (2020)
 
Music Credits: “Suspicious” by Nicolas Gasparini licensed under a Creative Commons License
“Happy Americana” by ABCDmusic
“Carmen – Habanera (Piano Version) Georges Bizet” by Nicolas Gasparini licensed under a Creative Commons License
“Old Bossa” by Twin Musicom licensed under a Creative Commons License
“Chill Wave” by Kevin MacLeod licensed under a Creative Commons License
“Bet On It” by Silent Partner licensed under a Creative Commons License


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Whether it's theology, philosophy, politics, or science, it is not uncommon for people to believe their particular worldview has greater authority over others. This authoritarian approach to ideas implies that one person's representation of truth more closely and certainly reflects reality—they have the truth and we must submit to it.
 
Alternatively, pragmatists believe this abstract certitude leads to religious fundamentalism, philosophical dogmatism, political absoluteness, and rigid scientism.
 
For thinkers like the late-twentieth century philosopher Richard Rorty, language is an instrument for coordinating our efforts in addressing concrete issues we face in our lived environments.
 
He doesn't believe theology, politics, philosophy, or even science are about acquiring an accurate representation of reality. In fact, he rejects the notion that the nature of truth is one of language mirroring reality. Instead, he views language as a dynamic tool, not something that reproduces truth.
 
Often credited with rehabilitating pragmatism, Rorty encourages us to abandon these authoritarian approaches for what he calls a literary culture. While he holds that none of these disciplines have an epistemically privileged position from which they can determine which truth claims more closely represent reality, they each still play important roles in society.
 
In other words, each provides us with particular vocabularies with different uses. Their vitality resides in the way they empower us to describe and redescribe experiences in continually novel and fruitful ways.
 
Elin Danielsen Huckerby is a research fellow at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, associated with an EU-funded project on Inclusive Science and European Democracies. She recently graduated with a PhD from the University of Cambridge, where she worked on Rorty’s uses of literature in his philosophical work.
 
She believes Rorty's literary attitude gives us more productive ways to move culture, science, and politics forward.  
 
A few questions to ponder.
 
What is the role of literature in liberal democracies? What is moral progress for Rorty? How can liberal democracies benefit from embracing a more literary rather than scientistic culture? And, how worried should we be about Rorty's rejection of objective truth?  
Show Notes
Richard Rorty 
The Takeover by Literary Culture: Richard Rorty's Philosophy of Literature by Elin Danielsen Huckerby (2021)
"Rortian Liberalism and the Problem of Truth" by Adrian Rutt (2021)
S1E20 Can Pragmatism Help Us Live Well? w/ John Stuhr (2021)
S1E14 A Tool for a Pluralistic World w/ Justin Marshall (2021)
S1E12 Philosophers Need to Care About the Poor w/ Jacob Goodson (2021)
S1E07 Charles Peirce and Inquiry as an Act of Love w/ David O’Hara (2021)
S1E06 Levinas and James: A Pragmatic Phenomenology w/ Megan Craig (2020)
S1E01 Richard Rorty and Achieving Our Country w/ Adrian Rutt (2020)
“The Power of One Idea” by Jeffrey Howard (2020)
“The Pragmatic Truth of Existentialism” by Donovan Irven (2020)
Richard Rorty: The Making of an American Philosopher by Neil Gross (2008)
"Trotsky and the Wild Orchids" by Richard Rorty (1992)
Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity by Richard Rorty (1989)
Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature by Richard Rorty (1979)


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Democratic deliberation can be viewed in a few different ways. It can be approached as a means of competing interests coming together to bargain between groups until they come to some kind of political agreement.
 
 
From an epistemological sense, deliberation is what we do in the absence of certainty, and where uncertainty exists so does the political. This requires us to practice as the political philosopher Hannah Arendt says, "thinking without banisters." Deliberation takes place as members of a community discuss and determine answers to perennial questions: What is real? What is moral? What do we value? How can we best address our political or economic problems?
 
 
There's a third form of democratic deliberation, one often overlooked or under-utilized: deliberation as a way of working through emotional trauma. Rather than debate the significance of certain political events and which legislative actions should be taken, this more therapeutic view considers deliberation a tool for helping communities process emotional cataclysms or psychological maladies, especially past ones left unacknowledged or repressed.
 
 
This can happen on a personal level, or collectively, for a community. Think of it like political activism as a massive group therapy session.
 
 
This third form is advocated for by Noëlle McAfee, a professor of philosophy at Emory University with a secondary appointment as professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences. She is also the director of Emory’s Psychoanalytic Studies Program. In her 2019 book, Fear of Breakdown: Politics and Psychoanalysis, which won the American Psychoanalytic Association's 2020 Courage to Dream Book, McAfee applies a psychoanalytic lens to some of the most pressing political issues faced by American democracy today, such as racism, inequality, alienation, and globalism.
 
 
In this conversation, we reflect on a few things.
 
 
What is the fear of breakdown and how does this anxiety make democracy more difficult to practice? What are some psychoanalytic explanations for the rise of nativism and authoritarianism in the United States? What are some of these political ghosts and wounds that remain submerged or repressed? And what does it look like to use democratic deliberation as a form of collective therapy?

Show Notes:


Cornelius Castoriadis
 
Fear of Breakdown: Politics and Psychoanalysis by Noëlle McAfee (2017)
 
"Remembering, Repeating, and Workting Through" by Sigmund Freud (1914)
 
D.W. Winnicott
 
Feminist Perspectives on Autonomy
 
"American Democracy and Its Broken Bargaining Tables"  by Daniel Layman (2021)
 
"Who Cares About Democracy?" by Walter Horn (2021)
 
S1E09 Trust in a Polarized Age w/ Kevin Vallier (2021)
 
"We're Overdoing Democracy. But Why?" by Kevin Vallier (2019)
 
S1E14 A Tool for a Pluralistic Society w/ Justin Marshall (2021)
 
S1E05 An Expansive and Democratic View of Physical Education w/ Nate Babcock (2020)







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Scientific inquiry is sometimes viewed as a way of getting after literal knowledge, the belief our scientific claims are a one-for-one match with reality—or what is actually happening out there in the world. However, this view requires a certainty in our beliefs or truth claims about nature that may not be justified. Furthermore, this absoluteness may lead us toward a scientism that runs counter to the openness and dynamism that animates so much of what scientists practice in their labs, field work, empirical research, and daily lives.
Alternatively, other scientists and philosophers frame scientific knowledge as metaphorical. Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell, for instance. Scientific claims require storytelling components and familiar imagery to help us understand what's happening at any given moment. Scientific metaphors are valid only as much as they are useful in addressing problems in our lived environments, or providing a reliable means for predicting future events.
Jessica Wahman is the author of Narrative Naturalism: An Alternative Framework for Philosophy of Mind and co-editor of Cosmopolitanism and Place. She researches and publishes on topics in American philosophy, particularly the work of George Santayana and philosophical psychology. Her current research focuses on pragmatic conceptions of the self and their implications for debates about free will. She is also a senior lecturer in philosophy at Emory University.
Wahman believes that viewing scientific knowledge as metaphorical creates not only a more fruitful approach to science, but avoids the many missteps and dogmatism that often attend more literalist ways of investigating nature and experience. This metaphorical thinking informs what she calls narrative naturalism, a non-reductive but naturalistic method for studying our world and the way things work, specifically consciousness and questions of the mind.
A few things to consider. If scientific knowledge is metaphorical, why not settle for more mythological explanations rather than material or naturalistic ones? Why should we be careful about reducing feelings or thoughts to mere brain chemistry? And, what concrete impact in our daily lives can a narrative naturalist approach have?
I hope you'll contribute to the conversation.
 
Show Notes
Narrative Naturalism: An Alternative Framework for Philosophy of Mind by Jessica Wahman
Baruch Spinoza
"So You Think There Are Laws in Nature?" by Eleni Angelou (2021)
"A Community of Consciousness: Bridging the Gap Between Mind and Matter" by Derek Parsons (2021)
"Humans Are Not Merely Algorithms" by Steve Minett (2021)
"Sentience, Not Consciousness, Is Key to the Cosmos" by Michael Jawer (2020)
S1E20 Can Pragmatism Help Us Live Well w/John Stuhr (2021)
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes (1976)
Scepticism and Animal Faith by George Santayana (1923)
"What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" by Thomas Nagel (1974)
"The Power of One Idea" by Jeffrey Howard (2020)


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Pragmatists do not hold absolute faith in any particular value, principle, or belief. This applies even to the many concepts affiliated with pragmatists—such as pluralism, fallibilism, democracy, and naturalism.
They focus on experience as the field in which we continually test out and reconstruct our views of the world and determine what works in our particular place and time. Pragmatism is focused on concrete results in experience, judging ideas and beliefs according to their fruits and not their roots.
For a pragmatist, the world is constantly changing—not just our views or understanding of it. The questions that were relevant two millennia ago may no longer be relevant today. This requires new solutions and novel practices.
Pragmatism offers an approach to the human experience that will resonate with some, and not with others. So is pragmatism best understood as a temperament? A method? Is it a theory of truth? Or is it primarily a way of viewing the world?
In the final episode of the season, Jeffrey Howard speaks with John Stuhr. Stuhr is Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and American Studies at Emory University, where he chaired the department of philosophy from 2008-2016. He is the author or editor of over a dozen books, including Pragmatism, Postmodernism, and the Future of Philosophy (2003); Pragmatic Fashions: Pluralism, Democracy, Relativism, and the Absurd (2016); and 100 Years of Pragmatism: The Revolutionary Philosophy of William James (2009). 
Stuhr thinks of pragmatism more as a fashion or "season of belief." It's a temporal philosophy. If reality weren't constantly changing, then we could assert a truth and hold onto it for eternity. Instead, by leaning into experience and viewing truth as provisional, we can continue to adapt to changing circumstances. This provides us with a dynamic means through which we can improve our communities and personal lives just a little more each day.
That is if we're willing to do the work, because, for a pragmatist, the future is never guaranteed.
A few questions to consider. How does pragmatism avoid devolving into reckless relativism? How might a pragmatist approach questions of what it means to live well? What is the future of philosophy and what role can pragmatism play in our pursuit of truth?
Show Notes
Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle (350BCE)
 
The Essential Works of Charles S. Peirce by Charles Peirce (2010)
 
Pragmatism: A New Name for an Old Way of Thinking by William James (1907)
 
Essays in Radical Empiricism by William James (1906)
 
A Pluralistic Universe by William James (1909)
 
“The Need for a Recovery of Philosophy” by John Dewey (1917)
 
Experience and Nature by John Dewey (1925)
 
The Public and Its Problems by John Dewey (2012)
 
Pragmatism, Postmodernism, and the Future of Philosophy by John Stuhr (2003)
 
Pragmatic Fashions: Pluralism, Democracy, Relativism, and the Absurd by John Stuhr (2016)
 
100 Years of Pragmatism: The Revolutionary Philosophy of William James edited by John Stuhr (2009)
 
S1E14 A Tool for a Pluralistic World w/ Justin Marshall (2021)
 
S1E12 Philosophers Need to Care About the Poor w/ Jacob Goodson (2021)
 
S1E07 Charles Peirce and Inquiry as an Act of Love w/ David O'Hara (2021)
 
S1E06 Levinas and James: A Pragmatic Phenomenology w/ Megan Craig (2020)
 
"The Power of One Idea" by Jeffrey Howard (2020)
 
"The Pragmatic Truth of Existentialism" by Donovan Irven (2020)


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit damntheabsolute.substack.com