The context for my paper is Wesley J. Wildman's understanding of the dispute between modernity and postmodernity; namely, that it is fundamentally a dispute about generality and justice. Where postmodern critique goes wrong, he argues, is in failing to appreciate how a tireless commitment to self-criticism can manage the risks of assertion. We need both consciousness-raising critique and orienting conceptual interpretations of the world—achieving such checks and balances is the promise of a pragmatic theory of inquiry. In contrast to postmodernist asceticism, Wildman invites us to build responsibly. I agree that constructive steps are needed after genealogical, post-colonial, feminist, and other such critical social theories. My concern, shared by several contributors to Religion in Multidisciplinary Perspective, is that these steps can be taken too soon, meaning before they have been sufficiently retooled by way of such theories’ concerns about the politics of discourse and inquiry and the conceptual tools...
Justice and Generality After Critique
Lisa Landoe Hedrick is Assistant Collegiate Professor in the Social Sciences at the University of Chicago. Her first book, Whitehead and the Pittsburgh School: Preempting the Problem of Intentionality (Lexington 2021), is a historical and philosophical intervention to the problem of mind and world in Analytic Philosophy. More recently, she contributed a chapter to Diversifying the Philosophy of Religion: Critiques, Methods, and Case Studies (Bloomsbury 2023). Her second book project seeks to reconceive theory and method in the study of religion\s after genealogical and postcolonial critique.
Lisa Landoe Hedrick; Justice and Generality After Critique. American Journal of Theology & Philosophy 1 January 2024; 45 (1): 12–19. doi: https://doi.org/10.5406/21564795.45.1.02
Download citation file:
Advertisement