This chapter begins the work of showing how the Phenomenology effects a transition from Kantian to Hegelian theodicy. It begins with Hegel’s exposition of self-consciousness, since this sets the terms for his subsequent analyses. Indeed, the famous ‘Self-Consciousness’ chapter thematises the very possibility of criteria of goodness by unfolding elementary structures of human autonomy. The chapter then turns to Hegel’s developmental account of Kant’s understanding of freedom as autonomy, which functions simultaneously as a critique: he presents Kant’s practical thought as the result of a progressive, rational development, while also diagnosing it as the product of a series of abstractions and reifications, whereby Kant conflates his insight into the nature of freedom with a certain methodologically individualistic metaphysics of the human being. The chapter focuses on the first of three key phases in the Phenomenology that engage with Kantian theodicy and its underlying view of the will, namely the somewhat satirical presentation of ‘Virtue’, which Hegel classifies as a shape of ‘Reason’. By charting the interrelated views of goodness and the will that produce and are produced by ‘Virtue’, we can uncover a developmental logical that leads to the Kantian idea of freedom as self-authorship.

Emerson describes a range of experiences that constitute friendship: titanic battles between beautiful enemies; conversational brilliance and expansion; a joyful solitude, as if someone has departed rather than arrived; a generalized benevolence toward people in the street to whom one does not speak; the warm sympathies and household joy one shares with a familiar friend; the disappointment of a friend outgrown. His account shows an intense focus on moral perfection – on our unattained but attainable self, alone and with others – but an equally intense awareness of what he calls in “Experience” “the plaint of tragedy” that sounds throughout our lives “in regard to persons, to friendship and love.” The chapter’s coda charts the opposition in “Love” between love as the experience of being “swept away” and a skeptical vision of marriage as a prison, from which sex, person, and partiality have vanished.

This loosely argued manifesto contains some suggestions regarding what the philosophy of religion might become in the twenty-first century. It was written for a brainstorming workshop over a decade ago, and some of the recommendations and predictions it contains have already been partly actualized (that’s why it is now a bit "untimely"). The goal is to sketch three aspects of a salutary “liturgical turn” in philosophy of religion. (Note: “liturgy” here refers very broadly to communal religious service and experience generally, not anything specifically “high church.”) The first involves the attitudes that characterize what I call the “liturgical stance" towards various doctrines. The second focuses on the “vested” propositional objects of those attitudes. The third looks at how those doctrines are represented, evoked, and embodied in liturgical contexts. My untimely rallying-cry is that younger philosophers of religion might do well to set aside debates regarding knowledge and justified belief, just as their elders set aside debates regarding religious language. When we set aside knowledge in this way, we make room for discussions of faith that in turn shed light on neglected but philosophically interesting aspects of lived religious practice.

This chapter is focused on a battle in the Athenian law-court between two great orators. Aeschines was trained as a tragic actor who worked in a mask, and brought the skills of the stage to the democratic arena. He argued for making peace with the new rising imperial power, Macedon, and tried to persuade the jury to position themselves as authentic democrats. Demosthenes was a skilled writer who wrote speeches for others, and later learnt how to present himself as a public speaker. He won the debate for two reasons. He persuaded the jury to position themselves in nationalistic terms as Athenians, and he also persuaded them that he was sincere while his opponent was merely acting. The reputation of Demosthenes has undergone many changes, and it was only in the nineteenth century that he emerged as an archetypal democrat. In Demosthenes’ day the drive for sincerity was tied to a shift from communitarian thinking to a higher degree of individualism, in a political context where the city was losing its power of self-determination. I end by drawing on Peter Brook’s minimalist definition of theatre to create a definition of democracy.

Some degree of hypocritical conformity is necessary, Spinoza argues, for a political society to function. Individuals cannot be free to do whatever they like, even if their conscience conflicts with the law. Yet Spinoza also recognizes that hypocritical conformity has its own pernicious repercussions, specifically the corrosion of civic trust. Spinoza’s conscientious speech warns that conformity corrodes the social trust that undergirds politics since individuals are not able to confidently assess the sincerity of their citizens. Spinoza aims to reconcile this tension by distinguishing speech from action. Dissenters must conform to the law, even if it conflicts with their conscience, but they should be able to express their conscience freely in speech.

Adam Kelly has persuasively argued that Wallace’s oeuvre should be understood through the prism of New Sincerity, which is to say a late- or post-postmodernist quest to balance cynicism with a return to what Wallace called “single-entendre principles.” While the new sincerity paradigm is not without its critics, sincerity is indisputably central to Wallace’s ethical system, and its personal and authorial challenges provide some of the most compelling moments in his writing. The apparent sincerity of his authorial voice has been one of his most appealing attributes, and Wallace himself commented frequently on the fraught dynamic between author and reader, simultaneously predicated on sincerity and manipulation. This chapter traces the role of sincerity as, on the one hand, a sort of artistic telos for Wallace and, on the other, an endlessly thorny problem that springs up in every facet of contemporary life. The chapter goes on to highlight Wallace’s influence in contemporary fiction, highlighting Karl Ove Knausgaard as an author who explores similar questions.

The work of David Foster Wallace can be seen to critically renew ideas and concerns from existentialist philosophy and literature. Wallace repeatedly expressed his admiration of existentialist authors, and his fiction contains many explicit and implicit references to their writings. This chapter will provide an overview of the main themes and intertextual connections that Wallace’s work shares with the existentialists, such as a comparison with Sartre’s view of consciousness, Kierkegaard’s critique of irony, and Camus’s relation of meaningful existence to community; also, a brief comparative reading of the opening of Infinite Jest and Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis,” of “The Depressed Person” and Beauvoir’s “The Monologue,” and of “B.I. #20” and Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground. Overall, Wallace shares with these authors the conviction that philosophy and literature are partially overlapping activities, that some philosophical problems are best approached through literature, and that their works therefore blur the boundaries between these modes of writing.

Chapter 6 discusses how trust can emerge in the formal political sphere. Engaging with arguments for “political friendship” and “salutary hypocrisy,” this chapter shows that a division of labour between “principled pragmatists” and “principled purists” can counteract the institutionalized enmity problem. Principled pragmatists can develop a sense of reciprocity by engaging in some forms of hypocrisy and by striking compromises; this reciprocity can counteract the tendency for political actors to compete as enemies. Meanwhile, principled purists can more stubbornly refuse to compromise in order to keep principled pragmatists honest. There are times, however, when the distribution of principled pragmatists across mainstream parties is unbalanced, just as there are times when some (former) mainstream liberal democrats have forged enduring alliances with autocratic political actors. Accordingly, the chapter argues that in these circumstances, those who stand outside of these “unholy alliances” must embrace contestation and show that participation in these alliances is politically disadvantageous.

The introduction summarizes overall argument unfolding through the six main chapters of the book and provides basic motivation for pursuing the pragmatist considerations of the volume. It emphasizes that the concept of truth may seem to have become seriously threatened in our culture - especially due to familiar political events and the active use of the social media today. As pragmatism, particularly Jamesian pragmatism, might be considered partly responsible for these developments, a novel critical exploration of pragmatist resources for dealing with the issues concerning the responsible pursuit of truth across a wide range of human practices is needed. The introduction also offers preliminary reasons why the argument of the book moves through a rather complex discussion of Kantian transcendental philosophy (and transcendental pragmatism) instead of merely "directly" utilizing the classical pragmatists' views on truth as such.

This brief concluding chapter summarizes the argument of the volume and draws attention to a chief outcome of the entire book, viz., pragmatic transcendental humanism. It is also briefly considered in what sense the discussion of the book is committed to (pragmatist) project of metaphysics and why exactly this pragmatist undertaking needs the kind of Kantian transcendental backing that the earlier chapters argue it does.

On the surface, the ethical vocabulary of stylistic virtue reflects the fact that moral and stylistic virtues overlap. A “manly” style may connote masculine strength, just as an “honest” author may promise fidelity in representation. However, the “aesthetic” critics of the mid- to late-nineteenth century did not disavow this seemingly moralistic lexicon. Instead, Chapter 2 shows how the doubleness of stylistic virtues made them appealing to critics who sought to provide an ethical justification for formalist methods. By tracing the theory of stylistic virtue in the four Victorian critics most influenced by Aristotle – John Ruskin, Matthew Arnold, Walter Pater, and Oscar Wilde – it reveals a process of “ethico-aesthetic drift” whereby “ethical character” was increasingly understood as an aesthetic phenomenon that had autonomous value. As literary criticism came to be seen as a creative act on a par with the production of art, it too became an ethically valuable act, investing style and its appreciation with an unprecedented level of attention and esteem.