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Hosted by Jeffrey Howard, editor-in-chief of Erraticus, Damn the Absolute! is a show about our relationship to ideas.Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ Pragmatist philosophy and anti-dogmatism • truth, language, uncertainty, inquiry • democracy, polarization, trust, collective trauma • race, injustice, beloved community • science metaphors, mind • ethics, religion • climate, commons, localism, agriculture • education, stoicism, animalsHosted by Jeffrey Howard, this podcast explores how people relate to ideas and how intellectual humility can keep inquiry open rather than dogmatic. Across conversations with philosophers, scholars, and practitioners, it repeatedly returns to pragmatism and adjacent traditions as ways to think about truth, knowledge, and moral life without treating any single framework—religious, scientific, or political—as an unquestionable authority.
A recurring theme is the critique of “absolutes”: representational views of truth, rigid scientism, and ideological certainty. The show examines alternative models in which language and theories are treated as tools for coping, coordinating, and problem-solving in lived environments, including the role of metaphor and narrative in scientific understanding and concept formation. It also considers how intellectual movements succeed one another (from modernism to postmodernism and beyond) and what more constructive, hope-oriented approaches to theory might look like.
The podcast frequently connects philosophy to public life: democratic deliberation, polarization and social trust, education and civic formation, and the challenges of pluralism when communities disagree about evidence, expertise, and history. Several discussions focus on how societies process collective wounds—racism, economic injustice, and political trauma—and what “beloved community” and other communitarian ideals could mean in practice. Other episodes broaden “living well” to include ethics grounded in relationship and responsibility, spiritual traditions applied to liberation, and questions of human flourishing that extend to animals and ecosystems. Practical, place-based concerns—commons governance, localism, urban design, farming, and climate responses—are treated as philosophical problems as much as policy ones.
