76. Challenging Scientistism in Naturalistic Metanarrative (w/ Zak Stein)

Zak Stein joins me in a constructive discussion about our respective projects to reconstruct value after postmodernism. Having talked to Zak about his work with David J Temple, this time he responds to my work in the first volume of the Evolution of Meaning Series. Here we explore in greater detail his concerns about projects that would situate human cultural evolution within the broader cosmic evolutionary process more generally. How do we avoid reducing the human in the process? How do we properly understand what uniquely delineates human cultural processes from animal ones? What is the proper role of science in all of this?

0:00 Introduction

2:24 Irreducible Humanity: Continuity and Discontinuity

15:34 The Role of the Philosopher: Translating the Sciences for Human Meaning

20:34 Situating the Insights of Modern Science: Integrating Postmodern Critiques

35:46 Interior vs. Exterior Accounts

29:37 Metaphysics and Methodology: Religion or Radical Empiricism?

41:58 Intersubjectivity and Universal Pragmatics

1:04:30 Science after Postmodernism