Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm, "Metamodernism: The Future of Theory" (U Chicago Press, 2021)
Oct 4, 2021
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Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm, a Professor at Williams College and author of "Metamodernism: The Future of Theory," discusses revolutionary ideas reshaping the humanities. He critiques established categories like religion and science, arguing for a dynamic understanding of social constructs. Storm introduces a "Process Social Ontology" and explores the continuum of communication across species. He also emphasizes the importance of humble knowledge and the integration of critical theory and virtue ethics in fostering social justice and human flourishing.
The podcast critiques traditional academic categories like religion and art for their inadequacy in capturing contemporary social complexities.
Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm introduces metamodernism, advocating for a dynamic understanding of social ontology and its role in knowledge formation.
The discussion highlights the importance of recognizing values in scholarly work, promoting a more transparent and inclusive academic environment.
Deep dives
Exploring Monday.com
The podcast discusses the shift from traditional work platforms to more efficient ones like Monday.com. Monday.com stands out for its user-friendly interface and customizable features, which simplify team collaboration and project management. Users express frustration with long onboarding processes and IT issues associated with older platforms, prompting a desire for alternatives that prioritize ease of use and connection. The hosts emphasize that a transition to platforms harmonizing with user needs can lead to greater productivity and satisfaction in the workspace.
The Problem with Traditional Categories
The episode highlights the ongoing struggle with traditional academic categories such as religion, culture, and art, which are often deemed inadequate in contemporary discourse. Scholars critique these categories for being overly simplistic or failing to encompass the dynamic and heterogeneous nature of social phenomena. This critique leads to the exploration of how these categories disintegrate and the common patterns emerging in their critique across various disciplines. The hosts discuss the importance of examining how these conceptual frameworks can evolve and adapt to better reflect the complexities of modern society.
Advancing Social Ontology
The concept of social ontology is discussed as a crucial tool for understanding the processes by which social structures and categories are formed. Scholars articulate how social kinds, rather than mere individual actions, contribute to the creation of knowledge and shared experiences. By focusing on the dynamic nature of these social processes, the discussion reveals how traditional notions of categories can stifle new understandings. The podcast encourages listeners to embrace a more fluid approach to social ontology, acknowledging the complexity inherent in social constructions.
Rethinking Knowledge and Value
The conversation emphasizes the interplay between knowledge and value, critiquing the notion of value-free scholarly work as often unrealistic in practice. The hosts argue that values inevitably inform scholarly practices, influencing what is considered rigorous or credible. They propose that openly acknowledging one's values can enhance the transparency and objectivity of research. This approach fosters a more inclusive academic environment, where diverse values can coexist and enrich scholarly discussions.
Embracing Zedetic Knowledge
Zedetic knowledge, or the pursuit of knowledge through inquiry and doubt, is presented as a paradigm shift in the epistemological landscape. The episode discusses the limitations of conventional skepticism that often leads to dogmatic assertions rather than genuine inquiry. By advocating for a humble and fallibilistic approach to knowledge acquisition, the hosts call for a reframing of how scholars engage with sources and claims. This approach emphasizes the transient and evolving nature of knowledge, encouraging a continuous search for understanding rather than the quest for definitive answers.
The Role of Hyalusemiotics
The episode introduces the concept of hyalusemiotics, a framework that examines how meaning is produced and interpreted in both human and non-human contexts. The hosts highlight the importance of recognizing that communication extends beyond language, involving a spectrum of interpretive behaviors across species. This perspective challenges binary distinctions between human and animal communication, promoting a view of language as a continuum. The discussion suggests that expanding our understanding of semiotics can yield deeper insights into the relational dynamics of meaning-making.
For decades, scholars have been calling into question the universality of disciplinary objects and categories. The coherence of defined autonomous categories—such as religion, science, and art—has collapsed under the weight of postmodern critiques, calling into question the possibility of progress and even the value of knowledge. Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm aims to radicalize and move beyond these deconstructive projects to offer a path forward for the humanities and social sciences using a new model for theory he calls metamodernism.
Metamodernism: The Future of Theory (U Chicago Press, 2021) works through the postmodern critiques and uncovers the mechanisms that produce and maintain concepts and social categories. In so doing, Storm provides a new, radical account of society’s ever-changing nature—what he calls a “Process Social Ontology”—and its materialization in temporary zones of stability or “social kinds.” Storm then formulates a fresh approach to philosophy of language by looking beyond the typical theorizing that focuses solely on human language production, showing us instead how our own sign-making is actually on a continuum with animal and plant communication.
Storm also considers fundamental issues of the relationship between knowledge and value, promoting a turn toward humble, emancipatory knowledge that recognizes the existence of multiple modes of the real. Metamodernism is a revolutionary manifesto for research in the human sciences that offers a new way through postmodern skepticism to envision a more inclusive future of theory in which new forms of both progress and knowledge can be realized.
Tiatemsu Longkumer is a Ph.D. scholar working on ‘Anthropology of Religion’ at North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong: India
