
Damn the Absolute! is a podcast about our relationship to ideas. Doing our damnedest not to block the path of inquiry.
About the Show
Welcome friends, philosophers, and fellow practitioners of ideas. We’re joining an already ongoing conversation in what aims to be an edifying approach to philosophy, ideas, and, ultimately, lead to a bit more human flourishing in the world.
Jeffrey Howard, founder and editor-in-chief of Erraticus, interviews a wide range of voices, experts, and scholars who are contributing to the community of inquiry, and, hopefully, providing perspectives that better enable us to cope with the diverse environments in which we find ourselves.
Please leave a review of Damn the Absolute! wherever you prefer to listen to podcasts. It goes a long way in helping us build a community committed to fruitful ideas.
Reach out to us if you have feedback or want to recommend a guest: damntheabsolute@erraticus.co.
Production Credits
Damn the Absolute! is produced by Erraticus.
Producer and Host: Jeffrey Howard
Contributing Editor: Derek Parsons
Damn the Absolute!
A podcast about our relationship to ideas. Doing our damnedest not to block the path of inquiry.

S2E05 Americans Don’t Know How to Sing the Blues w/ Brad Elliott Stone & Jacob Goodson
Brad Elliott Stone and Jacob Goodson argue that until Americans learn how to sing the blues, it’s going to be difficult to build beloved community in our wounded world.

S2E04 Does Metamodernism Actually Move Us Past Postmodernism? w/ Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm
Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm takes us through postmodernism to metamodernism, a new approach to producing what he calls “humble knowledge.”

S2E03 Literature Must Be an Unsettling Force for Democracy w/ Elin Danielsen Huckerby
Contrasting with dogmatism and scientism, Elin Danielsen Huckerby believes a ‘literary culture’ gives us more fruitful ways to move democracy forward.

S2E02 Fear of Breakdown in American Democracy w/ Noëlle McAfee
Noëlle McAfee takes a psychoanalytic view of deliberation to diagnose the downstream effects of the fear of breakdown in American democracy.

S2E01 Scientific Knowledge Is Metaphorical w/ Jessica Wahman
Jessica Wahman believes that treating scientific knowledge as metaphorical creates a naturalist approach to science that avoids scientism.

S1E20 Can Pragmatism Help Us Live Well? w/ John Stuhr
John Stuhr invites us to consider pragmatism as a “season of belief,” a dynamic philosophy that can help us live a little better each day.

S1E19 Buddhist Reflections on Race and Liberation w/ Charles Johnson
Award-winning writer Charles Johnson examines race, presenting Buddhist practice as a radical form of liberation.

S1E18 A Friendly Introduction to Stoicism w/ Derek Parsons
Derek Parsons provides an introduction to Stoicism, a life philosophy that places reason and virtue at the center of human flourishing.

S1E17 Reversing Climate Change w/ Ross Kenyon
Ross Kenyon embodies a curiosity-driven approach to reversing climate change, in hopes it will bring more voices to the climate crisis table.

S1E16 Where Do Animals Fit into Human Flourishing? w/ Ike Sharpless
Ike Sharpless advocates for a more inclusive view of human nature that integrates well with animal flourishing and considers their agency.

S1E15 Making the Commons More Common w/ Neal Gorenflo
In addition to the state and the market, Neal Gorenflo proposes the commons as a way to foster small-scale experiments in managing resources.

S1E14 A Tool for a Pluralistic World w/ Justin Marshall
Justin Marshall argues that understanding how our beliefs and truth claims are formed can help us to better navigate pluralistic societies.

S1E13 The Philosophy of Lived Experience w/ Henriikka Hannula
Henriikka Hannula explains the central role the concepts of historicism, lived experience, and hermeneutics play in Wilhelm Dilthey’s philosophy.

S1E12 Philosophers Need to Care About the Poor w/ Jacob Goodson
Drawing from Richard Rorty’s edifying approach to philosophy, Jacob Goodson argues that philosophers need to focus more on the poor and marginalized.

S1E11 A Small Farm Future w/ Chris Smaje
Chris Smaje makes a case for why a small farm future, societies built around local agrarian economies, is a sustainable way forward.

S1E10 Unschooling and Gentle Parenting w/ Tiersa McQueen
Tiersa McQueen discusses unschooling and gentle parenting, two philosophies that center learning around children’s personal interests and self-selected goals.

S1E09 Trust in a Polarized Age w/ Kevin Vallier
Political philosopher Kevin Vallier advocates for public reason liberalism as a way of counteracting declines in social and political trust.

S1E08 Subsistence Agriculture During the Collapse of Industrial Capitalism w/ Ashley Colby
Ashley Colby spotlights subsistence agriculture, showing how ideologically divergent people can solve local and global problems.

S1E07 Charles Peirce and Inquiry as an Act of Love w/ David O’Hara
David O’Hara introduces us to the philosophy of Charles Peirce, emphasizing the communitarian ethos necessary for satisfactory inquiry.

S1E06 Levinas and James: A Pragmatic Phenomenology w/ Megan Craig
Megan Craig positions Emmanuel Levinas alongside pragmatist philosopher William James to offer an ethical alternative to rule-based morality.

S1E05 An Expansive and Democratic View of Physical Education w/ Nate Babcock
How might concepts such as bodyfulness, corporeality, and phenomenology inform a more democratic approach to physical education?

S1E04 Religious Disagreement and Whether Religious Expertise Exists w/ Helen De Cruz
The numberless instances of religious disagreements should cause us to seriously question how we interpret personal religious experiences.

S1E03 Placemaking and the Benefits of Local Scale w/ Jaime Izurieta
Jaime Izurieta, an urban designer and town planner, explains how local solutions and placemaking fit into a globalizing world.

S1E02 Toward a Politics of Uncertainty w/ Daniel Wortel-London
Daniel Wortel-London presents what a political worldview that centers uncertainty as a guiding principle might look like.

S1E01 Richard Rorty and Achieving Our Country w/ Adrian Rutt
Adrian Rutt revisits Richard Rorty’s 1998 book Achieving Our Country—which finds itself more politically relevant today than it ever has been.