the necessary counterfactual of the pursuit of a warranted consensus, the
second to deliver a transcendental argument in support of a world of imma-
nence, an ethic of cultivation, and rhizomatic pluralism. William James,
writing in 1909 (see James 1996 ), contests both of these tendencies in advance,
even while carrying forward the spirit of Enlightenment in his support of
democracy and pluralism. He seeks neither to be post-metaphysical nor to
present his fundamental stance as grounded in subjective necessity. He
proceeds, rather, by subtracting the aura of necessity from the ‘‘monist,’’
‘‘rationalist,’’ and ‘‘logical empiricist’’ philosophies he contests. Then, after
presenting arguments in support of a ‘‘pluralistic universe’’—contending that
it is populated by actors of multiple types and appreciating the ‘‘litter’’ in it
that periodically enables new formations to emerge—he acknowledges the
profound contestability of his own philosophy too:
The only thing I emphatically insist upon is that it [pluralism] is fully coordinate
with monism. This worldmayin the last resort, be a block-universe; but on the other
hand itmaybe a universe only strung-along, not rounded in or closed. Reality may
exist distributively just as it sensibly seems to, after all. On that possibility I do insist.
(James 1996 , 328 )
James adopts what might be called abicameralorientation to public life,Wrst
putting his basic philosophy/faith into play and then recoiling back upon it a
bit with invitational self-modesty. In a world in which no philosophy or faith
to date has established itself so deWnitively that everyone must bow to it to
meet minimal standards of rationality or civilizational decency, a political
theory worth its salt will emulate the explicit duplicity of expression found in
the work of William James. This is not ‘‘relativism’’—the view that all theories
are equally plausible—although some will be tempted to read it that way. It is
theoretical pluralism, with several theories pressing their cases hard and the
premises of no single theory attaining (so far, at least) a pinnacle of rationality
endowing it with the right to set the standard against which all other theories
are measured. Self-conscious practitioners of theory today may,Wrst, concede
that they have not to date pulled themselves above the world of partisanship
by their own bootstraps; second, seek to enact their theories in political life;
and, third, recoil back upon their perspectives with a degree of relational self-
modesty. When political theorists purport to seal their own fundaments in
certainty, or pretend toXoat above the metaphysical dimension of thought,
or insist that their own faith alone must be recognized if civilization is to
survive, the risks of bad faith and ugly politics proliferate.
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