-An Interview Series with John Capps–
“Pragmatism (at its best) is, for me, the theoretical counterpart of fantasy (at its best). It shows us that things could have been otherwise than they are, and that things still could be otherwise—indeed, could be better—in the future. Both “traditions” or “genres” offer a way to hold disappointment and hope together.“
Susan Dieleman is Jarislowsky Chair in Trust and Political Leadership at the University of Lethbridge. She is co-editor of The Ethics of Richard Rorty: Moral Communities, Self-Transformation, and Imagination (2022) and Pragmatism and Justice (2017). A member of SAAP’s Board of Directors, and past recipient of the Ila and John Mellow Prize, she also co-directs Lethbridge’s Critical Thinking & Civic Engagement Lab.
What does American philosophy mean to you?
I should note, at the outset, that I consider myself to be a pragmatist philosopher more than an American philosopher—not just because I’m not “American” (I’m Canadian), but also because “American philosophy” is a much more capacious category. Though I do draw from some other traditions within this more capacious category, my primary focus is on pragmatist philosophy, and on the work of Richard Rorty in particular.
When I began my new position at the University of Lethbridge in 2023, the first course I taught was a 3000-level survey of pragmatism. Since I was a new faculty member, I wanted to provide students with an opportunity to ask questions and get to know me a little better. One of the questions asked was something along the lines of “why pragmatism?” My answer to that question, which I have given on other occasions since, was that I like studying pragmatism for the same reasons I like reading fantasy. Pragmatism (at its best) is, for me, the theoretical counterpart of fantasy (at its best). It shows us that things could have been otherwise than they are, and that things still could be otherwise—indeed, could be better—in the future. Both “traditions” or “genres” offer a way to hold disappointment and hope together.
How did you become an American philosopher?
I think there is a good number of philosophers, mostly my age and younger, who came to American philosophy through the work of Richard Rorty. I, perhaps unexpectedly, came to the work of Richard Rorty through my interest in feminist philosophy. During my MA, I was curious about feminist engagement with “postmodernism,” and stumbled my way into work by Nancy Fraser and Seyla Benhabib, who cited Rorty. Then, upon reading Rorty, and despite his pretty impressive engagement with a wide range of thinkers and traditions, I noticed and ran with the fact that he referenced pragmatism, and that he considered himself to be part of that tradition. I had read little of the classical pragmatists by that point—mostly bits and pieces in survey courses during my undergraduate degree. Since then, and though I still have much to learn, I have a much greater appreciation for these thinkers and of the richness of the tradition.
How would you describe your current research?
I have a few different projects underway: one that develops a nonideal theory of deliberative democracy; one that considers the relevance of distrust for, and the impact of distrust on, civil disobedience and extremism; one that interrogates the nature and value of the distinction between persuasion and force in an attention economy; one that explores whether one can be responsibly patriotic in a settler-colonial context.
Rorty used to say that he only really ever had one idea: “the need to get beyond representationalism, and thus into an intellectual world in which human beings are responsible only to each other” (from “Philosophy as a Transitional Genre”). I don’t mean to compare myself to Rorty in any deep or meaningful sense; I certainly can’t match him in erudition or wit. Yet, in writing down what seems to be a rather disparate list of current research interests, there does seem to be a common theme that runs through them: the political epistemology of our persuasive interactions. So, I suppose that, broadly speaking, my research explores how we should engage in persuasion in nonideal contexts.
What do you do when you’re not doing American philosophy?
A lot of my not-reading-or-writing-or-presenting-philosophy time these days is spent on various related projects, including building out capacity for public philosophy in Southern Alberta as well as Ethics Bowl in Canada. What remains of my not-working time is spent reading the news or, when that gets to be too much, hanging out with my dog(s) or planting and building things in my garden. I have a pesky habit of finding random old things on sale that could be building materials and persuading my husband to drive around with me to load them up so that we can start on new projects. I also spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about how things could be otherwise than they are.
What’s your favorite work in American philosophy? What should we all be reading?
It’s unlikely to be a surprise that Rorty’s Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity is on my recommendation list. It’s the book I keep pulling off my shelf, even when I plan to write on or from something else.