Routes To Understanding The Other: Conversing With Philip Cushman

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-1-2024

Published In

Journal Of Theoretical And Philosophical Psychology

Abstract

In the spirit of the lively conversations enjoyed with Phil Cushman over the years, I pose two challenges to his analysis of populist culture. My attempt here is to press further in his project of understanding the other, while lending affirmation to the values on which his work is based. My concerns are twofold, first with the form of the analysis, and then with the masking of the contribution we scientists make to the conditions under study. In the former case, attempts to understand the other through analyses of their conditions and states of mind, positions us as authors of their lives. A distance is thus created between we the knowers and they, the subjects of our appraisal. In the second case, such distancing obscures the part we play in creating the conditions and mentalities of the populist culture under study. An alternative is proposed, in which our focus shifts from attempts to understand patterns and conditions of the present, to actively creating more promising futures. In the case of philosophical analysis, attention is specifically drawn to the need for illuminating the process of phronesis, especially as related to the vital challenge of generating understanding among people

Keywords

hermeneutics, phronesis, future forming, populism

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