Editor's Note

American Journal of Theology & Philosophy, Volume 41, Numbers 2-3, May
- September 2020, pp. 5-6 (Article)

Published by University of Illinois Press

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/785721

[ Access provided at 23 Jun 2021 03:14 GMT from CNRS BiblioSHS ]

Editor’s Note

In the intervening period between our previous issue’s going to press in Febru-
ary 2020 and its publication that summer, the COVID-19 pandemic inflicted
more disruption upon everyday life than most of us had ever seen. Now, as this
double issue goes to press in the fall of 2020, the potential for further disruption
remains undiminished. As of this writing, it is impossible to predict with any
specificity the outcomes of the moment’s crises—in politics, in public health,
in racial justice, and in economics—but what is clear is that these crises raise
important questions about the functioning of our democracy and the basic
ability of our society to evaluate information, communicate across factions,
maintain civic trust, and gauge institutions’ ability to respond to problems.
Still deeper, one finds occasion to reflect on the relationship between human
and nonhuman life, as well as the ways in which publics succeed—or not—in
changing their habits of behavior amid complex interactions between technical
expertise and broader cultural values.
It is a great strength of the AJTP that the traditions out of which the journal
speaks generate insights on all of these issues. Indeed, I am particularly proud
of how the current volume succeeds in placing topics of historical interest
alongside present problems. Although any sharply drawn distinction between
“engaging current crises” and “engaging history” is, I firmly believe, a false one,
it is nonetheless helpful to understand this present AJTP issue as a conversation
between past and present.
On the historical side, Gary Dorrien continues his magisterial treatment
of Hegel and his legacy, Richard Kenneth Atkins reimagines Royce’s The
Problem of Christianity in light of Peirce’s theory of inquiry, Dan D. Craw-
ford makes a careful but provocative case for reading James’s Varieties of
Religious Experience as an expression of the author’s own spiritual seeking,
and David E. Conner ably explicates a figure of perennial interest in his review
essay on The Quantum of Explanation: Whitehead’s Radical Empiricism, by
Randall E. Auxier and Gary L. Herstein. On the contemporary side, Jeremy
Sorgen both challenges and repairs Jeffrey Stout’s vision of the role of the
philosopher within democratic discourse, Andrew R. H. Thompson extols a
tradition of environmental justice movements as a model for a postpandemic
public, Donald A. Crosby marshals William James in response to ecological
emergency, and Walter B. Gulick sketches a comprehensive theory of aes-
thetics that breaks new ground within the field. Such chronology-traversing

American Journal of Theology & Philosophy  .  Vol. 41, Nos. 2–3, May–September 2020
© 2021 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
conversations attest to the relevance of classical figures like Peirce and James
and their ilk. They also inspire one to hope that, in broadening our frame
of reference, historically literate perspectives on contemporary challenges
will enhance our capacities for response, the intended effect being a bit like
Reinhold Niebuhr’s vision of “being in the battle and above it.” With that in
mind, then: happy reading!