Donovan Schaefer
@feelingtheory
Philosopher of emotion. West coast soul in Philly. Now researching: Conspiracy theory, secular artifacts, Confederate commemoration. 🐱🐱 Brighton & Bristol 🌱 ⓥ food 📚✍️: 🚫 AI
can't stop thinking about this Chicago Defender headline from 80 years ago
My reply, "We Secular Animals: Persuasion, Passion, and the Diversity of Thought," is written as a standalone essay. I respond to each of my interlocutors in turn, while also trying to tell the story of how I think the book is landing on the contemporary scholarly landscape 15/
My response is to reaffirm the importance of embodiment as a field of diversity, including in modes of thought/rationality. 14/
Finally, Amiel Wayne's "Agency, Interest, and Knowledge-Making" puts the book in conversation with theories of neurodiversity. 13/
I highlight what I see as the connection between Thatamanil's two areas of interest--the rethinking of the nature of science and the repudiation of superficial assumptions about the breadth and complexity of Indic philosophical traditions. 12/
John Thatamanil's "Beyond the Thinking/Feeling Binary" maps resonances with Hindu and Buddhist philosophical traditions, while also trying to map out a response to the post-truth moment that isn't just a doubling-down on Enlightenment precepts. 11/
My response is that sociality and relationality as modes of explanation for science (or anything else, for that matter) aren't comprehensive enough to account for change. For that, I propose, we need attention to scientific emotions--including but not limited to social emotions. 10/
Alison Renna's "Truth and Duration" is a reckoning with the book's commitment to a kind of epistemological realism in which emotion is fully in the loop. She goes back to Ludwik Fleck's analysis of science as social and resuscitates his focus on relationality in science. 9/
I push back on Modern's claim that science is always about certainty, or the elimination of what he calls "those features of the human that defy mere calculation." Rather than taking humans as machines, it's about humans as animals. I reject the claim that taking animality seriously is reductive. 8/
The next two articles are more critical: John Modern's @johnmodern.bsky.social "Language Is a Virus" expresses concern over the metaphysical consequences of allowing a psychological/scientific account of emotions to sit at the humanities table, arguing that it opens the door to reductionism. 7/
In my response, I acknowledge that I probably didn't give Whitehead a fair shake in the book. But I also revisit the parts of Whitehead's work that gave me pause in the first place. 6/
Nancy Howell's "Allied Reflection" draws the book into conversation with Alfred North Whitehead's process philosophy. 5/
In my response, I focus on her consideration of why sympathizers of Hong Kong's protest movement publicly mourned the death of Queen Elizabeth II, suggesting that this is the kind of puzzle that narratives of Enlightenment progress (and secularism) often wrestle with. 4/
Ting Guo's @tingguowrites.bsky.social "Can the Subaltern Feel?" considers how cogency theory--the analytics of what makes something feel true--helps us understand the tactics of the pro-democracy protest movement in Hong Kong, leading to a dialogue about ritual, persuasion, and Saba Mahmood. 3/
A joy to be in conversation with friends and colleagues for this symposium on *Wild Experiment,* now available early access in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion @aarweb.bsky.social! 1/
Just... shameless. Also, friends at WVU confirm this story. This single enrolled student is the talk of the whole campus.
Five years ago today, the Confederate monument at the center of the Unite the Right riot in 2017 was removed from a Charlottesville park.
Two tiramisus, both alike in deliciousness (Buddy Veggie & Rifugio Romano)
Gianduia gelatto at Grezzo, all-vegan chocolate/gelato chain. This was heaven on a 95 day.