Editor’s Note

With all that the COVID-19 pandemic has entailed, the recent months have occasioned an unusual amount of reflection on the nature of human interaction. When considered in light of this journal—which is nothing if not an interaction, though thankfully not of the sort that a pandemic can easily disrupt—the question of what it means to interact opens up some compelling lines of inquiry. Of particular interest is the relationship between interaction and tradition. As our previous issue demonstrated, traditions are in some sense patterned interactions across time. Yet how might traditions shape interactions that occur within a common moment? This is a question the present issue is well suited to address.

This issue consists of two parts, each of which represents a distinct form of interaction relative to tradition. In the issue’s first part, Demian Wheeler and Daniel J. Ott interact, knowingly and reciprocally, as distinct perspectives within a specific milieu—the Chicago School—which is characterized by its unique mix of religious naturalists, naturalistic theists, and empirical process theologians. Exchanging friendly-yet-incisive commentaries on the religious qualities of naturalistic God metaphors, Wheeler and Ott are, on one level, participating in a timeless debate on how we might best imagine the relationship of a God to that which exists. On another level, however, Wheeler and Ott are obviously speaking out of a carefully honed set of commitments. In “The Spirituality of Size: The Religious Qualities of Pantheistic God Metaphors,” Wheeler channels Bernard Loomer to speak on behalf of pantheism; in “Naturalistic Fruits of the Spirit: Faith, Hope, and Love,” Ott channels Bernard Meland on behalf of a vision whose “fruits” include the theological virtues. In publishing Wheeler and Ott’s exchange, the journal bears witness to an interaction whose level of subtlety is inseparable from the tradition it displays.

In the issue’s second part, Dan Arnold adapts his 2019 AJTP Lecture into the first installment of a two-part series on pragmatism as transcendental philosophy. Considering that this journal gave Arnold his very first publication back in 1998, Arnold’s piece represents a triumphant homecoming of sorts; certainly it is a masterpiece of precisely the sort that comes when a scholar with expertise in a given tradition—in Arnold’s case, Indian Brahmanical and Buddhist thought—looks beyond that tradition and views afresh some novel terrain. Entitled “Pragmatism as Transcendental Philosophy, Part I: Peirce in Light of James’s Radical Empiricism,” Arnold’s probing essay looks at pragmatic tradition by way of the interaction between two of its most foundational figures, William James and Charles S. Peirce. The result is a substantive contribution to the study of pragmatism that simultaneously sheds light on James and Peirce considered individually, on the James-Peirce relationship, and on pragmatic tradition as a whole. Given the emphasis that Arnold’s account of transcendental philosophy places on truth as something that unfolds in time, this current installment raises anticipation that much more for what lies ahead in part II.

So there you have it: in the first part of the issue, two scholars interact within a common tradition; in the second part of the issue, two traditions interact within the work of a single scholar. How do these respective forms of interactions themselves interact? To speak to that question, I can only say: happy reading!