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Papers by Trygve Throntveit
Trygve Throntveit's scholarly and civic activities and publications through September, 2024.
Routledge eBooks, Nov 11, 2021
William James is better remembered for his political conscience than his political consciousness.... more William James is better remembered for his political conscience than his political consciousness. Scholars tend to grant him the instincts and scruples of a well-meaning liberal individualist but no real deep awareness of politics and power (Otto 1943; West 1989; Danisch 2007). Yet, close attention to James’s writings on politics suggests otherwise. James was, if anything, more aware than most contemporaries of the fact that many seemingly natural (or noble) institutions worked to sustain, and were in turn sustained by, historically contingent and frequently inequitable human relations (Throntveit 2014; Livingston 2016). Moreover, James was, and remains, a generative political thinker, awakened to the power of ideas to alter public narratives and inspire public action, including his own ideas about human consciousness generally and the political attitudes and practices they imply for individual and collective flourishing.
In short, James’s writings on consciousness explore, explain, and maintain a tension between individualistic and social accounts of human experience that he considered profoundly relevant to the politics of his day, and that political philosophers today would do well to exploit.
In James’s philosophy, all inquiry, belief, and activity begins in individual experience; no mind can know anything to which it is has not been exposed, directly or indirectly, and to which it has not selectively attended amid the rest of life’s “blooming, buzzing confusion” (PP: 462). The free act of choice that James considered the distinctive function of human consciousness is, in his view, seminal to knowledge and, so far as human beings can know it, constitutive of reality itself. Yet that same reality includes other minds, of equal freedom and potency, and thus of profound consequence to the character of our experience and the course of our efforts to navigate and shape it. For James, this relationship between consciousness and the rest of reality – physical and social – establishes the essential moral agency and equality of human beings as well as the inherently collective, negotiated, and public character of human action. For that
reason, James’s writings on consciousness are critical to understanding his own interventions in public affairs during his lifetime. But James’s writings on consciousness and politics are relevant beyond the field of intellectual history, and even beyond the community of scholars writing on or in the pragmatist tradition. His account of an inherently political human consciousness points between our own day’s dominant camps of liberal and communitarian discourse toward a third language of democratic politics, fit for what James called “the best Commonwealth”: a
civic-pragmatist language, describing the self-interested yet reflective work of common people, collaborating across differences, to satisfy broadly shared interests while cherishing those “who represent the residual interests” leaving “the largest scope to their peculiarities” (MER: 97).
Modern Intellectual History, Nov 1, 2008
Palgrave Macmillan US eBooks, 2014
Proceedings of the 2020 AERA Annual Meeting, 2020
The most up-to-date record of my publications, presentations, workshops, and public work.
Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 2023
It is one of few statements upon which Americans left, right, and center agree: The nation faces ... more It is one of few statements upon which Americans left, right, and center agree: The nation faces a civic crisis. Polarization, rage, and militancy vie with cynicism, disengagement, and despair in the much-vaunted battle for America's political soul-all while trampling grace, deliberation, and cooperation underfoot. What can and should our institutions of higher education do to address this situation? Such a question demands at least as many responses as there are distinctive functions of higher education. This article explains one effort to answer it with reference to the sector's most visible-and arguably most essential-field of endeavor: undergraduate teaching and learning. The Third Way Civics initiative (3WC) unites institutions across the country in an experimental approach to civic learning in college, centered on a one-semester, credit-bearing course on American political and social development across time.
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History, Mar 26, 2019
An ungainly word, it has proven tenacious. Since the early Cold War, “Wilsonianism” has been empl... more An ungainly word, it has proven tenacious. Since the early Cold War, “Wilsonianism” has been employed by historians and analysts of US foreign policy to denote two historically related but ideologically and operationally distinct approaches to world politics. One is the foreign policy of the term’s eponym, President Woodrow Wilson, during and after World War I—in particular his efforts to engage the United States and other powerful nations in the cooperative maintenance of order and peace through a League of Nations. The other is the tendency of later administrations and political elites to deem an assertive, interventionist, and frequently unilateralist foreign policy necessary to advance national interests and preserve domestic institutions. Both versions of Wilsonianism have exerted massive impacts on US and international politics and culture. Yet both remain difficult to assess or even define. As historical phenomena they are frequently conflated; as philosophical labels they are ideologically freighted. Perhaps the only consensus is that the term implies the US government’s active rather than passive role in the international order. It is nevertheless important to distinguish Wilson’s “Wilsonianism” from certain doctrines and practices later attributed to him or traced to his influence. The major reasons are two. First, misconceptions surrounding the aims and outcomes of Wilson’s international policies continue to distort historical interpretation in multiple fields, including American political, cultural, and diplomatic history and the history of international relations. Second, these distortions encourage the conflation of Wilsonian internationalism with subsequent yet distinct developments in American foreign policy. The confused result promotes ideological over historical readings of the nation’s past, which in turn constrain critical and creative thinking about its present and future as a world power.
Journal of the History of Ideas, 2011
The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, Jun 30, 2023
Trygve Throntveit's scholarly and civic activities and publications through September, 2024.
Routledge eBooks, Nov 11, 2021
William James is better remembered for his political conscience than his political consciousness.... more William James is better remembered for his political conscience than his political consciousness. Scholars tend to grant him the instincts and scruples of a well-meaning liberal individualist but no real deep awareness of politics and power (Otto 1943; West 1989; Danisch 2007). Yet, close attention to James’s writings on politics suggests otherwise. James was, if anything, more aware than most contemporaries of the fact that many seemingly natural (or noble) institutions worked to sustain, and were in turn sustained by, historically contingent and frequently inequitable human relations (Throntveit 2014; Livingston 2016). Moreover, James was, and remains, a generative political thinker, awakened to the power of ideas to alter public narratives and inspire public action, including his own ideas about human consciousness generally and the political attitudes and practices they imply for individual and collective flourishing.
In short, James’s writings on consciousness explore, explain, and maintain a tension between individualistic and social accounts of human experience that he considered profoundly relevant to the politics of his day, and that political philosophers today would do well to exploit.
In James’s philosophy, all inquiry, belief, and activity begins in individual experience; no mind can know anything to which it is has not been exposed, directly or indirectly, and to which it has not selectively attended amid the rest of life’s “blooming, buzzing confusion” (PP: 462). The free act of choice that James considered the distinctive function of human consciousness is, in his view, seminal to knowledge and, so far as human beings can know it, constitutive of reality itself. Yet that same reality includes other minds, of equal freedom and potency, and thus of profound consequence to the character of our experience and the course of our efforts to navigate and shape it. For James, this relationship between consciousness and the rest of reality – physical and social – establishes the essential moral agency and equality of human beings as well as the inherently collective, negotiated, and public character of human action. For that
reason, James’s writings on consciousness are critical to understanding his own interventions in public affairs during his lifetime. But James’s writings on consciousness and politics are relevant beyond the field of intellectual history, and even beyond the community of scholars writing on or in the pragmatist tradition. His account of an inherently political human consciousness points between our own day’s dominant camps of liberal and communitarian discourse toward a third language of democratic politics, fit for what James called “the best Commonwealth”: a
civic-pragmatist language, describing the self-interested yet reflective work of common people, collaborating across differences, to satisfy broadly shared interests while cherishing those “who represent the residual interests” leaving “the largest scope to their peculiarities” (MER: 97).
Modern Intellectual History, Nov 1, 2008
Palgrave Macmillan US eBooks, 2014
Proceedings of the 2020 AERA Annual Meeting, 2020
The most up-to-date record of my publications, presentations, workshops, and public work.
Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 2023
It is one of few statements upon which Americans left, right, and center agree: The nation faces ... more It is one of few statements upon which Americans left, right, and center agree: The nation faces a civic crisis. Polarization, rage, and militancy vie with cynicism, disengagement, and despair in the much-vaunted battle for America's political soul-all while trampling grace, deliberation, and cooperation underfoot. What can and should our institutions of higher education do to address this situation? Such a question demands at least as many responses as there are distinctive functions of higher education. This article explains one effort to answer it with reference to the sector's most visible-and arguably most essential-field of endeavor: undergraduate teaching and learning. The Third Way Civics initiative (3WC) unites institutions across the country in an experimental approach to civic learning in college, centered on a one-semester, credit-bearing course on American political and social development across time.
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History, Mar 26, 2019
An ungainly word, it has proven tenacious. Since the early Cold War, “Wilsonianism” has been empl... more An ungainly word, it has proven tenacious. Since the early Cold War, “Wilsonianism” has been employed by historians and analysts of US foreign policy to denote two historically related but ideologically and operationally distinct approaches to world politics. One is the foreign policy of the term’s eponym, President Woodrow Wilson, during and after World War I—in particular his efforts to engage the United States and other powerful nations in the cooperative maintenance of order and peace through a League of Nations. The other is the tendency of later administrations and political elites to deem an assertive, interventionist, and frequently unilateralist foreign policy necessary to advance national interests and preserve domestic institutions. Both versions of Wilsonianism have exerted massive impacts on US and international politics and culture. Yet both remain difficult to assess or even define. As historical phenomena they are frequently conflated; as philosophical labels they are ideologically freighted. Perhaps the only consensus is that the term implies the US government’s active rather than passive role in the international order. It is nevertheless important to distinguish Wilson’s “Wilsonianism” from certain doctrines and practices later attributed to him or traced to his influence. The major reasons are two. First, misconceptions surrounding the aims and outcomes of Wilson’s international policies continue to distort historical interpretation in multiple fields, including American political, cultural, and diplomatic history and the history of international relations. Second, these distortions encourage the conflation of Wilsonian internationalism with subsequent yet distinct developments in American foreign policy. The confused result promotes ideological over historical readings of the nation’s past, which in turn constrain critical and creative thinking about its present and future as a world power.
Journal of the History of Ideas, 2011
The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, Jun 30, 2023
In this March 24, 2017 interview with the Civic Caucus of Minnesota, I argue that citizens--who o... more In this March 24, 2017 interview with the Civic Caucus of Minnesota, I argue that citizens--who once were central to the processes of self-government in the United States--have been marginalized and are now relegated to the role of consumers of policy rather than co-constructors of public life. I then describe the Minnesota Civic Studies Initiative, which is one of several efforts nationwide to reclaim democracy as the work of citizens with the help of a university as catalyst.
Trygve Throntveit’s new book William James and the Quest for an Ethical Republic (Palgrave, 2014)... more Trygve Throntveit’s new book William James and the Quest for an Ethical Republic (Palgrave, 2014) is a persuasive and innovative look at the Jamesian social and political legacy. In committing to a pragmatist ethic that could accommodate varieties of individual and communal experience, James developed the concept of an "ethical republic" that was both an empirical given and an ever-improvable ideal to strive for. Throntveit reads James as above all a moral philosopher, whose interest in psychology, epistemology, and metaphysics derived from his effort to justify belief in human freedom and meaningful action. A major innovation lies in Throntveit's attention to how other thinkers applied, and sometimes modified, Jamesian ideas during the Progressive Era of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with direct impact on American political culture and policymaking at the highest levels--including several domestic and foreign policies of Woodrow Wilson.
SEARCH SITE Power without Victory WOODROW WILSON AND THE AMERICAN INTERNATIONALIST EXPE... more SEARCH SITE
Power without Victory
WOODROW WILSON AND THE AMERICAN INTERNATIONALIST EXPERIMENT
Power without Victory
TRYGVE THRONTVEIT
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416 pages | 6 x 9 | © 2017
For decades, Woodrow Wilson has been remembered as either a paternalistic liberal or reactionary conservative at home and as a naïve idealist or cynical imperialist abroad. Historians’ harsh judgments of Wilson are understandable. He won two elections by promising a deliberative democratic process that would ensure justice and political empowerment for all. Yet under Wilson, Jim Crow persisted, interventions in Latin America increased, and a humiliating peace settlement was forced upon Germany. A generation after Wilson, stark inequalities and injustices still plagued the nation, myopic nationalism hindered its responsible engagement in world affairs, and a second vastly destructive global conflict threatened the survival of democracy worldwide—leaving some Americans today to wonder what, exactly, the buildings and programs bearing his name are commemorating.
In Power without Victory, Trygve Throntveit argues that there is more to the story of Wilson than these sad truths. Throntveit makes the case that Wilson was not a “Wilsonian,” as that term has come to be understood, but a principled pragmatist in the tradition of William James. He did not seek to stamp American-style democracy on other peoples, but to enable the gradual development of a genuinely global system of governance that would maintain justice and facilitate peaceful change—a goal that, contrary to historical tradition, the American people embraced. In this brilliant intellectual, cultural, and political history, Throntveit gives us a new vision of Wilson, as well as a model of how to think about the complex relationship between the world of ideas and the worlds of policy and diplomacy.
"[B]oth a superb introduction to James's practical philosophy for newcomers as well as an indispe... more "[B]oth a superb introduction to James's practical philosophy for newcomers as well as an indispensable guide for more seasoned readers of his oeuvre."
"...[A] richly contextual account of James's moral, ethical, and political thought.... WILLIAM JA... more "...[A] richly contextual account of James's moral, ethical, and political thought.... WILLIAM JAMES AND THE QUEST FOR AN ETHICAL REPUBLIC provides an adroit account of how James's work speaks to the diverse, pluralistic political contexts of the twenty-first century."
Pragmatist philosopher William James has long been deemed a dubious guide to ethical reasoning. W... more Pragmatist philosopher William James has long been deemed a dubious guide to ethical reasoning. William James and the Quest for an Ethical Republic overturns such thinking, demonstrating the consistency and coherence of James's efforts to develop a flexible but rigorous framework for individuals and societies seeking freedom, meaning, and justice in a world of interdependence, uncertainty, and change.