How to Handle Humility? Audaciously: A Response to Mark Tschaepe

Abstract

We address Mark Tschaepe’s response to Tibor Solymosi, in which Tschaepe argues that neuropragmatism needs to be coupled with humility in order to redress “dopamine democracy,” Tschaepe’s term for our contemporary situation of smartphone addiction that undermines democracy. We reject Tschaepe’s distinction between humility and fallibility, arguing that audacious fallibility is all we need. We take the opportunity presented by Tschaepe’s constructive criticism of neuropragmatism to reassert some central themes of neuropragmatism. We close with discussion of Bywater’s method of apprenticeship, as an imaginative education for creative democracy, thereby rejecting Tschaepe’s claim that neuropragmatism lacks a pedagogical method.

Keywords

• neuropragmatism
• dopamine democracy
• digital devices
• social media
• information and news
• education