Reason, Foundationalism, and the Anarchist Tradition

227 Pages·2017·0.98 MB·English

Florida International University
FIU Digital Commons
FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations University Graduate School
6-23-2016
Anarchy and Anti-Intellectualism: Reason,
Foundationalism, and the Anarchist Tradition
Joaquin A. Pedroso
[email protected]
DOI:10.25148/etd.FIDC000744
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Pedroso, Joaquin A., "Anarchy and Anti-Intellectualism: Reason, Foundationalism, and the Anarchist Tradition" (2016).FIU Electronic
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FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY
Miami, Florida

ANARCHY AND ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM: REASON, FOUNDATIONALISM,
AND THE ANARCHIST TRADITION

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
in
POLITICAL SCIENCE
by
Joaquin A. Pedroso
2016
To: Dean John F. Stack, Jr.
Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs

This dissertation, written by Joaquin A. Pedroso, and entitled Anarchy and Anti-
Intellectualism: Reason, Foundationalism, and the Anarchist Tradition, having been
approved in respect to style and intellectual content, is referred to you for judgment.

We have read this dissertation and recommend that it be approved.

_______________________________________
Paul Warren

_______________________________________
Bruce Hauptli

_______________________________________
Ronald Cox

_______________________________________
Harry Gould

_______________________________________
Clement Fatovic, Major Professor

Date of Defense: June 23, 2016

The dissertation of Joaquin A. Pedroso is approved.

_______________________________________
Dean John F. Stack, Jr.
Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs

_______________________________________
Andrés G. Gil
Vice President for Research and Economic Development
and Dean of the University Graduate School

Florida International University, 2016

ii
DEDICATION
To my mother and father.

iii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This dissertation would have been impossible were it not for the generous
assistance of many people. I would first like to acknowledge the hard work of my
dissertation committee. I would like to thank the head of my dissertation committee,
Professor Clement Fatovic, for his patient and steadfast guidance throughout this project.
He has served as an example of both scholarly and pedagogical integrity. I would also
like to thank Professor Harry Gould for his pragmatic advice on academic matters. I think
I have absorbed and internalized his grounded humility and anti-foundationalist approach
to teaching and scholarship. I would like to thank Professor Ronald Cox for his
unwavering support of not only this project but also his support of and concern for the
graduate student body. His solidarity with students is an inspiration for my own work. I
would also like to thank Professor Bruce Hauptli for his dedication to this project and for
his detailed, insightful, and constructive feedback. I am especially grateful for his
eagerness to tackle the philosophical content of the project and his enthusiastic
encouragement throughout the whole process. Moreover, if it were not for the direct and
constructive criticism of Professor Paul Warren this dissertation would have never taken
the shape it has. His disagreements with the scope of the project helped me sharpen my
aims and better understand exactly what I was up to.
This dissertation would not have been possible were it not for the generous
funding of the Department of Politics and International Relations at Florida International
University. I would also like to thank the English Department at Florida International
University for the opportunity to participate in the Interdisciplinary Writing Teaching
iv
Assistantship program that not only facilitated two extra years of funding but also
afforded me an opportunity to engage with interesting pedagogical material I would have
otherwise not tackled. The faculty in the Department of Politics and International
Relations has been central to providing a stimulating atmosphere and an intellectual space
for conceiving of this project. I would like to especially thank Professor Rebecca Salokar
for striving to maintain a warm and welcoming environment that is mirrored in the
graduate student body. She is an inspiration in more ways than one. I would also like to
thank Professor Tatiana Kostadinova for her help in tying loose administrative ends and
helping me finalize this project. I would also like to thank the wonderful staff at the
Department of Politics and International Relations who consistently and enthusiastically
help me with administrative matters that can rack the brain to the point of exhaustion.
They have been invaluable throughout my graduate education. It was a genuine pleasure
to share many informal conversations, espresso coffees, and occasionally office space
with them.
I have benefitted from informal talks with many professors and colleagues
including Professor Judith Stiehm, Professor Dario Moreno, Professor George Kovacs,
Professor Ingvild Torsen, Professor Francois Debrix, Professor Sean Walsh, Bryant
Sculos, Nicolas Terradas, Yonas Mulat, Fiacre Bienvenu, Mirsad Krijestorac, Nima
Baghdadi, Sylvan Lee, Ana Podcameni, Randford Edwards Jr., Thomas J. Liguori, and
many others. I would like to especially thank Professor Juan Carlos Espinosa for his
guidance and special insight into our shared cultural heritage and how it relates to
navigating academia. Though many of these discussions were often only tangential to the
content of this dissertation they nevertheless helped shape its contours.
v
I would also like to thank friends outside of the department with whom I engaged
and tested the material in this dissertation and who helped tame my many moments of
frustration and occasionally pushed me to overcome my emotional funks during the
writing process, even if unwittingly. Juan Cuba, Jenny Blando, Laura Ortega Palma, and
Eduardo Palma deserve special recognition for regularly being my intellectual punching
bags and for being eager to hit back. I know I have grown, professionally, intellectually,
and personally, with their help and I am thankful for their sincere friendship.
Relating basic concepts of anarchy to issues of social justice over many coffee
breaks involving stimulating hours-long conversations with Professor Maria Willumsen
is something I am especially thankful for. Her vitality and dedication to what matters
continues to animate my work. I would also like to thank the graduate student body as a
whole for providing a collegial and welcoming atmosphere as well as thank my students
who passionately engage with me and indulge me in what I love. In particular, I would
like to thank Rachel Stevens, whose senior thesis I supervised, whose own struggles with
writing and tackling a difficult, often nebulous, subject matter taught me the importance
of considering ourselves perpetual beginners. She is proof that we often learn plenty from
those who do not think themselves in a position to teach.
They all, in one way or another, helped me solidify my views, sharpen my
arguments, or simply garner inspiration and encouraged me to tackle unpopular topics in
academia. Any faults are, of course, solely the responsibility of the author.
Lastly, without the unconditional love and unfailing support of my family this
project would never have been completed.

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ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION
ANARCHY AND ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM: REASON, FOUNDATIONALISM,
AND THE ANARCHIST TRADITION
by
Joaquin A. Pedroso
Florida International University, 2016
Miami, Florida
Professor Clement Fatovic, Major Professor
Some contemporary anarchist scholarship has rejected the Enlightenment-inspired
reliance on reason that was supposedly central to classical anarchist thought and
expanded the anarchist critique to address issues ignored by their classical
predecessors. In making reason the object of critique, some contemporary anarchists
expanded the anarchist framework to include critiques of domination residing outside the
traditional power centers of the state, the capitalist firm, and the church thereby shedding
light on the authoritarian tendencies inherent in the intellect itself.
Though contemporary anarchist scholarship has sought to apply this anti-
authoritarian ethos to the realms of epistemology and ontology (by employing Michel
Foucault’s analysis of power and other postfoundational thinkers), their own framework
of analysis is glaringly susceptible to what Habermas called a “performative
contradiction.” In questioning the authority of aspects of even our own intellect (and the
epistemological and ontological presuppositions that accompany it) we call into question
even the authority of our own argumentation.
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I answer this “contradiction” by interrogating two intellectual traditions. Firstly, I
question a key postfoundational anarchist premise. Namely, I assess whether an
understanding of classical anarchist thinkers as quintessential children of the
Enlightenment is justified. Secondly, I offer an alternative path to reconciliation between
the anti-authoritarian values of the anarchists and the anti-metaphysical values of the
postfoundationalists (that I think mirrors anarchist anti-authoritarian concerns) by
suggesting we are better served to think of an anti-authoritarianism of the intellect by
employing three key twentieth century thinkers: Richard Rorty, Paul Feyerabend, and
Ludwig Wittgenstein. I do so while anchoring Rorty’s, Feyerabend’s, and Wittgenstein’s
philosophies in the 19th century anti-metaphysical thought of Friedrich Nietzsche and the
philosophical anarchism of Max Stirner.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

Introduction: Anarchy, Reason, and Anti-Intellectualism………………………………...1
Chapter 1: Contextualizing and Theorizing Anarchist Anti-Intellectualism…………….25
Chapter 2: Reason, Anti-Intellectualism, and the Reluctant Modernism of William
Godwin and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon……………………………………...……………..48
Chapter 3: Reason, Science, and Anti-Intellectualism in Mikhail Bakunin and Peter
Kropotkin………………………………………………………………………………...89
Chapter 4: Anti-Authoritarianism as Anti-Intellectualism: Stirner, Nietzsche, and the
Anarchic Politics of Postfoundationalism……………………………………………....136
Conclusion: Towards Public Irony……………………………………………………..183
Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………206
VITA………………………………………………………………………………........216
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