Promoting Hope as a Virtue: Jacob Goodson

Jacob L. Goodson returns to Things Not Seen with a bold new book that explores the possibilities and dangers that arise when a philosopher tries to make prophesies about the future.

In the late 1990s, the American secular philosopher Richard Rorty published a set of predictions about the twenty-first century. He predicted, for instance, the election of a “strong man” in the 2016 presidential race and the proliferation of gun violence starting in 2014. Rorty said the years from 2014–44 would be the darkest years of American history, politics, and society.

In his new book, The Dark Years? Philosophy, Politics, and the Problem of Predictions, Goodson explains the fullness of Rorty’s predictions, the problem of making predictions within the social sciences, and the reasons why even Rorty’s vision for life after the “dark years” fails us.

Jacob L. Goodson is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas.