Erraticus

Erraticus is an online publication focused on human flourishing, taking a pragmatic approach to ideas. We care about ideas that help us to live well together, focusing on their practical consequences. We want to engage with ideas that work, minimizing the frequent fruitlessness that stems from barren dichotomies, rigid ideologies, and detached theorizing. We primarily publish long-form and short-form essays that blur the lines between the academic and our many publics, remaining intellectually rigorous and emotionally prescient. In addition to poetry, we are also home to the Damn the Absolute! podcast. Erraticus was founded in 2016 by Jeffrey Howard. Having experienced the rather infertile nature of approaching ideas or truth as abstract, universal, and unembodied, we seek to nurture views focused on the tangible fruits of ideas rather than merely their roots. A consistent feature of reality is one of change and contingency, both in nature and our human-created institutions. Because of this, we approach such matters with intellectual humility and open-mindedness rather than hold to hard categories or fixed dualisms. We resist reductivistic and overly theoretical views of the world. We value perspectives originating from experience, judging the merits of ideas based on the results they have for us in our practical lives. We believe better beliefs, knowledge, and, ultimately, meaning come through a community of inquirers, engaged with the questions of living, and that through such an approach, we can make our individual lives and communities better than they are today. While appreciating the accumulated wisdom of the past, we are forward-looking, realizing that what worked well in the past will not necessarily work well in the present nor in the future. In that spirit, we acknowledge the benefits and importance of a plurality of voices, especially at the local level where social, moral, and political concerns are most effectively addressed.