Freedom without foundations: Huxley, Arendt, and a pragmatist defense against ideology

This paper offers a pragmatist defense of freedom in a post-realist world. Taking as a starting point the challenge posed to normative anti-realism—if there are no moral truths, what prevents politics from devolving into ideological domination? I argue that freedom must be sustained not by metaphysical guarantees but by practices of critical thinking. To develop this claim, I read Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Brave New World Revisited alongside Hannah Arendt’s reflections on ideology and thinking, situated within the pragmatist tradition of William James, John Dewey, and Jane Addams. Huxley dramatizes the dangers of ideological conformity through pleasure and manipulation, while Arendt shows how modern freedom, lacking metaphysical foundations, depends on the fragile space of appearance sustained by thought and dialogue. Dewey’s vision of democracy as inquiry, Addams’s ethics of sympathetic community, and James’s pluralism amplify this insight: the pragmatist backbone of the argument is democracy-as-inquiry—democracy functions as cooperative inquiry (social problem-solving). Freedom is not a possession or a metaphysical truth but a practice—consisting in resisting closure and keeping the world open. I conclude that education for freedom must cultivate habits of reflection, plurality, and judgment, offering a pragmatist response to the vulnerabilities of post-realist politics.