**Every Sunday, a new lecture. Our meeting starts at 9:00 AM with a friendly conversation, then a dialogue at 9:15 AM, and a Q&A discussion follows.**

This week, we turn to three thinkers who each, in their own era, tried to answer a single question: How does language create the world we live in?

We begin with G.W.F. Hegel’s Philosophy of History, where meaning unfolds through a dialectic of conflict, transformation, and higher synthesis. For Hegel, world history is the story of spirit coming to know itself—not through abstract ideas alone, but through the concepts, laws, and narratives communities use to interpret their actions. Language is the medium in which a people become self-aware: every historical era inherits a vocabulary, reshapes it through experience, and ultimately replaces it as new principles emerge. Meaning is thus a social, historical achievement expressed in shared stories, norms, and institutions.

Next, we move to Jürgen Habermas, who reframed this historical process in terms of communication. Habermas argues that language is the space where subjects negotiate truth, coordinate action, and build a shared world. Meaning is not merely inherited—it is co-created through the give-and-take of rational dialogue. His theory of communicative action explains how norms, values, and even democracy depend on linguistic practices that allow people to justify claims and test ideas.

Finally, we turn to Timotheus Vermeulen & Robin van den Akker, founders of metamodernism, who describe our contemporary landscape as one of oscillation. Today, language swings between sincerity and irony, hope and doubt, unity and fragmentation. Digital systems amplify this oscillation, producing hybrid communication forms—memes, remix culture, layered irony—that constantly shift the frames through which meaning is generated. Metamodernism helps explain why modern communication feels both deeply earnest and self-aware, both idealistic and skeptical.

Together, Hegel, Habermas, and metamodernist theory help us explore a profound question of the digital age:

If language is the medium of history, democracy, and identity, what happens when our communication systems are reorganized by algorithms and platforms?

Join Plato’s Cave and the Orlando Stoics for a rich discussion on meaning, communication, and the evolving structures of understanding.

**READING MATERIALS**

**G.W.F. Hegel – History & Meaning**
Hegel – Wikipedia
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._W._F._Hegel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._W._F._Hegel)
**Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Hegel** - **We will be focusing on section 3..2.2**
[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hegel/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hegel/)

**Habermas:** Wikipedia
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_Habermas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_Habermas)
**Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Habermas**
[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/habermas/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/habermas/)

**Vermeulen & van den Akker – Metamodernism**
**Metamodernism**
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamodernism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamodernism)
**Notes on metamodernism**
[https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3402/jac.v2i0.5677](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3402/jac.v2i0.5677)

**TIMEZONES**
For our members in other states:
6:00 AM — Pacific Time USA
7:00 AM — Mountain Time USA
8:00 AM — Central Time USA
9:00 AM — Eastern Time USA
For members in other countries, please convert time using:
[https://www.worldtimebuddy.com](https://www.worldtimebuddy.com/)

The meeting begins at 9:00 AM Eastern, with dialogue starting 9:15 AM sharp.

Joe Bullock

Rebecca Wright

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History, Dialogue, and Metamodern Communication

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History, Dialogue, and Metamodern Communication

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