Fresh perspectives on historical materialism and anti-racism: a call for pluralist, agonistic and epistemically virtuous dialogue

Longstanding debates divide historical materialist and anti-racist scholars, yet concentrated wealth, grotesque economic inequalities, resurgent White supremacy, far-right autocracies and plutocracies, and the climate crisis demand new forms of political and scholarly engagement. If dialogue is central to knowledge and liberation, scholars must examine the assumptions shaping their dialogical encounter. In a triple movement, historical materialists and anti-racists are invited: first, to renounce monist ambitions for a single, unitary analysis of the world as-it-is and the world-as-it-could-be, so as to embrace a pluralist recognition that reasonable people may disagree in their social analyses and normative visions; second, to relinquish antagonistic debate aimed at eliminating rival perspectives, instead engaging agonistic dialogue that fosters mutual elucidation of deep-seated conflicts among epistemic peers; and third, to avoid epistemically arrogant encounters marked by inadequate recognition of our fallibility, by cultivating virtuous habits of appropriate humility and open-mindedness when engaging with epistemic peers who hold different views to our own. This procedural focus thus calls for pluralistic, agonistic and epistemically virtuous dialogue. Ultimately, the aim is to open up fresh possibilities for generative dialogue between historical materialists and anti-racists and pathways beyond an intolerant, polarized and unjust present.