A radical belief in all of us: an invitation to collective moral inquiry as democratic conversation

In this introductory essay we discuss Professor Bob Lake’s writing over the last several decades. While the substantive foci of that work have evolved over the years, a core concern for Lake has always been about moral inquiry as a democratic practice of knowledge production. We discuss the role that pragmatism has played in Lake’s work and the ways in which pragmatist ways of thinking and doing were evident in Lake’s writings even before his explicit engagement with the pragmatist tradition. We also introduce the other essays in this special section, and discuss how the authors engage with different parts of Lake’s body of work.