Electric Agora (archive)

Author: Daniel Kaufman

  • Epiphanies and Moral Life

    by Kevin Currie-Knight ___ Sophie Grace Chappell (Open University) talks with Kevin (East Carolina University) about her book Epiphanies: An Ethics of Experience. (Oxford: 2022) They talk about what epiphanies are, why they should count as a type of reason (often more persuasive than more formal conceptions of reason), and why philosophers should better appreciate…

  • Varieties of Nationalism

    by Mark English ___ Patriotism comes in many shapes and sizes. It remains a key factor in politics and international relations. In this episode, Mark English continues his reflections on patriotism and nationalism, referring to a curious and revealing passage from Margery Allingham’s 1941 novel, Traitor’s Purse. Reference is also made to criticisms of previously-expressed…

  • The Uses of Philosophy

    By Daniel A. Kaufman ___ [1] We need to distinguish between philosophy and what people have called philosophy. Physics is not philosophy and neither is biology, yet once, they — and the rest of the natural sciences — went under the name “natural philosophy.”  [2] I would identify philosophy with a set of tools and techniques,…

  • Categories: Limited; Inevitable; Necessary

    By Kevin Currie-Knight ___ “I wonder if we will ever stop putting people into these categories. Could we ever just allow people to be individuals?” The student said this as we were talking after class. What started off as a conversation about class, where we were discussing the politics of banning books in schools, became…

  • Why I am Not a Rortyan but Would Like to Be

    By Jay Jeffers ___ There is no rivalry like an intrastate rivalry. In the state of Pragmatism, the game of the week is always Richard Rorty vs. Hilary Putnam. Nothing ever gets settled, but the effort is there. This is the third and likely final entry in an ongoing attempt to settle a few things.…

  • Hybridity and Why It Matters

    by Kevin Currie-Knight ___ Academics sure can take simple everyday things and make them complicated. Or complicated things and make them simple. I’m not sure which it is when we come to what some call “hybridity,” which is what happens when folks create fusions between cultural worlds, taking things from different cultures and smashing them…

  • Where Does Racism Come From? A Response to Michael Huemer

    By Kevin Currie-Knight ___ Philosopher Michael Huemer thinks we should stop talking to kids about race so much, at least in their social studies classes at school. In a recent piece for the Fake Nous, he argues that if racism is at all evident in today’s culture, it probably has to do with the fact…

  • Philosophical Questions and their Answers

    By Daniel A. Kaufman ___ It seems that many – most? – philosophers think that what philosophy is about is arriving at true positions on subjects ranging from morality, to knowledge, to reality, and the like. They think there is a determinate answer as to whether moral realism or anti-realism is true or whether the…

  • New Things on the Horizon

    by Daniel A. Kaufman ___ Readers will notice that The Electric Agora has received a significant makeover. This is not all that is coming to the magazine that is new, however. This reskin is the first step in what will be an expansion of The Electric Agora to include a new fiction and arts “wing.”…

  • American Crises: Mental Health and Political Polarization

    by Preston Stovall ___ U.S. citizens are facing a crisis in political polarization and mental health today. Over the last decade, rates of self-harm and depression have skyrocketed among young Americans. This impact is not evenly distributed across the population, however, as it is centered on heavy users of social media (“heavy use” varies from…