Electric Agora (archive)

Category: Sophia

  • 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…

  • A Conversation with Holly Lawford-Smith

    by Moti Gorin ____ Moti Gorin (Colorado State) talks with Holly Lawford-Smith (University of Melbourne) about her new book, “Gender Critical Feminism” (Oxford University Press). Please pardon us for some choppiness in Moti’s audio/video. 0:00–25:06 Background and Opposition 25:06–35:00 Overview of Gender Critical Feminism 35:00–50:00 Gender Critical vs “Mainstream”/“Liberal” Feminism 50:00–58:55 Engaging with “the Literature”…

  • Getting Personal About Race and “Transracial” Families

    by Kevin Currie-Knight ____ Sheena (SUNY Oneanta) and Kevin (East Carolina University) continue an ongoing conversation about the idea of race and Sheena’s arguments about racelessnes. This episode gets more personal about Sheena’s and Kevin’s respective connections to “transracial” families. Sheena was adopted into a “transracial” family and Kevin is adopting a daughter who is…

  • What Can Philosophy Actually Do?

    by Daniel A. Kaufman ____ Robert Gressis (Cal State Northridge), Dan Kaufman (Missouri State) and Kevin Currie-Knight (East Carolina) discuss what is and isn’t realistic to expect of philosophy. Topics include realism (Rob) and antirealism (Dan and Kevin), Foundationalism (maybe Rob) and anti-Foundationalism (Dan and Kevin), and what we do when we attempt to ground…

  • Belated New Year Contributors’ Roundtable

    by Robert Gressis, Daniel Kaufman, and Kevin Currie-Knight ___ Robert, Kevin and I inaugurate a new feature at EA: a New Years Contributors’ Roundtable. Publication was delayed due to my father’s passing, so please excuse the discussion’s lateness. Most if not all of what we discussed remains relevant, though of course, this was recorded well…

  • A Sunny Nihilism?

    by Kevin Currie-Knight ___ Kevin Currie-Knight (East Carolina University) chats with Wendy Syfret (VICE Asia) about her new book The Sunny Nihilist: How a Meaningless Life Can Make You Truly Happy. We talk about why the modern world relentlessly seeks meaning in everything, whether nihilism is a viable or liberating response, and whether/how nihilism is…

  • Assessing Richard Hanania’s Conservatism

    by Robert Gressis ___ In this episode, Robert Gressis (philosophy, California State University, Northridge) and David Leitch (political science, California State University, Northridge) discuss the work of aspiring conservative public intellectual, Richard Hanania. 01:01 – Let’s talk about sex, baby! 04:44 – Hanania’s master idea—give the right a policy program. 15:57 – Wokeness and civil…

  • The (Im)Possibility of Discussion on Social Media

    by Kevin Currie-Knight ___ Sheena Mason (SUNY Oneonta) and Kevin Currie-Knight dialogue about the perils and promises of discussion on social media. (Sheena is more optimistic about the potential than Kevin is.) Along the way, they talk about perspectives on truth and whether humans are capable of getting it in an objective way, the postmodern-y…

  • StartUps: Breaking Through Three Cultures, by Alexander Kaufman

    Part One ___ Alexander Kaufman’s Startups: Breaking Through Three Cultures may look like a biography at first glance, but it really is the story of a distinctively 20th century man, and in that sense it is also a story of the 20th century itself. It is the tale of the trip that my father took…

  • Growing Up Metal and Grunge

    by Daniel Kaufman & Kevin Currie-Knight ____ EA’s own Kevin Currie-Knight and I discuss our respective essays, Growing up Metal and Growing up Grunge. We talk about the appeal of heavy music and different conceptions of masculinity, the differences between early and late Gen Xers, growing up in the 1970’s and ’80’s, authenticity, and much…