Electric Agora (archive)

Tag: Events

  • On Wanting and Doing: A Conversation with CriSpin Sartwell

    by Daniel A. Kaufman ____ In this episode of Sophia, I talk with Crispin Sartwell of Dickinson College about my essay, “Wanting and Doing.” [https://theelectricagora.com/2021/05/25/wanting-and-doing/] We discuss action, desire, and powerlessness as understood in Christian theology and contemporary addiction discourse.  https://youtu.be/F4zXOajVfmQ 4:04 Wanting and doing in Christian and Addiction Discourse. 36:54 Overeating and the Problem…

  • Wanting and Doing

    by Daniel A. Kaufman ___ I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. –Paul, Letter to the Romans 7.15 (Revised Standard Version) ___ Remarks by Crispin Sartwell on addiction, during our second dialogue on my Prolegomena for a Pluralist Metaphysics,…

  • Prolegomena for a Pluralist Metaphysics: Initial Impressions

    by Daniel A. Kaufman ___ A number of recent – and not so recent – essays and shorter pieces, plus several dialogues with Massimo Pigliucci and discussions on Twitter have begun to converge in my mind around several points, all of which suggest (a) a fundamentally pluralist metaphysics and (b) a central role for Wilfrid…

  • Course Notes – Paul Churchland, “Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes”

    by Daniel A. Kaufman https://ruccs.rutgers.edu/images/personal-zenon-pylyshyn/class-info/FP2012_readings/Churchland_EliminativeMaterialsm.pdf In the philosophy of mind, apart from sensations, with their perplexing “qualia,” intentional states, the so-called “propositional attitudes,” have proven materialism’s biggest headache.  Materialism’s greatest hope, functionalism – and particularly its computational variety – ran into trouble with the propositional attitudes by way of the Chinese (or at least, one…