Electric Agora (archive)

Tag: Religion

  • Remarks on Religion

    By Daniel A. Kaufman ____ By now, most readers know that I am an atheist, as I do not believe in the existence of God or anything supernatural. Readers also likely know that I am Jewish by lineage and culturally and that I think God is useless both as an explanation and as a moral…

  • When Philosophy Gets Human Beings Wrong

    by Kevin Currie-Knight ____ In the past year, I’ve read two books on how people’s minds change. The latest, How Minds Change, is by science writer David McRaney. Previously, I’d read, Stop Being Reasonable, by philosopher Eleanor Gordon-Smith. Both attempt to drill into “what we know” about how real people in the real world go…

  • What the [Bleep] Can we Know? Montaigne and the “Apology for Raymond Sebond.”

    By Kevin Currie-Knight ___ [The following is a transcript of the video linked at the end.] My sense is that the world today is too full of confidence in belief. It seems like today, it is imperative not only to have a belief about everything – the right politics, the right stance toward religion, what…

  • Toleration

    by Kevin Currie-Knight ____ Suppose that you live next door to someone and think something about the way they live – their religion, their domestic arrangements, their politics, even their race – is wrong or objectionable. If you are a particularly grousy or dogmatic neighbor, you might take every occasion to let them know how…

  • An Ethical Response to Fascism

    by E. John Winner ___ There can be a profound difference between confrontation and conflict. Confrontation simply involves facing the world as it is, and facing others as they are. Doing so can bring out the most creative of our resources; the most charitable toward others. Conflict can establish unbreachable barriers between ourselves and others,…

  • More Questions

    by Daniel A. Kaufman Some more things I’ve been wondering about, from the serious to its opposite and everything in between. Not all of them – or any of them – need be questions for you, of course. ___ [1] Why would anyone do anything solely “on principle”? [2] Why should the fact that someone…

  • More Thoughts on Individualism and Cultural Embeddedness

    by Mark English ___ This post was prompted by some private discussion of a recent episode of my podcast, Culture and Value. The episode in question, entitled “Individualism and Cultural Embeddedness“, was centered – in fact the podcast in general is centered – around what you could see as the paradox of individualism: we are…

  • 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…

  • Sources of Human Diversity

    by Kevin Currie-Knight ___ People differ in all sorts of ways. Most of our differences generally go unnoticed when we interact. For example, with regard to a store clerk yesterday, I didn’t notice what her eye color or dominant hand is. But other differences, as the saying goes, make a difference. Historically and into the…

  • Kafkatraps, Cults, and Conspiracy Theories

    by Robert Gressis ___ I talk with Kevin Currie-Knight (East Carolina University) about Kafkatraps. Kafkatrapping is a rhetorical technique where an objection to a particular charge will be used as evidence of that charge. (Are you a communist? If you say “no,” that just shows how sneaky a communist you are.) Rob and Kevin talk…