Electric Agora (archive)

Tag: Science

  • 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,…

  • 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…

  • Individualism and cultural embeddedness

    by Mark English ___ Mark English talks about his general goal of presenting and defending a form of individualism which takes seriously our cultural embeddedness, noting that universal political prescriptions – to the extent that they can be applied at all – are rarely successful. He refers to the surprising origins of neo-liberalism in Europe…

  • MEANING, INTELLIGIBILITY, MORALITY, AND GOD: A CONVERSATION WITH JOSHUA RASMUSSEN, PART 2

    by Daniel A. Kaufman ____ The second of a two-part conversation with Joshua Rasmussen of Azusa Pacific University on a broad variety of issues, related to the meaning of life, morality, the intelligibility of the world, and God. Technical difficulties interrupted us, so the conversation is being presented in two parts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8vwO9YSq-0&ab_channel=ElectricAgora 01:10 Does longevity…

  • Dialogues with Crispin on the Prolegomena: Vol. 3

    The third of my ongoing series of discussions with Crispin Sartwell on my Prolegomena for a Pluralist Metaphysics. https://youtu.be/Pmh39dGfgrM

  • Prolegomena for a Pluralist Metaphysics: Philosophy, Science, and “Common Sense”

    by Daniel A. Kaufman ___ As these prolegomena begin to wind down, I want to step back and speak a bit more generally about the conception of philosophy – and of inquiry more generally — from which they spring. Sellars, of course, in the opening paragraphs of “Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man,” gave…

  • More Thoughts on Knowledge and Higher Education

    by Mark English Last month I wrote a short piece on what I see as a rapidly developing crisis in the education sector and beyond. Open-ended and exploratory, my observations were part of an ongoing attempt to articulate and defend a basically knowledge-centred view of learning and culture. I referred briefly to the arts, but…

  • Theory and Practice

    by Mark English ____ Disruptions to business as usual, such as we have been experiencing in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, inevitably raise questions regarding which activities are essential or important for a good or fulfilling life, and which may be happily dispensed with. Answers to such questions will, of course, often be very…

  • Prolegomena for a Pluralist Metaphysics: The Scientific and Manifest Images

    by Daniel A. Kaufman ____ I’ve characterized contemporary philosophy as beset by a number of “intellectually desperate” views that have come not just to mar the discipline but have led too many outstanding philosophers to waste their time and considerable talents. Of course, philosophy has always entertained views that when subjected to sober reflection and…