Sophie Grace Chappell (Open University) talks with Kevin (East Carolina University) about her book Epiphanies: An Ethics of Experience. 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 their role in everyday mo…

Moti Gorin (Colorado State) talks with Holly Lawford-Smith (University of Melbourne) about her new book, "Gender Critical Feminism" (Oxford University Press).By Daniel A. Kaufman

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 …

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 Anti-Realism (Dan and Kevin), Foundationalism (maybe Rob) and anti-Foundationalism (Dan and Kevin), and what we do when we attempt to ground and jus…

Robert, Kevin and I inaugurate a new feature at EA: a New Year's Contributors' Roundtable. Publication was delayed due to my father's death, so please excuse the discussion's lateness. Most if not all of what we discussed remains relevant -- Covid-19, though of course, this was recorded well before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.…

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. They talk about such things as why the modern world relentlessly seeks meaning in everything, whether nihilism is a viable or liberating response, and whether/how nihilism is reco…

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 -…

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 fiction of Percival Everett, …

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 more. 01:00 On the "Growing Up" Essays by Dan and Kevi…

00:35 About Lise van Boxel and St. John’s College 06:00 Nietzsche and Nihilism 12:50 The Good, the Transcendent, and Nihilism 19:00 Philosophy as Genealogy 29:30 On the concept of “Warspeak” 41:00 On the question of Authority and authorities 47:00 Nietzsche and Hume 51:00 What is distinctive about van Boxel’s take on Nietzsche? 58:00 Nietzsche and …

Milton Lawson, author of Thompson Heller: Detective Interstellar (Source Point, 2021) and I do a deep dive into all things Doctor WHO. 03:50 Russell T. Davies returns to Doctor Who 10:00 Discontent with New WHO 13:00 How Milton and I got into Doctor WHO 27:50 Classic vs. New WHO 45:30 Favorite Doctors 1:17:00 Favorite Companions 1:25:00 Favorite Ep…

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. 01:10 Does longevity add value, cont'd. 09:35 Morality …

The first 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. 02:50 Meaning in vs. meaning of life 36:00 The nature of…

The second in a planned series of dialogues between Sheena Mason (SUNY Oneonta) and Kevin Currie-Knight (East Carolina) on philosophies of race. In this dialogue, Sheena and Kevin flesh out the difference between saying that race is a social construction and (Sheena's position) that race isn't real in any sense. 3:23 - Kevin's Confusion: what is th…

I talk with Helen Joyce, British editor of The Economist, about her new book: Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality (Simon & Schuster).By Daniel A. Kaufman

I talk with Dr. Louise Moody about perception, “illusion style” arguments, and J.L. Austin. Louise has a PhD in philosophy and is an independent philosopher and feminist campaigner.By Daniel A. Kaufman

Kevin Currie-Knight and Sheena Mason (SUNY Oneonta) discuss Sheena's theory of racelessness, why she is a race skeptic and eliminativist, and their mutual interest in the race satire of Harlem Renaissance writer George Schuyler. :05 - Why talk about race always seems so polarized and partisan 7:45 - Sheena is a skeptic and eliminativist about race.…

I spoke with Robert Talisse of Vanderbilt University about his new book "Sustaining Democracy: What We Owe to the Other Side " (Oxford UP, 2021). 2:00 - The relationship between “Sustaining Democracy” and “Overdoing Democracy” 17:45 - The democrat’s dilemma and the conflict between the two moral requirements of democratic citizenship. 32:45 - Group…

E. John Winner and Dan Kaufman (Electric Agora) talk about the Marx Brothers and their relationship to American Comedy. 1:30 Vaudeville, Burlesque, and Musical Theater 11:20 The Jewish Marx Brothers and “Playing in Peoria” 22:00 Writing for the Marx Brothers / Relationship with George Kaufman 27:40 Becoming the Marx Brothers 34:00 Marxian Themes 55…

Jay Jeffers (The Partially Examined Life) and Dan Kaufman discuss the beginnings of MTV and their recollections of it, on this 40th anniversary of the music channel. 3:40 - Aug 1 marks the 40th Anniversary of the launching of MTV in its “original iteration.” 6:20 - How Jay and Dan first got into KISS 13:30 - Jay and Dan discuss their personal histo…

In this episode, Ben Blaisdell (East Carolina University, Kevin's department-mate) talks about critical race theory (CRT) and its applicability to k-12 education. Ben's research and work in schools relies heavily on critical race frameworks, and at a time where people are so polarized about CRT, Ben explains what it is, what it's not, what critics …

In this conversation, I talk with higher education anthropologist Susan Blum (Notre Dame) about her work on how students experience higher education. We also talk about an essay collection she recently edited called Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What To Do Instead). 0:58 - How Students Navigate and Experience School; It Ai…

Kevin talks with Samantha Hedges (Heterodox Academy, Substack) about recent articles she has written criticizing critical-race-influenced approaches to diversity and equity training in schools. They talk about why Samantha believes that these trainings inadvertently stoke racial division as well as the possibility of an alternative "common humanity…

Kevin Currie-Knight (East Carolina University) and David Labaree (Professor Emeritus, Stanford University) talk about the history and meaning of academic freedom. They talk about whether there has ever been a “golden age” where academics were safe to be heterodox (no), and what academic freedom means in an age of social media and the in-group polic…

Rob and Kevin make small talk ... Kevin describes and laments the grade economy ... What's the relationship between grades and learning? ... Bryan Caplan's "The Case Against Education" and how it has traumatized Rob ... Unschooling ... If schools suck so much, how did Rob and Kevin learn? ...By meaningoflife.tv

Robert Gressis (California State Northridge) and Kevin Currie-Knight (East Carolina University) hae a wide-ranging conversation about the (fraught?) relationship between schooling, learning, and A-F grading. The discussion centers around an essay Currie-Knight wrote called Against the Grade Economy: https://theelectricagora.com/2020/12/... 00:02:36…

A new home for Sophia ... The (latest) defenestration of Kathleen Stock ... How sincere are pro-trans rights public intellectuals? ... Justin Weinberg's essay on the Kathleen Stock incident ... David: "It's the squishy middles that are gonna kill us" ... Dan: deplatforming people on social media is effectively censorship ... The death of public dis…

This episode's guest is not normal... and that is a GREAT thing. Jonathan Mooney is an author, speaker, entrepreneur, and activist within the disability rights community. Before all that, he was a kid struggling in school with various diagnosed disabilities, told that he just wasn't normal. Today we talk about his recent book Normal Sucks, where he…

Kevin's book, Education in the Marketplace ... Dan and Kevin's concern for Coleman Hughes' intellectual freedom ... How young is too young for movement conservatism? ... What was the Intellectual Dark Web? ... The IDW's central contradiction ... How Dan got involved with the conservative movement ... ... ... and why he left it ... Dan's advice to H…

Megan: philosophy of religion shouldn't focus on "proofs for God" ... Determining rational grounds for supernaturalism ... Why Dan rejects epistemic foundationalism ... Megan's Christian agnosticism, Dan's Jewish atheism ... Wittgenstein's engagement with philosophy of religion ... What kind of authority would it be good for us to submit to? ... Da…

Robert's essay, "The Philosophy Rapture" ... What counts as "relevant" philosophy? ... Philosophy's "dirty insider game" ... Why are great philosophers overrepresented at elite universities? ... Generational decline, intellectual and attitudinal ... Do intellectual celebrity cultures produce shrinking intellectual gene pools? ... Dan: Our present-d…

The new issue of Milton's comic book, Thompson Heller: Detective Interstellar ... Christopher Hitchens' influence on Milton's comic ... The anxieties of robot personhood ... The economic determinants of comic book production ... How a new comic writer finds an artist ... The comic book art division of labor ... Thompson Heller's future ...…