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Agora Society, St Andrews (2025)

14/11/2025

Does Vagueness Have Value in Academia?
🗓️ November 17th | ⏰ 6-8pm |📍Aikman’s Cellar
Academic rigor is synonymous with precision, clarity, and well-defined terms. We are taught to eliminate ambiguity at all costs. But what if this drive for exactness sometimes blinds us to more complex truths? What if vagueness is not a failure of thought, but a necessary feature of it?
Is a precise but reductive answer more valuable than a vague but encompassing one? Are foundational concepts like “consciousness,” “justice,” or “the self” resistant to precise definition, and does their power lie in their very vagueness? Does imposing a strict definition on a fuzzy concept obscure its true nature? In fields from philosophy to quantum physics, is vagueness a provisional stage on the path to knowledge, or is it the final, inescapable destination? Is the demand for absolute clarity itself a form of intellectual tyranny?
Is vagueness the shadow we must dispel, or the ground from which new ideas can grow?
Join us to debate the unexpected utility of the unclear, the imprecise, and the ambiguously defined in the pursuit of knowledge.
Stop and think.
—Agora

10/11/2025

Do Soulmates Exist?
🗓️ November 10th | ⏰ 6-8pm |📍Aikman’s Cellar

The belief in a soulmate—a single, predestined person who completes us—is one of our most enduring cultural narratives. But is this idea a profound reflection of a fundamental human truth, or a philosophical failure with real-world consequences?

Does the concept of a soulmate grant meaning to our relationships, or does it outsource the responsibility of building them to fate? If we are inherently incomplete, does finding our “other half” mean we are entering a relationship of dependency rather than one of mutual fulfillment? Does the search for one perfect partner devalue the rich, complex tapestry of other connections that form a life?

From Plato’s myth of the androgyne to Sartre’s assertion that “hell is other people,” we are forced to ask: is the very idea of a soulmate a beautiful lie that protects us from the terrifying freedom of choosing who to love?

Is the search for a soulmate the search for a lock for our key, or are we simply collecting keys and deciding which doors are worth opening?

Join us to dissect the philosophy of love, destiny, and the narratives we build to make sense of our hearts.
Stop and think. —Agora

08/11/2025

Thank you to everyone who came out last night and who supported us by purchasing a copy, or many copies! We’ll see you on Monday!

05/11/2025

AGORA V: UNCOVER MAGAZINE LAUNCH
🗓️ Nov 7th | ⏰ 7:30-10pm |📍11 Hope St.

We are incredibly excited to announce the upcoming launch of the newest issue of the AGORA. Uncover is an exploration of the philosophy which we don’t acknowledge, which hides behind other disciplines, which hides in other corners of our lives.

We will have live music from Cruz Band at 8pm and the opportunity to buy copies of the AGORA. Please bring your own drinks as none will be provided. Consider the Signpost event at the Rule as our unofficial afters. We look forward to seeing you at the launch.

Stop and think.
— AGORA

03/11/2025

AGORA V: UNCOVER MAGAZINE LAUNCH
🗓️ Nov 7th | ⏰ 7:30-10pm |📍11 Hope St.

We are incredibly excited to announce the upcoming launch of the newest issue of the AGORA. Uncover is an exploration of the philosophy which we don’t acknowledge, which hides behind other disciplines, which hides in other corners of our lives.

We will have live music from 8pm and the opportunity to buy copies of the AGORA. Please bring your own drinks as none will be provided. We look forward to seeing you at the launch.

Stop and think.
— AGORA

31/10/2025

Can conspiracy theories be rational?
🗓️ November 3rd | ⏰ 6-8pm |📍Aikman’s Cellar

We refer to a wide range of ideas as conspiracy, some which are rational and some which lean into the world of science fiction. Popular media takes conspiracy theories and turns them into plot points of shows like Stranger Things and The X-Files. We can engage with them on social media and in news media.

Do theories have to be wrong in order to be labelled as conspiracy? Do they have to be irrational? If one is living under a government which is known to conceal the truth, is it irrational to believe conspiracy theories?

Are proven events, like MKUltra, still considered conspiracy theories because of their initial concealment? Is there a point at which something stops being a conspiracy that is separate from whether or not it is known to be true? Is there a required level of rationality, or lack thereof, to designate something as a conspiracy theory?

Join us to discuss the connection between truth, irrationality, and conspiracy.

Stop and Think.
— Agora

30/10/2025

AGORA V: UNCOVER MAGAZINE LAUNCH
🗓️ Nov 7th | ⏰ 7:30-10pm |📍To Be Announced

We are incredibly excited to announce the upcoming launch of the newest issue of the AGORA. Uncover is an exploration of the philosophy which we don’t acknowledge, which hides behind other disciplines, which hides in other corners of our lives.

We will have live music from 8pm and the opportunity to buy copies of the AGORA. Please bring your own drinks as none will be provided. We look forward to seeing you at the launch.

Stop and think.
— AGORA

25/10/2025

When we put on a costume are we revealing part of our “true self” or hiding from it entirely?
🗓️ October 27th | ⏰ 6-8pm |📍Aikman’s Cellar

We often think of costumes as a fun disguise, but what if they are a window into a deeper philosophical puzzle about who we are? From Halloween to cosplay, professional uniforms to the social masks we wear everyday, adopting a role forces us to confront the very nature of identity.

Is the freedom of a costume a chance to express a hidden, “truer” part of ourselves that social norms suppress? Or is the entire point to escape the constraints of our own identity, to play at being someone or something we are not? If we can so easily slip into another character, how fixed is our core “self” to begin with? Is the self a single, authentic essence, or is it a collection of performances and possibilities?

Does the mask reveal the face, or does the face hide behind the mask?

Join us to peel back the layers on the philosophy of identity, performance, and the costumes we all wear.

Stop and think.
—Agora

10/10/2025

Can the principles of Athenian democracy function within late-stage capitalism?
🗓️ October 13th | ⏰ 6-8pm |📍Aikman’s Cellar

The principles of Athenian Democracy (5th-4th c. BCE) are as follows:
Direct democracy, civic equality—such that political engagement was a moral duty for male citizens, and sortition: the selection by lot of wealthy, influential citizens for public office to more broadly distribute power. Despite philosophical ideas of equality, this system functioned with a socioeconomic context that depended on slavery, patriarchy, and the complete exclusion of non-citizens.

There is a great deal of tension between the late-stage capitalist modern world and the philosophical ideal of Athenian democracy. On one hand is democratic equality and participation and on the other is a capitalist hierarchy and market logic. Can direct or deliberative democracy survive within a market-driven society?

Is civic virtue possible in cultures where identity is reliant on consumption and individualism comes before community? In a capitalist world, would citizens’ assemblies further the influence of money in politics or stop it? Is the digital public sphere the modern version of the ‘agora’ or is it a distortion of productive discourse?

Join us to discuss the interaction between democracy and capitalism.

Stop and think.
—Agora

07/10/2025

We are happy to (very belatedly) announce the 2025-26 Agora Committee.
Tabitha Stuart and Jay Newman have taken over as co Editors-in-Chief and as Logistics and Creative Directors, respectively. Caitlin Conway works with all our contributors as the Writer Manager. Saskia Meir leads our weekly Philosophy & Pints as Well-Being and Discussions Coordinator. Natalia MacDonald creates and edits all graphics on socials and in print as our Head of Graphics. Last but certainly not least, Ian Ziegler manages our social media and marketing.
We are all looking forward to an incredible year of discussions and two new issues of the magazine.

Stop and Think.
—Agora

19/09/2025

Does language impact the ontological status of a given concept?
🗓️ Sept 22nd | ⏰ 6-8pm |📍Aikman’s Cellar

We often use language to speak about concepts that do not actually exist. It seems that there is a connection between the existence of things and the language we use to talk about them. When we speak about something that does not physically exist, there is a tension between the language we use and the ontological status of the subject of our speech.

Is it at all coherent for someone to say “I love unicorns” when unicorns don’t corporeally exist? If we are able to speak about a subject, then are we implying the subject’s existence? The ability to talk about a subject implies that the concept exists, but where does this conceptual existence fit into our idea of existence in general?

Join us to discuss the correlation between language and existence.

Stop and think.
— Agora

14/09/2025

How does the religious context of life after death impact our philosophical perspectives on the topic?
🗓️ Sept 15th | ⏰ 6-8pm |📍Aikman’s Cellar

When we frequently discuss a given philosophical topic within the same context, our perspectives could be shaped not just by the topic but by the surrounding framework. Discussions of life after death are almost always within a religious context. Likewise, discussions of moral obligations are often concerned with law and morality.

How do these contexts within which we discuss philosophical issues shape our perspectives on the issues themselves? Would we believe something different if life after death was brought up in a scientific context? If we separated discussions of freedom from discussions of politics?

Join us to discuss the significance of context in the study of philosophy.

Stop and think.
— Agora

Agora Society

14/11/2025

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31/10/2025

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