Sondra Charbadze is a fourth-year Ph.D. student at SUNY Stony Brook, where she is studying phenomenology, philosophy of science, and philosophy of technology, with the goal of developing embodied, human-centered methodologies.

Link to your website: www.sondrawriter.com

What excites you about philosophy?

Its application to everything! As an undergraduate, I was able to conduct research with philosophy professors and a philosophy of psychology professor. Now I teach courses on topics such as philosophical engineering and computer science ethics. And because philosophy is the foundational intellectual discipline, I believe it contains all the resources universities need to navigate rapid changes in information technology, political upheaval, social reorganization, etc. By emphasizing deep reading, critical thinking, and embodied ethics, I believe we can train students to be relevant thinkers and actors in an age in which information output alone is easily outsourced to large language models.

What’s your favorite quote?

A quote that describes perfectly a philosophy worth practicing—not just an abstract enterprise, but the living of our questions into personal and social transformation:

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

-Rainer Maria Rilke

What topic do you think is under explored in philosophy?

The relationship between philosophy and the technological mediation of specific tools like speech, literacy, and contemporary digital technologies. In media studies and literary theory, many have thematized the relationship between rationality and literacy, but we philosophers generally take for granted the affordances and constraints of the technologies that enable our work. Even philosophers of technology (with some exceptions) analyze practically every technology but the ones that lie closest to our consciousness: speech, reading, and writing. In an age of a rapidly changing technological landscape, I believe we should come closer to the technologies that already shape our experience—intellectual and otherwise—theorizing what modes of thinking might follow a literate-dominate age.

What do you like to do outside work?

I love spending time with my friends and loved ones, walking barefoot outside, climbing trees, jogging, making plant-based meals, and reading poetry.

What time of day are you most productive and creative?

Mornings! I like to wake up before my daughter so I have time to meditate, read, or write. By the time she stumbles into the living room and is ready for our morning “snuggles and reading,” I’m awake enough to give her my full attention.

What are your goals and aspirations outside work?

In addition to philosophy, I am also a writer of literary fiction. A few years ago, I published a poetic memoir, The Sea Once Swallowed Me, about a summer spent living in the woods outside a Spanish village. Soon, I’d like to find a publisher for two other creative book projects that I’m working on.

This section of the APA Blog is designed to get to know our fellow philosophers a little better. We’re including profiles of APA members that spotlight what captures their interest not only inside the office, but also outside of it. We’d love for you to be a part of it, so please contact us via the interview nomination form here to nominate yourself or a friend.

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