Our practices of holding people morally and legally responsible for what they do rests on causal relationships between our mental states and our actions – a desire for revenge or a fear for one’s safety may cause a violent act. In either case, John Campbell argues, there is a psychological causal process that leads from the motivating mental state to the act ... Show More
Today
Catherine Elgin, "Epistemic Ecology" (MIT Press, 2025)
Humans are highly inquisitive, yet fallible and cognitively limited. How can we improve our epistemic lot despite our limitations? In Epistemic Ecology (MIT Press, 2025), Catherine Elgin develops a model in which individuals learn to rely on communal epistemic resources, such as ... Show More
1 h
Feb 18
John Drabinski, "So Unimaginable a Price: Baldwin and the Black Atlantic" (Northwestern UP, 2025)
What happens if we turn to James Baldwin, not just for the amazing quotations and excellent photos, but as a critical theorist? What if we read his nonfiction philosophically? What can Baldwin help us understand and do now? In So Unimaginable a Price: Baldwin and the Black Atlant ... Show More
59m 4s
Feb 10
Ellen Clarke, "The Units of Life: Kinds of Individual in Biology" (Oxford UP, 2025)
While we tend to think of biological individuals in terms of paradigmic cases – a dog, a starfish, a bacterium – our ordinary criteria for distinguishing one individual from another are inadequate for making these distinctions in general. If a starfish can literally split itself ... Show More
1h 8m
Apr 2023
What the World of Psychology Gets Wrong About Men
<p>Several years ago, the American Psychological Association issued a set of guidelines for psychologists working with boys and men. Guideline #1 says: "Psychologists strive to recognize that masculinities are constructed based on social, cultural, and contextual norms." Guidelin ... Show More
54m 29s
Dec 2020
RU121: Dr Vanessa Sinclair On Violence, Rendering Unconscious, Why War, Freud, Einstein
On this episode of Rendering Unconscious Podcast, I discuss violence in an array of forms including intimate partner and gun violence, and read excerpts from On Psychoanalysis and Violence: Contemporary Lacanian Perspectives (Routledge, 2018), Rendering Unconscious: Psychoanalyti ... Show More
1h 10m
May 2023
Crowds, obedience and the psychology of group behavior, with Stephen Reicher, PhD
What happens when people gather in crowds – whether for political rallies, protests, football games or religious pilgrimages? Stephen Reicher, PhD, of St. Andrew’s University in Scotland, discusses why “mob mentality” is a myth; other misconceptions about crowd behavior; the role ... Show More
48m 26s
Nov 2023
Thoughts Behind Vulnerable Narcissistic Behaviors
Cluster B
This show aims to educate the audience from a scientifically informed perspective about the major cluster B personality disorders: narcissism, histrionic, borderline, and antisocial.
References:
Kealy, D., & Rasmussen, B. (2012). Veiled and Vulnerable: The Other Side ... Show More
19m 18s
<p>We all like to throw around terms that describe human behavior — “bystander apathy” and “steep learning curve” and “hard-wired.” Most of the time, they don’t actually mean what we think they mean. But don’t worry — the experts are getting it wrong, too.</p><p> </p><ul><li><str ... Show More
