All Episodes

#989 Robert Vinten: Wittgenstein and the Cognitive Science of Religion

Sep 5, 2024

Dr. Robert Vinten is a postdoctoral research fellow within a project on epistemic injustice and previously a postdoctoral research fellow within a project on the epistemology of religious belief at the NOVA University of Lisbon. He is the author of Wittgenstein and the Social Sciences (2020) and of numerous journal articles about Wittgenstein’s philosophy. He is also the editor of Wittgenstein and the Cognitive Science of Religion: Interpreting Human Nature and the Mind. More»
#988 Iris Mauss: The Psychology of Emotion, and the Paradox of Seeking Happiness

Sep 2, 2024

Dr. Iris Mauss is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research focuses on emotions and emotion regulation, with an emphasis on their links to psychological and physical health. In her research, she uses measures of emotion experience, behavior, and physiological responding, and combine laboratory, daily-diary, and longitudinal survey approaches. More»
#987 Tuomas Tahko: Meta-Metaphysics, Fundamentality, and the Building Blocks of Reality

Aug 30, 2024

Dr. Tuomas Tahko is Professor of Metaphysics of Science at the University of Bristol. He specializes in contemporary analytic metaphysics, with an emphasis on methodological and epistemic issues: “meta-metaphysics”. He also works at the interface of metaphysics and philosophy of science: “metaphysics of science”. Broader research interests include issues in epistemology, philosophical logic, philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, and history of philosophy. He was the PI of an ERC Consolidator Project "The Metaphysical Unity of Science" (MetaScience, 2018-2023). More»
#986 Sofia Forss: Neophobia, Curiosity, Intelligence, and Creativity in Apes and Humans

Aug 29, 2024

Dr. Sofia Forss is Ambizione Group Leader in the Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies at the University of Zurich. Her research interests include animal behavior, comparative cognition, behavioral ecology, animal curiosity and innovativeness, social learning in animals, the captivity effect on animal cognition, developmental influences on cognitive development, and the effects of urbanization on animal behavior. Her research focuses on what makes animals explorative and creative and thereby increase their cognitive potential. In doing so, she studies the development of intelligence and how variation during ontogeny influence curiosity and thereupon following cognitive processes and skill learning. More»
#985 Philip Ball - How Life Works: A User’s Guide to the New Biology

Aug 26, 2024

Dr. Philip Ball is a freelance science writer, with a BA in Chemistry from the University of Oxford and a PhD in Physics from the University of Bristol. He was an editor at Nature for over 20 years. He is the author of many popular books on science, the latest one being How Life Works: A User’s Guide to the New Biology. More»
#984 Andrew Khoury: Moral Responsibility, Punishment, and Forgiveness

Aug 23, 2024

Dr. Andrew Khoury is an Assistant Teaching Professor of Philosophy at Arizona State University. He works primarily at the intersection of moral philosophy, moral psychology, and metaphysics on issues surrounding free will and moral responsibility. More»
#983 Vinod Goel - Reason and Less: Pursuing Food, Sex, and Politics

Aug 22, 2024

Dr. Vinod Goel is Professor in the Department of Psychology at York University. He is interested in understanding the cognitive, computational, and neural basis of rational decision-making and emotional processing in humans. He is the author of Reason and Less: Pursuing Food, Sex, and Politics. More»
#982 Joseph LeDoux - The Four Realms of Existence: A New Theory of Being Human

Aug 19, 2024

Dr. Joseph LeDoux is the Henry and Lucy Moses Professor of Science, Professor of Neural Science, Professor of Psychiatry, and Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at New York University. His work is focused on the brain mechanisms of emotion and memory. He’s the author of many books, the most recent one being The Four Realms of Existence: A New Theory of Being Human. More»
#981 Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen - Freud’s Thinking: An Introduction

Aug 16, 2024

Dr. Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen is Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature and French at the University of Washington in Seattle. His research interests include Critical Theory, French literary criticism, psychoanalysis, and psychology. He is the author of several books, his latest one being Freud’s Thinking: An Introduction. More»
#981 Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen: Was Freud Really a Scientist?

Aug 16, 2024

Dr. Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen is Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature and French at the University of Washington in Seattle. His research interests include Critical Theory, French literary criticism, psychoanalysis, and psychology. He is the author of several books, his latest one being Freud’s Thinking: An Introduction. More»