All Episodes

#895 Naomi de Ruiter - Toward a Process Approach in Psychology: Stepping into Heraclitus' River

Feb 2, 2024

Dr. Naomi de Ruiter is Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Groningen. In her current research, she is inspired by critical psychology and discursive psychology in her attempt to study the ontology or process mechanisms of self and identity (and related concepts) as situated in time and context. In much of her research, she adopts a complex dynamic systems approach for micro-genetic or theoretical work. She is the author, together with Paul van Geert, of Toward a Process Approach in Psychology: Stepping into Heraclitus' River. More»
#894 Paco Calvo - Planta Sapiens: The New Science of Plant Intelligence

Feb 1, 2024

Dr. Paco Calvo is a Professor at the University of Murcia in Spain, where he leads the Minimal Intelligence Lab (MINT Lab), focusing on the study of minimal cognition in plants. Dr. Calvo’s interdisciplinary work combines insights from biology, philosophy, and cognitive science to explore the fascinating world of plant behavior, decision-making, and problem-solving. By investigating the complex interactions and adaptive responses exhibited by plants, Dr. Calvo has significantly contributed to our understanding of cognition beyond the animal kingdom, challenging conventional perspectives on intelligence and mental capacities. He is the author of Planta Sapiens: The New Science of Plant Intelligence. More»
#893 Sarah Hart - Once Upon a Prime: The Wondrous Connections Between Mathematics and Literature

Jan 29, 2024

Dr. Sarah Hart is an Emerita Professor of Mathematics at Birkbeck, University of London. Educated at Oxford and Manchester, Dr. Hart is also the thirty-third Gresham Professor of Geometry, the first woman to hold the position since its inception in 1597. She is the author of Once Upon a Prime: The Wondrous Connections Between Mathematics and Literature. More»
#892 Philip Ball - The Book of Minds: How to Understand Ourselves and Other Beings

Jan 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, including The Book of Minds: How to Understand Ourselves and Other Beings, from Animals to AI to Aliens. More»
#891 Luis Favela: Complexity Science, 4E Cognition, and Explanatory Pluralism

Jan 25, 2024

Dr. Luis Favela is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Sciences (tenured) at the University of Central Florida. He is concurrently a Fellow in the Research Corporation for Science Advancement's Molecular Basis of Cognition Scialog program. His research attempts to understand mind (i.e., behavior, cognition, and consciousness) from a naturalistic and interdisciplinary perspective. More»
#890 Richard Nisbett: Attribution Theory, Intelligence, and Cognitive Differences Across Cultures

Jan 22, 2024

Dr. Richard Nisbett is the Theodore M. Newcomb Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Research Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He was the recipient of the Donald T. Campbell Award from the American Psychological Association in 1982, and he’s a Guggenheim fellow. He’s also the author of several books, including Culture of Honor, The Geography of Thought, Mindware, and Thinking: A memoir. More»
#889 Nadine Strossen - Free Speech: What Everyone Needs to Know

Jan 19, 2024

Dr. Nadine Strossen is the John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law Emerita at New York Law School and past President of the American Civil Liberties Union (1991-2008). She is also a Senior Fellow with FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Education) and a leading expert and frequent speaker/media commentator on constitutional law and civil liberties. She serves on the advisory boards of the ACLU, Academic Freedom Alliance, Heterodox Academy, National Coalition Against Censorship, and the University of Austin. Her latest book is Free Speech: What Everyone Needs to Know. More»
#888 Elmar Unnsteinsson - Talking About: An Intentionalist Theory of Reference

Jan 18, 2024

Dr. Elmar Unnsteinsson is an Assistant Professor and Ad Astra Fellow at University College Dublin, School of Philosophy. He is also the Principal Investigator of two research projects funded by The Icelandic Research Fund, The Confused Intentions Project and Insincerity for Fragmented Minds, both based at UCD and University of Iceland, where he has a part-time position as a Research Scientist. Dr. Unnsteinsson works on topics in philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, history of analytic philosophy, metaphysics, philosophy of linguistics, and cognitive science. He is the author of Talking About: An Intentionalist Theory of Reference. More»
#887 Carol Ember: Tight and Loose Cultures, Sexuality, Gender Differences, and Cultural Databases

Jan 15, 2024

Dr. Carol Ember is President of the Human Relations Area Files at Yale University and the editor of the journal Cross-Cultural Research. Most of her research career has been devoted to cross-cultural research on variation in marriage, family, kin groups, gender roles, predictors of war and other forms of violence, but for the last eight years she has been working on cultural adaptations to natural hazards and other resource stressors. She is interested in research that integrates the fields of anthropology as well as anthropology with other disciplines. She is the first author (with Melvin Ember) of Cultural Anthropology, now in its 15th edition and Anthropology (with Melvin Ember and Peter N. Peregrine), now in its 15th edition. More»
#886 Randall Beer: Autopoiesis, Enactivism, Dynamical Systems, and Evo-Devo Approaches in Biology

Jan 12, 2024

Dr. Randall Beer is Professor of Cognitive Science and Informatics at Indiana University Bloomington. Dr. Beer's primary research interest is in understanding how coordinated behavior arises from the dynamical interaction of an animal's nervous system, its body and its environment. Toward this end, he works on the evolution and analysis of dynamical "nervous systems" for model agents, neuromechanical modeling of animals, biologically-inspired robotics, and dynamical systems approaches to behavior and cognition. More generally, he is interested in computational and theoretical biology, including models of metabolism, gene regulation and development. More»