All Episodes

#835 William Kelly: The Sociocultural Anthropology of Japan

Sep 15, 2023

Dr. William Kelly is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and the Sumitomo Professor Emeritus of Japanese Studies at Yale University. A noted authority on the social and historical anthropology of Japan, Dr. Kelly focused much of his research for two decades on regional society in Japan, based on extensive fieldwork in the Shōnai area of Yamagata Prefecture. He has also written widely on the broader dynamics of class formation in Japanese society. At the same time, much of his research for the past two decades has explored sport and body culture and their significance in modern Japan. He has also written on the history of Japan anthropology and its importance for Japan studies and for sociocultural anthropology. More»
#834 Kristen Lindquist: The Psychology and Neuroscience of Emotions

Sep 14, 2023

Dr. Kristen Lindquist is a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Her research seeks to understand the psychological and neural basis of emotions, moods, and feelings. Her ongoing work uses tools from social cognition, physiology, neuroscience, and big data methods to examine how emotions emerge from the confluence of the body, brain, and culture. More»
#833 Inês Hipólito: 4E Cognition, and Dynamical Approaches in Psychology/Cognitive Science

Sep 11, 2023

Dr. Inês Hipólito is a faculty member at Macquarie University, where she serves as a Lecturer of Philosophy of AI and a researcher at the Ethics and Agency Research Center. She serves as a Co-Principal Investigator for the project "Designing Urban Density: Neurourbanism as a Novel Approach in Global Health" under the Berlin University Alliance. Furthermore, she holds the position of Ethicist of AI at Verses, a pioneering cognitive computing company specializing in next-generation AI, with Karl Friston serving as Chief Research bridging the gap between academia and industry, contributing to ethical considerations embedded within cutting-edge AI advancements. As a co-founder and vice-president of the International Society of the Philosophy of the Sciences of the Mind, she is a passionate advocate for diversity and inclusivity in the field, serving as an elected member of the Women in Philosophy Committee and the Committee in Diversity and Inclusivity at the Australasian Association of Philosophy. More»
#832 Ursula Goodenough - The Sacred Depths of Nature: How Life Has Emerged and Evolved

Sep 8, 2023

Dr. Ursula Goodenough is a Professor of Biology Emerita at Washington University in St. Louis where she engaged in research on eukaryotic algae. She has presented the paradigm of Religious Naturalism and the Epic of Evolution in numerous venues around the world. She currently serves as president of the Religious Naturalist Association. She is the author of The Sacred Depths of Nature: How Life Has Emerged and Evolved. More»
#831 Freddie deBoer: How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement

Sep 7, 2023

Fredrik DeBoer is a writer and academic. He writes a newsletter on culture and politics. He is the author of The Cult of Smart, and, more recently, How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement. More»
#830 Émile Torres: The Philosophy of Effective Altruism and Longtermism

Sep 4, 2023

Dr. Émile Torres is a researcher at Leibniz Universität Hannover, in Germany. Their work over the past decade has centered around a single theme: eschatology, whether religious, secular, or scientific. Recently, their work has been focused on the nature and causes of human extinction, its ethical implications, and the history of the idea. They are the author of Morality, Foresight, and Human Flourishing: An Introduction to Existential Risks, and their latest book is Human Extinction: A History of the Science and Ethics of Annihilation. More»
#829 Susanna Schellenberg - The Unity of Perception: Content, Consciousness, Evidence

Sep 1, 2023

Dr. Susanna Schellenberg is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at Rutgers University, where she holds a secondary appointment at the Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science. She specializes in epistemology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language and is best known for her work on perceptual experience, evidence, capacities, mental content, and imagination. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Award, a Humboldt Prize, and a Mellon New Directions Fellowship for a project on the Neuroscience of Perception. She is the author of The Unity of Perception: Content, Consciousness, Evidence. More»
#828 Greger Larson: Animal Domestication and Human Evolution

Aug 31, 2023

Dr. Greger Larson is a Professor in the School of Archaeology at the University of Oxford and Director of the Wellcome Trust Palaeogenomics and Bio-Archaeology Research Network (PaleoBARN). His research interests include evolutionary genomics, ancient DNA, domestication, human and animal dispersal, and phylogenetics. His work on the domestication of canines and the origin of the domestic dog has provided insights into the prehistoric bond between humans and early dogs. More»
#827 Joseph Henrich: Cross-Cultural Research, Intelligence, Mating Systems, and Religion

Aug 28, 2023

Podcast: http://bit.ly/3FeSNqb More»
#826 Eric Funkhouser: The Signaling Functions of Beliefs, and Self-Deception

Aug 25, 2023

Dr. Eric Funkhouser is Professor and Departmental Chair of Philosophy at the University of Arkansas. His main areas of research are in the philosophy of psychology/mind and metaphysics. He is currently working on a series of papers concerning how social forces shape the functions of belief and other mental states. This work should culminate in a book, The Signaling Mind: Belief as Social Manipulation. In this manuscript, he argues that many beliefs serve a signaling function—much like animal signals used to manipulate other animals—that explains various irrational and dangerous beliefs, cognitive biases, as well as pro-social beliefs. More»