All Episodes

#138 Keith Frankish: Consciousness, Illusionism, Free Will, and AI

Feb 14, 2019

Dr. Keith Frankish is a British philosopher and writer, currently living in Crete, Greece. He’s an Honorary Reader at the University of Sheffield, UK, a Visiting Research Fellow with The Open University, UK, and an Adjunct Professor with the Brain and Mind Programme at the University of Crete. He works mainly in philosophy of mind, also with interests in other areas of Philosophy. He’s also the author of books like Mind and Supermind (2004) and Illusionism: As a Theory of Consciousness (2017). More»
#137 Derek Elliott: Beyond Enlightenment, Reason, Free Will, Self-deception, and Modularity

Feb 11, 2019

Dr. Derek Elliott is a newly minted doctor of philosophy from Duquesne University. He specializes in philosophy of psychology as well as action theory with a special interest in irrationality and evolutionary psychology. More»
#136 Patrick Colm Hogan: Evolution, Human Universals, Arts, and Literature

Feb 8, 2019

Dr. Patrick Colm Hogan is Distinguished Professor of the Department of English, and the Institute for Brain and Cognitive Sciences, at the University of Connecticut, US. His specialties are: literary theory, cognitive and affective science of literature, and world literature. He’s the author of several books, including The Mind and Its Stories, What Literature Teaches Us About Emotion, and Beauty and Sublimity. More»
#135 Rebecca Sear: Human Behavioral Ecology, Mating, Parenting, Reproduction

Feb 7, 2019

Dr. Rebecca Sear is Reader at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), teaching demography and researching human reproductive behaviour from an evolutionary perspective. She is trained in zoology, biological anthropology, and statistics, and subsequently worked first in a social science institution (London School of Economics) and then in an institution of global and public health (LSHTM). Having been exposed to a variety of disciplines, she is particularly interested in how the natural, social and medical sciences can be integrated as we try to understand our own species, and aims to conduct research somewhere inbetween these disciplines. She is particularly interested in taking a comparative perspective to understanding human reproductive behaviour, and exploring why such behaviour varies between, as well as within, populations. In 2008, she co-founded the European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association, and she’s currently Honorary Secretary of the British Society for Population Studies and a Board Member of the Evolutionary Anthropology Society. More»
#134 Christian Miller: The Character Gap, Our Moral Flaws, and How to Improve Them

Feb 4, 2019

Dr. Christian B. Miller is the A. C. Reid Professor of Philosophy at Wake Forest University. His research is primarily in contemporary ethics and philosophy of religion. He has written for the Wall Street Journal, Dallas Morning News, Slate, Prospect Magazine, Relevant Magazine, Michael Hyatt Magazine, The Conversation, Newsweek, Aeon, Greater Good Magazine, Nautilus Magazine, Fathom Magazine, Institute of Art and Ideas, and Christianity Today. He’s the author of three books, including Moral Character: An Empirical Theory, Character and Moral Psychology, and the most recent one, The Character Gap: How Good Are We?. More»
#133 Don Ross: Naturalism, Philosophy of Economics, and Addiction

Feb 1, 2019

Dr. Don Ross is Head of the School of Sociology, Philosophy, Criminology, Government, and Politics at University College Cork, Ireland; Professor of Economics at the University of Cape Town, South Africa; and Program Director for Methodology at the Center for Economic Analysis of Risk at Georgia State University, USA. His research focuses on the foundations of economic theory, the experimental economics of addiction, risk, and time preference, philosophy of science, and infrastructure, trade and industry policy in Africa. He’s also the author of books like Economic Theory and Cognitive Science: Microexplanation; The Picoeconomics and Neuroeconomics of Disordered Gambling; and Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized and Philosophy of Economics. More»
#132 David Papineau: Naturalism, Mind-Brain Dualism, and Consciousness

Jan 31, 2019

Dr. David Papineau is Professor of Philosophy at King's College London and at the City University of New York Graduate Center, having previously taught for several years at Cambridge University where he was a fellow of Robinson College. He was President of the British Society for Philosophy of Science for 1993-5, President of the Mind Association for 2009-10, and President of the Aristotelian Society for 2013-14. He’s also the author of 9 books, including Philosophical Naturalism, Thinking About Consciousness, and Knowing the Score. More»
#131 Nikola Danaylov: The Singularity, Doing Futurism, and the Human Element

Jan 28, 2019

Mr. Nikola Danaylov is a #1 Bestselling Author of Conversations with the Future, a Keynote Speaker, Futurist, Strategic Adviser, popular Blogger and Podcast host, also known as Socrates in the Singularity community. In 1998, he moved to Canada where he completed an HBA in Political Science, Philosophy & Economics at the University of Toronto followed by an MA in Political Science at York University. It was at YorkU that Mr. Danaylov became deeply interested in the Technological Singularity and wrote "Hacking Destiny: Critical Security at the Intersection of Human and Machine Intelligence." In 2011, he went to NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California and completed the Graduate Studies Program at Singularity University. He has spoken at public events on topics ranging from technology, transhumanism and the technological singularity to new media, blogging, and podcasting. He has been profiled in Next Stage Rising Stars Magazine and has been interviewed himself for numerous documentary films, blogs, podcasts, magazines, and newspapers. More»
#130 Iris Berent: Linguistics, Skinner and Chomsky, Spoken and Written Language

Jan 25, 2019

Dr. Iris Berent is Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University, US. Her research examines the nature of linguistic competence, its origins, and its interaction with reading ability. She’s the author of the book The Phonological Mind. She will also be releasing a new book in the near future, The Blind Storyteller. More»
#129 Igor Grossmann: Culture, Emotion Regulation, and Wisdom

Jan 24, 2019

Dr. Igor Grossmann is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Waterloo, Canada. He’s been the recipient of several awards, including the 2015 "Rising Star" Award, by the Association for Psychological Science; the 2015 President's New Researcher Award, by the Canadian Psychological Association; the 2017 Early Career Award, by the Ontario Ministry of Research Innovation and Science; and the 2017 Outstanding Alumni Award, by the International Max Plank Research School on the Life Course (LIFE). Dr. Grossmann is a behavioral scientist exploring the interplay of sociocultural factors for adaptive emotion regulation and wisdom in the face of daily stressors. More»