Born or Made?

You are an experience machine, everything that has ever happened to you and everything that will ever happen to you is experience. Reflecting on your experience offers a unique insight into the nature of reality and forms the basis for the philosophical methodology of phenomenology. In this episode we explore phenomenology from its inception by Edmund Husserl in the early 20th century, to Martin Heidegger's exploration of being-in-the-world, the embodiment of phenomenology as described by Maurice Merleau-Ponty and its influence on the applied phenomenology of Iris Marion Young's work on femininity.

Show notes
Phenomenology - Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy
Edmund Husserl
Martin Heidegger - Being and Time
Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis - Jonathan Smith
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Iris Marion Young - Throwing like a girl

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In this brief reflection, I consider the idea of psychological sanctuary, it's importance and its dangers. 

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The cognitive revolution in psychology began in the mid 20th century and supplanted behaviourism as the dominant theoretical paradigm explaining human cognition and behaviour which continues today. We explore the origins of cognitive psychology, what it has revealed about the workings of the mind, cognitive maps and mental models, why it is like a computer but not like a computer, neural networks, and why despite great advances, it fails to capture the totality of what it means to be human.

Show notes

Cognitive psychology - E. Bruce Goldstein  (2018)
Cognitive psychology and its implications - John Anderson (2020)
A common neural code for similar conscious experiences in different individuals - Naci et al. (2014)
Bang! You're dead - Alfred Hitchcock (1985)
Edward Tolman
George Miller
Donald Broadbent
Kenneth Craik
Saul Sternberg
Acts of meaning - Jerome Bruner (1993)

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Behaviorism is a tradition within the field of psychology which came to prominence during the early to mid 20th century through the work of John B. Watson and B. F. Skinner. It includes the theories of classical and operant conditioning and was considered to explain all of human behavior. It has since been superseded by the cognitive revolution, however the principles of behaviorism can be found throughout modern psychology and society itself which we explore in this episode.

Show notes

Ivan Pavlov
John B. Watson
B. F. Skinner
Edward Thorndike
Albert Bandura
Classical conditioning
Little Albert experiment
Operant conditioning
Pigeon operant conditioning - YouTube
Social Learning Theory
Bobo doll experiment - YouTube
The social dilemma

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The prevailing philosophical paradigm underpinning the physical sciences is materialism, also known as physicalism. Simply, everything that exists is material in some sense. However there are many concepts which seem immaterial so how are these reconciled? In this episode we briefly explore materialism and it’s issues.

Show notes

https://www.britannica.com/topic/On-the-Nature-of-Things-by-Lucretius
https://www.britannica.com/topic/materialism-philosophy
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnint.2013.00065/full

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To kick off the new year I recently spoke with philosopher James Tartaglia, a professor at Keele University, about nihilism and the meaning of life. It turns out, there isn’t one. But all hope is not lost as we also discuss what a modern day philosopher does, what nihilism means for everyday life, how to situate ethics in a meaningless universe, the paradox of absurdism, how to respect the views of others, the difference between evaluative and descriptive statements, the sense of self, and why seeing life as nihilistic is not as bad as it seems.

Show notes

Professor James Tartaliga
Philosophy in a meaningless life: A system of nihilism, consciousness and reality
A defence of nihilism with Tracey Llanera
Philosophy in a technological world: Gods and Titans

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We conclude our brief exploration of existentialism with this final chapter on its darkest philosophical interpretation, nihilism. Nihilism means literally, an ideology of nothing, which has led philosophers to a range of conclusions from the destruction of everything to the, whatever. We briefly consider the implications of nihilism, whether it is really that bad, and finally conclude with a few thoughts on what to fill the emptiness of an meaningless existence with. Happy new year!

Show notes

Macbeth
Nihilism - The internet encyclopaedia of philosophy
A defence of nihilism - J Tartaglia and T Llan

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An area of existentialist philosophy is absurdism which considers the conflict between the human tendency to seek inherent value and meaning in life and the inability to find these with any certainty. The work of French nobel prize winning writer and philosopher Albert Camus' forms the source material for this episode, specifically his most well known essay The Myth of Sisyphus. 

Show notes

Absurdism
Albert Camus
The myth of Sisyphus – Albert Camus
Band of Brothers hopeless speech

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Existentialism is a philosophy which inquires into the nature of human existence and what it means to live an authentic life. While its concepts can be traced as far back as ancient Greece, it came to prominence during the immediate post second world War period through the work of the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and his partner Simone de Beauvoir. In this episode we explore the key concepts of existentialism and the nature of essence and existence. 

Show notes

Existentialism is a humanism - J P Sartre
Nausea – J P Sartre
Notes from the underground – Dostoyevsky
Existentialism: A very short introduction – Thomas Flynn
Existentialism – Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy
Søren Kierkegaard
Jean-Paul Sartre

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Brownnosing, bootlicking, apple polishing and sucking up are among many the synonyms for the term sycophancy. Psychologists also know it as ingratiation. In this episode we explore several types of ingratiation and learn that while true sycophancy requires talent, it may be intrinsic to our social behavior.

Show notes

Ingratiation - A social psychological analysis - Edward E. Jones (1964)
The Slime Effect: Suspicion and Dislike of Likeable Behavior Toward Superiors - Roos Vonk (1998)
Ingratiation and Gratuity: The Effect of Complimenting Customers on Tipping Behavior in Restaurants - John Seiter (2007)

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