Psychology Philosophy

In the 1960s, Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram famously carried out a series of experiments that forever changed our perceptions of morality and free will. The subjects—or “teachers”—were instructed to administer electroshocks to a human “learner,” with the shocks becoming progressively more powerful and painful. Controversial but now strongly vindicated by the scientific community, these experiments attempted to determine to what extent people will obey orders from authority figures regardless of consequences.

Most of us want to succeed. And most of us want to do the right thing. But we often forget that the way tosucceed is by doing the right thing, as Barry Schwartz and Kenneth Sharpe remind us in Practical Wisdom: The Right Way to Do the Right Thing. When the institutions that shape our society need to change, the people in them typically either make more rules or offer smarter incentives.

A brilliant book by Nobel Prize winner Eric R. Kandel, The Age of Insight takes us to Vienna 1900, where leaders in science, medicine, and art began a revolution that changed forever how we think about the human mind - our conscious and unconscious thoughts and emotions - and how mind and brain relate to art.

A leading cognitive scientist argues that a deep sense of good and evil is bred in the bone. From John Locke to Sigmund Freud, philosophers and psychologists have long believed that we begin life as blank moral slates.

What is morality? Where does it come from? And why do most of us heed its call most of the time? In Braintrust, neurophilosophy pioneer Patricia Churchland argues that morality originates in the biology of the brain. She describes the "neurobiological platform of bonding" that, modified by evolutionary pressures and cultural values, has led to human styles of moral behavior. The result is a provocative genealogy of morals that asks us to reevaluate the priority given to religion, absolute rules, and pure reason in accounting for the basis of morality.

It’s not your imagination: We’re living in a time of moral decline. Publicly, we’re bombarded with reports of government leaders acting against the welfare of their constituents; companies prioritizing profits over health, safety, and our best interests; and technology posing risks to society with few or no repercussions for those responsible. Personally, we may be conflicted about how much privacy to afford our children on the internet; how to make informed choices about our purchases and the companies we buy from; or how to handle misconduct we witness at home and at work.

Sigmund Freud, le père de la psychanalyse, expose dans les "Essais de psychanalyse" ses théories concernant la structure psychique humaine. Après avoir posé l'existence de l'inconscient, il s'interroge sur le Moi conscient, et ce qui émane en lui des mécanismes de refoulement : le Ça. "Le Moi et le Ça" est la dernière partie des "Essais". Tout l'édifice psychanalytique est ainsi érigé dès 1923, à travers ce texte théorique et accessible, qui n'en finit pas de questionner notre fonctionnement de pensée.

Shaun Gallagher offers an account of psychopathologies as disorders of the self. The Self and its Disorders develops an interdisciplinary approach to an "integrative" perspective in psychiatry. In contrast to some integrative approaches that focus on narrow brain-based conceptions, or on symptomology, this book takes its bearings from embodied and enactive conceptions of human experience.

Applying insights from neuroscience to philosophical questions about the self, consciousness, and the healthy mind. Can we "see" or "find" consciousness in the brain? How can we create working definitions of consciousness and subjectivity, informed by what contemporary research and technology have taught us about how the brain works? How do neuronal processes in the brain relate to our experience of a personal identity? Where does the brain end and the mind begin?

As a neuroscientist, Marjorie Woollacott had no doubts that the brain was a purely physical entity controlled by chemicals and electrical pulses. When she experimented with meditation for the first time, however, her entire world changed. Woollacott's journey through years of meditation has made her question the reality she built her career upon and has forced her to ask what human consciousness really is.

In the last decade there has been a revolution in our understanding of the minds of infants and young children. We used to believe that babies were irrational, and that their thinking and experience were limited. Now Alison Gopnik - a leading psychologist and philosopher, as well as a mother - explains the cutting-edge scientific and psychological research that has revealed that babies learn more, create more, care more, and experience more than we could ever have imagined.

The Sub-conscious reveals the nature of the Conscious mind, the Subjective mind, and the Universal Subjective mind. The Subjective mind is "the secret" which you can use to change every aspect of your life. The Sub-conscious Speaks reveals the most powerful law in the universe... a common truth that lays at the core of the most effectual philosophies, teachings and religions in the world.

Mindfulness has attracted ever‑growing interest and tens of thousands of practitioners, who have come to the discipline from both within and outside the Buddhist tradition. In Fully Present, leading mindfulness researchers and educators Dr. Sue Smalley and Diana Winston provide an all‑in‑one guide for anyone interested in bringing mindfulness to daily life as a means of enhancing well‑being. This new edition, how with a new afterword, provides both a scientific explanation for how mindfulness positively and powerfully affects the brain and the body.

This fresh and exciting approach to science, skepticism, and critical thinking will enlighten and inspire listeners of all ages. With a mix of wit and wisdom, it challenges everyone to think like a scientist, embrace the skeptical life, and improve their critical thinking skills. Think shows you how to better navigate through the maze of biases and traps that are standard features of every human brain.

Schooltalk will empower educators of every ilk, revealing to them an incredibly effective tool at their disposal to support the success of all students every day: their words.

Can you teach your child to be kind? This vital question is taking on a new urgency as our culture grows ever more abrasive and divided. A world-renowned developmental psychologist, Dr. Thomas Lickona has lead the character education movement in schools for 40 years and now he shares with parents the vital tools they need to create a culture of kindness at home. Kindness doesn’t stand on its own. It needs a supporting cast of other essential virtues - like self-control, good judgment, courage, and gratitude.

Award-winning author Michael Harris examines why our experience of solitude has become so impoverished and how we may grow to love it again in the frenzy of our digital landscape. Solitude is an optimistic and encouraging story about discovering true quiet inside the city, inside the crowd, inside our busy and urbane lives. Harris guides listeners away from a life of ceaseless pings toward a state of measured connectivity, one that balances solitude and companionship.

How does the brain work? How different is a human brain from other creatures' brains? Is the human brain still evolving? In this fascinating book, Michael O'Shea provides a non-technical introduction to the main issues and findings in current brain research, and gives a sense of how neuroscience addresses questions about the relationship between the brain and the mind.

Consciousness is our gateway to experience: it enables us to recognize Van Gogh’s starry skies, be enraptured by Beethoven’s Fifth, and stand in awe of a snowcapped mountain. Yet consciousness is subjective, personal, and famously difficult to examine: philosophers have for centuries declared this mental entity so mysterious as to be impenetrable to science. In The Ravenous Brain, neuroscientist Daniel Bor departs sharply from this historical view, and proposes a new model for how consciousness works.

When Özlem Cekic became the first Muslim MP in the Danish Parliament, her email inbox was inundated with hate mail and threats, and her gut reaction was to delete and ignore each abusive message. But eventually, she decided to take a risk. She started replying to each message and inviting the senders to meet and engage in dialogue over coffee. And with time, understanding, and patience, she began to make a difference, both in the lives of those who hated her before even meeting her, and in her own life.