Psychology Philosophy

A pathbreaking neuroscientist reveals how our social instincts turn Me into Us, but turn Us against Them - and what we can do about it. The great dilemma of our shrinking world is simple: never before have those we disagree with been so present in our lives. The more globalization dissolves national borders, the more clearly we see that human beings are deeply divided on moral lines - about everything from tax codes to sexual practices to energy consumption - and that, when we really disagree, our emotions turn positively tribal.

Intentional Neuroplasticity explores the plasticity of the brain and nervous system, while learning how adversity and trauma impact a student's developing nervous system to affect behaviors—which ultimately changes the way educators approach discipline and engagement.

Soul Machine takes us back to the origins of modernity, a time when a crisis in religious authority and the scientific revolution led to searching questions about the nature of human inner life. This is the story of how a new concept - the mind - emerged as a potential solution, one that was part soul and part machine but fully neither.

Shame is a powerful and sometimes useful tool: When we publicly shame corrupt politicians, abusive celebrities, or predatory corporations, we reinforce values of fairness and justice. But as Cathy O’Neil argues in this revelatory book, shaming has taken a new and dangerous turn. It is increasingly being weaponized—used as a way to shift responsibility for social problems from institutions to individuals.

Growing up in middle-class suburban Los Angeles in the 1980s, Rina Bliss was saw intelligence as her ticket out. Like height and stature, intelligence was said to run in families. The prevailing idea was that mental capacity was determined by our DNA and could be measured; a simple IQ test could predict a child’s future.

How can a couple be saved when they have declared war on one another? By helping them realize that desire originates not in the self, but in the other. There are strategies that can help, which Dr. Oughourlian has prescribed successfully to his patients. This work, alternating between case studies and more theoretical statements, convincingly defends the possibility that breakups need not be permanent.

In recent years, the advent of MRI technology seems to have unlocked the secrets of the human mind, revealing the sources of our deepest desires, intentions, and fears. As renowned psychiatrist and scholar Sally Satel and psychologist Scott O. Lilienfeld demonstrate in Brainwashed, however, the explanatory power of brain scans in particular and neuroscience more generally has been vastly overestimated.

Whether it’s brusque, convincing, fraught with emotion, or dripping with innuendo, language is fundamentally a tool for conveying meaning - a uniquely human magic trick in which you vibrate your vocal cords to make your innermost thoughts pop up in someone else’s mind. You can use it to talk about all sorts of things - from your new labradoodle puppy to the expansive gardens at Versailles, from Roger Federer’s backhand to things that don’t exist at all, like flying pigs.

In this audiobook, Ellen Langer uses her innovative theory of mindulness, introduced in her influential earlier book, to dramatically enhance the way we learn. Mindful learning takes place with an awareness of context and of the ever-changing nature of information. Learning without this awareness, has severely limited uses and often sets on up for failure. With stunning applications to skills as diverse as paying attention, CPR, investment analysis, psychotherapy, or playing a musical instrument, this audiobook is for all who are curious and intellectually adventurous.

In this book the philosopher Jonathan Westphal examines the mind-body problem in detail, laying out the reasoning behind the solutions that have been offered in the past and presenting his own proposal. The sharp focus on the mind-body problem, a problem that is not about the self or consciousness or the soul or anything other than the mind and the body, helps clarify both problem and solutions. Westphal outlines the history of the mind-body problem, beginning with Descartes.

W. H. Auden once wrote that "art is our chief means of breaking bread with the dead." In his brilliant and compulsively listenable new treatise, Alan Jacobs shows us that engaging with the strange and wonderful writings of the past might help us live less anxiously in the present - and increase what Thomas Pynchon once called our "personal density." Today we are battling too much information in a society changing at lightning speed, with algorithms aimed at shaping our every thought - plus a sense that history offers no resources, only impediments to overcome or ignore.

Fluides et denses, ces cinq conférences données par Freud en 1909 aux Etats Unis à la Clark University du Massachussetts sont une introduction excellente à la psychanalyse freudienne. Ces leçons constituent un résumé concis du savoir qu'il a acquis en quinze ans. Rappel des origines de la psychanalyse avec les travaux sur l'hypnose et l'hystérie en collaboration avec Breuer et introduction aux problématiques centrales.

Why spend countless hours indoors in front of screens when being in nature feels so good? In learning why and how to nurture our emotional connection with nature, we can also regenerate the ecosystems on which we depend for our survival. Renewal explores the science behind why being in nature makes us feel alive and helps us thrive.

In this study, Fromm argues that man needs to analyze his unconscious thoughts, his dreams, and his conscious fantasies, as they reflect a universal and symbolic representation of himself.

Every day we are confronted with hundreds of choices that either make us feel confident and strong or rob us of the things we desire the most. When we lack confidence, we feel unworthy of having what we want, of speaking the truth, of making decisions that improve our lives. When we feel weak, helpless, or powerless, we lack the strength to ward off the thoughts of defeat, negativity, and fear that fill our minds and prevent us from moving forward and living in harmony with our deepest desires.

Throughout history society has determined specific rules of engagement between adversaries in armed conflict. With advances in technology, from armor to in the Middle Ages to nerve gas in World War I to weapons of mass destruction in our own time, the rules have constantly evolved. Today, when killing the enemy can seem palpably risk-free and tantamount to playing a violent video game, what constitutes warfare? What is the effect of remote combat on individual soldiers? And what are the unforeseen repercussions that could affect us all?

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.

Alva Noë is one of a new breed - part philosopher, part cognitive scientist, part neuroscientist - who are radically altering the study of consciousness by asking difficult questions and pointing out obvious flaws in the current science. In Out of Our Heads, he restates and reexamines the problem of consciousness, and then proposes a startling solution: Do away with the 200-year-old paradigm that places consciousness within the confines of the brain.

What does it mean to devote yourself wholly to helping others? In Strangers Drowning, Larissa MacFarquhar seeks out people living lives of extreme ethical commitment and tells their deeply intimate stories; their stubborn integrity and their compromises; their bravery and their recklessness; their joys and defeats, and wrenching dilemmas. A couple adopts two children in distress. But then they think: If they can change two lives, why not four? Or 10? They adopt 20.

Almost forgotten for centuries, Stoicism has come back to life in recent years as a practical philosophy for everyone from Silicon Valley tech entrepreneurs and NFL players to leaders in business, politics, and the military. Just like the great Stoics of ancient times, today’s leaders turn to Stoicism to learn how to rise above obstacles and develop a mindset of unshakeable strength and determination. This audiobook will teach you the Stoic secret to happiness and true success.