How Philosophy Can Reduce Your Confirmation Bias
Early in my career as a professor, I recognized confirmation bias in my students. In her evaluation of reincarnation in Buddhism, for example, one student wrote that she found it…
Psychology
11 posts
China and the Loneliness of Not-Knowing
Since the 1960s, psychologists and sociologists have recognized that loneliness doesn’t have much to do with being alone. As Adrian Franklin puts it, “loneliness could be experienced regardless of whether…
A Big Emotion is Not an Emergency: Helping Teenagers Manage Their Emotions
I learned early in my daughter’s toddler days that savvy moms don’t gasp or shriek when the baby falls and bumps herself. At playgroups, the correct response was modeled for…
Don’t Be an Indoor Cat: The Danger of Safety Culture
Too many of us are behaving like indoor cats these days. Let me explain.
When Storks Bring Theybies
If you weren’t familiar with the term theyby before this headline, you can be forgiven. A theyby is a child being raised in a gender-neutral environment at the behest of…
Eros: An Obituary
The aim of the Party was not merely to prevent men and women from forming loyalties which it might not be able to control. Its real, undeclared purpose was to…
Memes and the Casual Conversation Around Mental Illness
If you’ve been on the internet for long enough, you must have seen at least one joke or meme about mental health. BuzzFeed alone seems to publish a list of…
Virtue Ethics for the Modern Age
Scott Adams, creator of the popular comic strip Dilbert, trained hypnotist and erudite public commentator, posed what may seem like an odd question on his blog last year: “why do…
The Water We Swim In: A Need to Look at Causes as Well as Effects.
There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the…
Depression is Horrific but Suicide is not the Answer
This is not an essay I wanted to write, but, after the recent tragic loss of the author and celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain to suicide, I now feel compelled to…
No, You Don’t Have a Disorder. You Have Feelings
The London Times recently carried a story about an avalanche of self-harm among British school children. According to the article, “school nurses are dealing with panic attacks, self-cutting, overdoses and…
