In this post, Kathleen reports from the 'Experiences of Loss' Conference which took place on the 26th and 27th October 2023, at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. The conference was organised and ran by Sabrina Coninx (VU Amsterdam). The selection of talks over two days all spoke to the theme of loss in different contexts, addressing self, illness, and memory.  Day 1 Regina Fabry Regina Fabry (Macquarie University): Sharing experiences of loss through self-narration: possibilities and limitations. (online) Regina first clarified the concept of a self-narrative. Individuals might ..read more

This post is by Sanja Dembić. Sanja is a research associate at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and a member of the “Human Abilities” Centre for Advanced Studies in the Humanities. Here, she discusses her recent book 'Philosophy of Mental Disorder: An Ability-Based Approach'.  What is it to have a mental disorder? There are many different answers to this question in the literature, the most prominent being those that refer to the concept of biological dysfunction. These views are usually developed with reference to clear cases of bodily disorders (or: diseases). The idea behind them is ..read more

 KMH TO COMPLETE ..read more

This post is by Jakob Ohlhorst, who is a postdoc fellow on the Extreme Beliefs project at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. This post is about his recent book, 'Trust Responsibly', which is available open access as an e-book. Jakob Ohlhorst "Strange coincidence, that every man whose skull has been opened had a brain!" 'Trust responsibly' opens with this joke from Ludwig Wittgenstein. In On Certainty, he argued that some things we can only trust to be the case because any evidence which speaks in favour of the things we trust must already presuppose the things we trust. That e ..read more

This post is by Biljana Gjoneska, who is is a national representative and research associate from the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Here, she discusses her paper in the Psychology of Pseudoscience special issue introduced last week, and is the second post this week in this series on papers in this special issue.  Biljana investigates the behavioural aspects (conspiracy beliefs) and mental health aspects (internet addiction) of problematic internet use. She has served in a capacity as a national representative for the EU COST Action on “Comparative Analysis of Co ..read more

Tiffany Morisseau is a researcher in Cognitive Psychology at the Laboratory of Applied Psychology and Ergonomics (LaPEA, University of Paris). Her current research projects mainly focus on the question of epistemic trust and vigilance, and the socio-cognitive mechanisms underlying how people come to process scientific information. She is a member of the H2020 PERITIA consortium (peritia-trust.eu) and leads the Psychology part. This multidisciplinary project deals with the conditions of public trust in scientific experts and brings together researchers in philosophy, psychology, political scien ..read more

Stefaan Blancke is a philosopher of science at the department of Philosophy at Tilburg University in the Netherlands and a member of the Tilburg Center for Moral Philosophy, Epistemology and Philosophy of Science (TiLPS). His current research mainly focuses on the role of cooperation and reputation in science, pseudoscience, and morality. His website is www.stefaanblancke.com; you can also find him on Twitter (@stblancke). This post is about a special issue on the Psychology of Pseudoscience, which Stefaan was an editor for.  Stefaan Blancke As a philosopher of science, I have s ..read more

This post is by Susana Ramírez-Vizcaya, who is a post-doctoral fellow at the Institute for Philosophical Research, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). She works in embodied cognitive science, the enactive approach, phenomenology, and habits. This post is about her recent paper on loneliness and the COVID-19 pandemic.  Susana Ramírez-Vizcaya When social distancing measures were implemented to reduce the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, many specialists were concerned about a potential dramatic upsurge in loneliness, which was particularly worrying given the wide rang ..read more

Today’s post is from Kyle De Young and Lindsay Rettler on their recent paper, “Causal Connections between Anorexia Nervosa and Delusional Beliefs” (published in Review of Psychology and Philosophy in 2023).  Kyle is a clinical psychologist specializing in eating and related behaviors, who oversees the Eating Behaviors Research Lab at the University of Wyoming. Lindsay is a philosopher at UW teaching ethics and philosophy of mental health, who oversees the ethics curriculum for Wyoming’s med school (Wyoming WWAMI Medical Education Program). Lindsay and Kyle Anorexia ne ..read more

We celebrate Darwin Day (12th February) with a post by Matteo Mameli (King’s College London) on his new monograph, Why Human Nature Matters: Between Biology and Politics (Bloomsbury 2024). In the book, Mameli discusses Darwin’s views on mental faculties, human differences, and the transformative agency of organisms.  My monograph addresses classic and contemporary perspectives on human nature and makes a novel proposal, one that stresses the biological and political significance of human diversity and mutability. Darwin’s ideas on variation and niche construction play an impo ..read more