The Philosophical Baby


Book Description

A leading psychologist and philosopher, as well as a mother, explains the groundbreaking new psychological, neuroscientific, and philosophical developments as they relate to the development of very young children.




Moral Minds


Book Description

A Harvard scientist illuminates the biological basis for human morality in this groundbreaking book. With the diversity of moral attitudes found across cultures around the globe, it is easy to assume that moral perspectives are socially developed—a matter of nurture rather than nature. But in Moral Minds, Marc Hauser presents compelling evidence to the contrary, and offers a revolutionary new theory: that humans have evolved a universal moral instinct. Hauser argues that certain biologically innate moral principles propel us toward judgments of right and wrong independent of gender, education, and religion. Combining his cutting-edge research with the latest findings in cognitive psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, economics, and anthropology, Hauser explores the startling implications of his provocative theory vis-à-vis contemporary bioethics, religion, the law, and our everyday lives.




The Gardener and the Carpenter


Book Description

"Alison Gopnik, a ... developmental psychologist, [examines] the paradoxes of parenthood from a scientific perspective"--




The Philosophical Child


Book Description

What does it mean to be good? Why do people die? What is friendship? Children enter the world full of questions and wrestle with deep, thoughtful issues, even if they do not always wonder them aloud. Many parents have the desire to discuss philosophical ideas with their children, but are unsure how to do so. The Philosophical Child offers parents guidance on how to gently approach philosophical questions with children of all ages. Jana Mohr Lone argues that for children to mature emotionally, they must develop their desire and ability to think abstractly about themselves and their experiences. This book suggests easy ways that parents can engage with their children's philosophical questions and help them develop their "philosophical selves."




How Babies Think


Book Description

Learning begins in the first days of life. Scientists are now discovering how young children develop emotionally and intellectually, and are beginning to realize that from birth babies already know a staggering amount about the world around them. In the first book of its kind for a popular audience, three leading US scientists draw on twenty-five years of research in philosophy, psychology, computer science, linguistics and neuroscience to reveal what babies know and how they learn it.




Supernormal


Book Description

Clinical psychologist and author of The Defining Decade, Meg Jay takes us into the world of the supernormal: those who soar to unexpected heights after childhood adversity. Whether it is the loss of a parent to death or divorce; bullying; alcoholism or drug abuse in the home; mental illness in a parent or a sibling; neglect; emotional, physical or sexual abuse; having a parent in jail; or growing up alongside domestic violence, nearly 75% of us experience adversity by the age of 20. But these experiences are often kept secret, as are our courageous battles to overcome them. Drawing on nearly two decades of work with clients and students, Jay tells the tale of ordinary people made extraordinary by these all-too-common experiences, everyday superheroes who have made a life out of dodging bullets and leaping over obstacles, even as they hide in plain sight as doctors, artists, entrepreneurs, lawyers, parents, activists, teachers, students and readers. She gives a voice to the supernormals among us as they reveal not only "How do they do it?" but also "How does it feel?" These powerful stories, and those of public figures from Andre Agassi to Jay Z, will show supernormals they are not alone but are, in fact, in good company. Marvelously researched and compassionately written, this exceptional book narrates the continuing saga that is resilience as it challenges us to consider whether -- and how -- the good wins out in the end.




Nasty, Brutish, and Short


Book Description

An NPR Best Book of 2022 * One of Christian Science Monitor's 10 best books of May “This amazing new book . . . takes us on a journey through classic and contemporary philosophy powered by questions like ‘What do we have the right to do? When is it okay to do this or that?’ They explore punishment and authority and sex and gender and race and the nature of truth and knowledge and the existence of God and the meaning of life and Scott just does an incredible job.” —Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic Some of the best philosophers in the world gather in surprising places—preschools and playgrounds. They debate questions about metaphysics and morality, even though they’ve never heard the words and perhaps can’t even tie their shoes. They’re kids. And as Scott Hershovitz shows in this delightful debut, they’re astoundingly good philosophers. Hershovitz has two young sons, Rex and Hank. From the time they could talk, he noticed that they raised philosophical questions and were determined to answer them. They re-created ancient arguments. And they advanced entirely new ones. That’s not unusual, Hershovitz says. Every kid is a philosopher. Following an agenda set by Rex and Hank, Hershovitz takes us on a fun romp through classic and contemporary philosophy, powered by questions like, Does Hank have the right to drink soda? When is it okay to swear? and, Does the number six exist? Hershovitz and his boys take on more weighty issues too. They explore punishment, authority, sex, gender, race, the nature of truth and knowledge, and the existence of God. Along the way, they get help from professional philosophers, famous and obscure. And they show that all of us have a lot to learn from listening to kids—and thinking with them. Hershovitz calls on us to support kids in their philosophical adventures. But more than that, he challenges us to join them so that we can become better, more discerning thinkers and recapture some of the wonder kids have at the world.




The Philosophical Parent


Book Description

The Philosophical Parent is a companion for parents and parents-to-be that explores the many philosophical questions that come with making and raising children. Jean Kazez explores eighteen perplexities, from the practical to the profound, arguing for a novel view of the parent-child relationship, with implications at every stage of parenthood.




Making AI Intelligible


Book Description

Can humans and artificial intelligences share concepts and communicate? One aim of Making AI Intelligible is to show that philosophical work on the metaphysics of meaning can help answer these questions. Cappelen and Dever use the externalist tradition in philosophy of to create models of how AIs and humans can understand each other. In doing so, they also show ways in which that philosophical tradition can be improved: our linguistic encounters with AIs revel that our theories of meaning have been excessively anthropocentric. The questions addressed in the book are not only theoretically interesting, but the answers have pressing practical implications. Many important decisions about human life are now influenced by AI. In giving that power to AI, we presuppose that AIs can track features of the world that we care about (e.g. creditworthiness, recidivism, cancer, and combatants.) If AIs can share our concepts, that will go some way towards justifying this reliance on AI. The book can be read as a proposal for how to take some first steps towards achieving interpretable AI. Making AI Intelligible is of interest to both philosophers of language and anyone who follows current events or interacts with AI systems. It illustrates how philosophy can help us understand and improve our interactions with AI.




What's Left of Human Nature?


Book Description

A philosophical account of human nature that defends the concept against dehumanization, Darwinian, and developmentalist challenges. Human nature has always been a foundational issue for philosophy. What does it mean to have a human nature? Is the concept the relic of a bygone age? What is the use of such a concept? What are the epistemic and ontological commitments people make when they use the concept? In What's Left of Human Nature? Maria Kronfeldner offers a philosophical account of human nature that defends the concept against contemporary criticism. In particular, she takes on challenges related to social misuse of the concept that dehumanizes those regarded as lacking human nature (the dehumanization challenge); the conflict between Darwinian thinking and essentialist concepts of human nature (the Darwinian challenge); and the consensus that evolution, heredity, and ontogenetic development result from nurture and nature. After answering each of these challenges, Kronfeldner presents a revisionist account of human nature that minimizes dehumanization and does not fall back on outdated biological ideas. Her account is post-essentialist because it eliminates the concept of an essence of being human; pluralist in that it argues that there are different things in the world that correspond to three different post-essentialist concepts of human nature; and interactive because it understands nature and nurture as interacting at the developmental, epigenetic, and evolutionary levels. On the basis of this, she introduces a dialectical concept of an ever-changing and “looping” human nature. Finally, noting the essentially contested character of the concept and the ambiguity and redundancy of the terminology, she wonders if we should simply eliminate the term “human nature” altogether.