Philosophy Dispatches

Bias

The Dehumanizing Mind

David Livingstone Smith Ph.D. on July 10, 2020

Dehumanization fuels the worst atrocities that human beings perpetrate on one another. Find out what it is and how it works.

Dehumanization fuels the worst atrocities that human beings perpetrate on one another. Find out what it is and how it works.

Why free will is no illusion after all.

If determinism is false, do we have free will?

How the everyday concept of race lays the groundwork for racism.

Free Will

Are Your Choices Predetermined?

David Livingstone Smith Ph.D. on September 8, 2012

Are our choices radically free, or are they caused by prior events?

Are our choices radically free, or are they caused by prior events?

Nobody has free will, and nobody is responsible for their behavior. Suck it up.

Can free will exist in a deterministic universe?

Does free will exist? The question of whether free will exists has been of interest to philosophers for more than two millenia.

Philosophy

What Does It Mean to Be Human?

David Livingstone Smith Ph.D. on May 16, 2012

What are we saying when we say that someone is human?

What are we saying when we say that someone is human?

Freudian Psychology

Freud's Cognitive Revolution

David Livingstone Smith Ph.D. on February 15, 2012

How Freud rejected the Cartesian approach to the human mind and started his own cognitive revolution.

How Freud rejected the Cartesian approach to the human mind and started his own cognitive revolution.

What is it about the human mind that makes it possible for us to think of other people as subhuman creatures? David Livingstone Smith explains.

To answer the question, "Does life have a purpose?" we need to consider the conditions under which anything has a purpose at all.