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73The social perception process: Reconsidering the role of social stimulationJournal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 19 (1). 1989.
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36What does the limbic memory circuit actually do?Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22 (3): 451-451. 1999.We applaud Aggleton & Brown's affirmation of limbic diencephalic-hippocampal interaction as a key memory substrate. However, we do not agree with a thesis of diencephalic-hippocampal strict dedication to episodic memory. Instead, this circuitry supports the production of context-specific patterns of activation that subserve retrieval for a broad class of memory phenomena, including goal-directed instrumental behavior of animals and episodic memory of humans.
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741More than provocative, less than scientific: A commentary on the editorial decision to publish CofnasPhilosophical Psychology 33 (7): 893-898. 2020.This letter addresses the editorial decision to publish the article, “Research on group differences in intelligence: A defense of free inquiry” (Cofnas, 2020). Our letter points out several critical problems with Cofnas's article, which we believe should have either disqualified the manuscript upon submission or been addressed during the review process and resulted in substantial revisions.
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37On Inhumanity: Dehumanization and How to Resist ItOup Usa. 2020.Throughout the darkest moments of human history, evildoers have convinced communities to turn on groups that are regarded as in some way other and, by starting to think of them as less than human, persecute or even eliminate them. We can all recognize the unfathomable evils of dehumanization in slavery, the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, and the Jim Crow South, but we are not free from its power today. With climate change and political upheaval driving millions of refugees worldwide to leave t…Read more
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21Manufacturing Monsters: Dehumanization and Public PolicyIn David Boonin (ed.), Palgrave Handbook of Philosophy and Public Policy, Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 263-275. 2018.In this chapter I explore the phenomenon of dehumanization in relation to public policy. Using two examples of spectacle lynchings of African Americans, I articulate a conception of dehumanization as the attitude of conceiving of others as subhuman creatures and explain the psychological basis for this phenomenon. I suggest that dehumanization is pertinent to policies concerning hate speech. I address objections to my conception of dehumanization: that dehumanizers implicitly or explicitly ackno…Read more
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3249We are addressing this letter to the editors of Philosophical Psychology after reading an article they decided to publish in the recent vol. 33, issue 1. The article is by Nathan Cofnas and is entitled “Research on group differences in intelligence: A defense of free inquiry” (2020). The purpose of our letter is not to invite Cofnas’s contribution into a broader dialogue, but to respectfully voice our concerns about the decision to publish the manuscript, which, in our opinion, fails to meet a r…Read more
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Freud's neural unconsciousIn Gertrudis Van de Vijver & Filip Geerardyn (eds.), The Pre-Psychoanalytic Writings of Sigmund Freud, Karnac Books. pp. 155-164. 2002.
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10A Problem for Freud's Disjunctive ArgumentIn Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi (ed.), Psychoanalysis and Theism: Critical Reflections on the Grunbaum Thesis, Jason Aronson. pp. 43-58. 2010.
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158Dehumanization, Essentialism, and Moral PsychologyPhilosophy Compass 9 (11): 814-824. 2014.Despite its importance, the phenomenon of dehumanization has been neglected by philosophers. Since its introduction, the term “dehumanization” has come to be used in a variety of ways. In this paper, I use it to denote the psychological stance of conceiving of other human beings as subhuman creatures. I draw on an historical example – Morgan Godwyn's description of 17th century English colonists' dehumanization of African slaves and use this to identify three explanatory desiderata that any sati…Read more
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14The Mirror-Image of the Present: Freud's First Theory of Retrogressive Screen MemoriesPsychoanalytische Perspektieven 39 7-28. 2000.
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1Indexically yours: why being human is more like being here than it is like being waterIn Raymond Corbey Annette Lanjouw (ed.), The Politics of Species: Reshaping Our Relationships with Other Animals, Cambridge University Press. pp. 40-52. 2013.The paper presents a novel interpretation of the function of the word "human."
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37Aiming at self-deception: Deflationism, intentionalism, and biological purposeBehavioral and Brain Sciences 34 (1): 37-38. 2011.Deflationists about self-deception understand self-deception as the outcome of biased information processing, but in doing so, they lose the normative distinction between self-deception and wishful thinking. Von Hippel & Trivers (VH&T) advocate a deflationist approach, but they also want preserve the purposive character of self-deception. A biologically realistic analysis of deception can eliminate the contradiction implicit in their position
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NaturalismIn Lee C. McIntyre & Alexander Rosenberg (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Social Science, Routledge. 2016.
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40Freud’s Philosophy of the UnconsciousKluwer Academic Publishers. 1999.This is the first comprehensive study of Freud's relationship with philosophy.
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1Apeing the human essence: simianization as dehumanizationIn Wulf Hund, Charles Mills & Sylvia Sebastiani (eds.), Simianization: Apes, Gender, Class, and Race, Lit Verlag. pp. 77-104. 2016.Representing members of racial minorities as apes or monkeys is a special case of dehumanization and cannot be properly understood outside of a general theory of dehumanization. We argue that to fully understand any particular case of dehumanization it is mandatory to consider the intersection of its psychological, cultural, and political determinants: the psychological component explains the distinctive form of dehumanizing thinking, the cultural component explains the significance of the choic…Read more
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167Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate OthersSt. Martins Press. 2011.Less Than Human is a chilling indictment of our nature, and is as timely as it is relevant.
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Beyond Good and Evil: Variations on Some Freudian ThemesIn A. C. Bohart B. S. Held & E. Mendelowitz K. J. Schneider (eds.), Humanity's Dark Side: Evil, Destructive Experience, and Psychotherapy, American Psychological Association. pp. 193-212. 2013.The paper critically interrogates the claim that Freudian theory is morally nihillistic.
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Sigmund Freud's Programme for a Science of ConsciousnessBritish Journal of Psychotherapy 15 (4): 12-24. 1999.
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17How Biology Shapes Philosophy: New Foundations for Naturalism (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2016.How Biology Shapes Philosophy is a seminal contribution to the emerging field of biophilosophy. It brings together work by philosophers who draw on biology to address traditional and not so traditional philosophical questions and concerns. Thirteen essays by leading figures in the field explore the biological dimensions of ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, gender, semantics, rationality, representation, and consciousness, as well as the misappropriation of biology by philosophers, allowing the …Read more
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32Interrogating the Westermarck Hypothesis: Limitations, Problems, and AlternativesBiological Theory 2 (3): 307-316. 2007.Westermarck’s Hypothesis is widely accepted by evolutionary scientists as the best explanation for human incest avoidance. However, its explanatory shortcomings have been largely ignored and it has never been pitted against alternative biological hypotheses. Although WH may account for incest avoidance between co-reared kin, it cannot explain other forms of incest avoidance, and cannot account for the differential incidence of sibling-sibling, mother-son, father-daughter and other forms of inces…Read more
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3Approaching Psychoanalysis: An Introductory CourseKarnac. 1999.A comprehensive user-friendly introductory account of Freudian theory and other major currents in psychoanalytic thought. It also includes biographical material on the major theorists. It helps to clear up many misconceptions about psychoanalytic theory and practice.
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99Self-Deception: A Teleofunctional ApproachPhilosophia 42 (1): 181-199. 2014.This paper aims to offer an alternative to the existing philosophical theories of self-deception. It describes and motivates a teleofunctional theory that models self-deception on the subintentional deceptions perpetrated by non-human organisms. Existing theories of self-deception generate paradoxes, are empirically implausible, or fail to account for the distinction between self-deception and other kinds of motivated irrationality. Deception is not a uniquely human phenomenon: biologists have f…Read more
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26Horror sanguinisCommon Knowledge 22 (1): 69-80. 2016.We are a supremely social species whose ecological success rests largely on our capacity for large-scale cooperation. This high degree of sociality is only possible against a background of immensely powerful inhibitions against performing acts of lethal violence against conspecifics. There are circumstances, however, in which acts of lethal violence are individually or collectively advantageous and attractive. To perform such acts, we must override our inhibitions. This essay argues that this te…Read more