Academia critical psychology

Notes in Feb 2018

You might not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you. Academic politics is as unavoidable as politics in any other communal domain. Your withdrawal, your inaction, your compliance will help perpetuate existing structures, unexamined positions, and rent seekers. At first glance, it may seem like the stakes are not high. Ego strokes seem to be the primary currency. But that itself is the outcome a diversion. The diversion begins when an academic sees…

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cognitive psychology critical psychology Writing

Notes on Teaching Cognitive Psychology (1)

Today’s lecture was about narratives. This topic is almost never covered in Cognitive Psychology courses. We did not have it when I took the course in 2008. Even when I took Psychology of Language and Reading Processes we still did not cover narratives. And I believe my experience is representative of the majority. Why most instructors don’t include narratives? The answer can be traced back to Ulrich Neisser’s (1967) classic textbook, which continues to be the dominant…

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Writing

Notes in Jan 2018

“Everybody wants to be loved, to fit in. The fear that happens once you start swimming away from the shore, that you’re not going to find a next island, before your strength gives out. I think it’s very rational to be afraid of thinking for yourself, because you may very well find yourself at odds with the community on which you depend. And I think for some of us it’s just a compulsive behavior. It’s…

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Writing

Notes in Jan 2018

Let’s continue with Robert Sokolowski’s Phenomenology of the Human Person. “The fourth [philosophical layer of language use] is parasitic on the third [declarative level], and the third finds its completion in the fourth. In carrying out philosophical discourse we enhance the agency of truth that occurs on the third level, but that agency must already be there waiting to be enhanced.” (Sokolowski, 2008, p. 34) Before addressing Sokolowski’s passage, a short side-note is in order.…

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Writing

Notes in Jan 2018

“The appropriate whole for language, the whole within which all the parts make sense, is the third [declarative] level, the one on which ‘we’ come to light as the ones who use the language.” — Phenomenology of the Human Person (Sokolowski, 2008, p. 33) In this book, Sokolowski uses language as an entry point into a philosophical study of what it means to be a person. He divides different uses of language into four layers:…

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