In How Emotions Are Made (2017), Lisa Feldman Barrett argues that emotions aren’t universal reflexes but predictive categories shaped by context, culture, and language. Our emotions, according to the classical view, are artifacts of evolution, having long ago been advantageous for survival, and are now a fixed component of our biological nature. (xi) Emotions areKeep reading

Winter is coming. The cold is hard on all of us at Sentient Sanctuary. It takes a lot to keep our animals warm and safe. So, in celebration of #GivingTuesday, we hope you’ll help us to reach our 2025 Animal Care Goal (to give via PayPal or Venmo, see How To Help). Our first fullKeep reading

Sorting Things Out (1999) by Geoffrey C. Bowker and Susan Leigh Star is about classification and its practical, social, political, and ethical consequences. To classify is human. (1) We all spend large parts of our days doing classification work. (1) Each standard and each category valorizes some point of view and silences another. This isKeep reading

In I Am a Strange Loop, Douglas Hofstadter blends philosophy and personal reflection to explore how self and consciousness emerge from self-referential loops in the brain. I specialize in thinking about thinking. (xv) What gives us word-users the right to make life-and-death decisions concerning other living creatures that have no words? In the final analysis,Keep reading

In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman famously posits that human thought operates through two systems: fast, intuitive System 1 and slow, deliberate System 2. System 1 operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control. (20) System 2 allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it,Keep reading