“Why Academics Stink at Writing,” an essay by Harvard professor Steven Pinker in the Chronicle of Higher Education (September 26, 2014). I found this essay both extremely helpful and extremely annoying. Pinker’s examples are terrific. His explanations for why academics write so badly are really fun to read, kind of like...
I’m excited to be leading a Revolutionary Conversation sponsored by the Institute this fall—the subject of which is Ludwig Wittgenstein and his views on language, logic, learning and looking. Wittgenstein was a unique, eccentric and brilliant 20th century philosopher who took apart nearly every concept that underlies how psychology, education and...
Here’s something I’ve been mulling over for a long time (decades!): the “blessing and the curse” that is human language. What an invention! Making sounds together creating meanings, meanings creating and shaping and reshaping perceptions, concepts, beliefs, feelings, relationships, images, imagination… What we have done and continue to do with, and...
December 10, 2013 My article, "Critical psychology, philosophy and social therapy," appears in the current issue of the journal, Human Studies, A Journal of Philosophy and the Social Sciences (Volume 6, Number 24, 2013). According to the rules of academic publishers, I can share the accepted draft of the article but...
September 20, 2013 Although Vygotsky’s ideas are applied to dozens of disciplines/practices, psychotherapy is not among them. With few exceptions, contemporary Vygotskians have stayed clear of the sub- ject; and most psychotherapy researchers and clinical practitioners have little familiarity with Vygotsky—despite Vygotsky’s challenge to psychology’s isolation of the intellectual from the...
July 24 2013 Fred Newman's and my 1993 book, Lev Vygotsky: Revolutionary Scientist, is now a classic! It's been published by Psychology Press, and my copy arrived today in the mail. It felt good in my hands, and not just because it's a better size and paper quality than the original....
February 16, 2012 In yesterday’s Huffington Post, Dr. Eric Maisel asks, “Does Depression Exist?” Why’s he asking? To show that sometimes what we call things can create false realities. To invite readers to consider that this is what’s happened to our mental life and our feelings. To add a critical political/philosophical dimension to...
October 26, 2011 Question: What's it like to participate in an academic conference taking place in China and on the topic of contemporary capitalism? Answer: An academic conference. Which is to say that you have to do the work to create human connection/conversation outside the rigid conference structure of one person after another...
October 17, 2011 Last week in The Thought Leadership of Fred Newman we played with the Newman play in which Lev Vygotsky and Ludwig Wittgenstein are in therapy with a social therapist (referred to in my last post). I asked folks to break up into four groups and perform the readings of the...
October 9, 2012 I’m currently leading the second phase of my ongoing series, "The Thought Leadership of Fred Newman," at the East Side Institute. For this coming Monday’s session we’re going to play around with two of Newman’s “Psychology Plays”—written expressly for performance at APA (American Psychological Association) annual conventions during...