Philosophy

02 Aug We Need To Be More/Other Than Critical

Posted at 17:30h in Community Organizing, Critical psychiatry, DSM-5, Human Development, Philosophy, Politics, Popular Posts, Postmodern Marxism, Psychology of Becoming, Psychotherapy, Social Therapeutics, Social Therapy 1 Comment

I few months ago I was invited to write a chapter for a book being published on the topic of critical psychotherapy, counseling and psychoanalysis. I’ve begun working on it this week and am at that early stage in writing (for me) where something is emerging, but I don’t know...

28 May Duck-Rabbit and Dog

Posted at 19:49h in Overweight Brain Mini Blog, Philosophy, What's New, Wittgenstein 4 Comments

What do you see above? A duck? A rabbit? In his book Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein presents us with this "ambiguous figure" of a duck-rabbit to show us how how perception is not reducible to the mechanism of the eye and optic nerve. (Most people see either a head of a duck...

08 Apr Conceptual Oppression

Posted at 18:15h in Activity Theory, Learning Environments, Philosophy, Psychology of Becoming, Vygotsky, Wittgenstein 4 Comments

I spent the past weekend in Philadelphia at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association. One of the events I participated in was a half-day professional development course. My task was to share aspects of my version of cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) in relation to the issues...

30 Mar Why Physicists Make Up Stories in the Dark

Posted at 15:44h in Creativity, I Like This, Philosophy, What's New 2 Comments

"Before science had the means to explore [the unseen], we had to make do with stories that became enshrined in myth and folklore. Those stories aren’t banished as science advances; they are simply reinvented. Scientists working at the forefront of the invisible will always be confronted with gaps in knowledge,...

15 Mar Just Released—Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology

Posted at 14:37h in Activity Theory, Critical psychiatry, Performance Movement, Philosophy, Postmodern Marxism, Psychology, Psychotherapy, Publications, Social Therapy, Vygotsky, What's New, Wittgenstein 2 Comments

Congratulations to Thomas Teo on the release of the Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology, for which he served as editor. The massive (2400 pages) anthology published by Springer Reference is “the first reference work in English that comprehensively looks at psychological topics from critical as well as international points of view.” Teo,...

09 Mar Who Are We/Who Are We Becoming?

Posted at 02:14h in Community Organizing, Creativity, Culture, Education, Human Development, Philosophy, Politics, Training/Classes, What's New 0 Comments

Earlier this evening I completed a six-day residency period of The International Class of the East Side Institute. It was an intense period of conversation on all manner of psychological, phiosophical, political, cultural and completely mundane matters. The 9 current members of this year's hail from 5 countries—Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, the Netherlands,...

28 Feb Caryl Churchill’s Love and Information

Posted at 20:18h in Culture, I Like This, Philosophy, Theatre, What's New 0 Comments

I just saw "Love and Information", the new play by the great playwright Carly Churchill. Unique in form (15 actors played 100 parts in 57 scenes that are seconds to a few minutes long), it's equally unusual in content—how our obsession with knowing and information permeates our everyday conversations and...

12 Jan What a thing is language!

Posted at 03:27h in Activity Theory, Creativity, Culture, Language, Philosophy, Popular Posts, Psychology of Becoming, Speaking Engagements 7 Comments

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...

21 Dec How Do We See What We See?

Posted at 01:36h in Culture, Human Development, Philosophy, Psychology of Becoming 9 Comments

December 20, 2013 Ever since I heard long ago that “Eskimos have 100 words for snow” I’ve been fascinated by how we see, and the ways that our culture and language inter-relate with our perceptions. Never mind that the “words for snow” claim has been questioned and debated for more than...