Tania is the Arthur W. Marks Professor of Psychology at Princeton University. She oversees the Concepts and Cognition Laboratory, which uses the empirical tools of cognitive psychology and the conceptual tools of analytic philosophy to study the human mind. Their research focuses on topics including explanation, learning, causal reasoning, and folk epistemology.  Tania is the recipient of numerous early-career awards including the Stanton Prize from the Society for Philosophy and Psychology, the Spence Award from the Association for Psychological Science, a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation and a James S. McDonnell Foundation Scholar Award in Understanding Human Cognition. She blogs about psychology, philosophy, and cognitive science at Psychology Today and for NPR’s 13.7: Cosmos & Culture.
In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?”
Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here on YouTube⁠⁠⁠.
We discuss:
00:00 Welcome
01:49 Tania Intro
- #interdisciplinary human #cognitivescience
- Links to #epistemology & #ethics "I came to cognitive science from a background largely in philosophy of science & epistemology"
- Questions at the boundary of empirical psychology & philosophy "how can we know things, what is knowledge, what does it mean to understand, how do we acquire understanding, how can we make the correct decisions"
- "We can learn a lot from #philosophy "
- What makes a compelling explanation & why we are so motivated to explain
03:57 What's Real?
- "Because I am a psychologist I'm deeply sceptical of my own introspective sense"
- Growing up in a #Jewish household and "I still identify as Jewish"
- Jewish identity, community, ritual... "at the same time I feel like theistic beliefs just played pretty much no role in that at all"
- Prayers: "They certainly talk about god, they certainly talk about occurrences that seem very, very implausible... but that just seemed to me to be not deeply connected to what was valuable or important about that religious identity growing up"
- "That sounds somewhat foreign to many people I know from other religions where belief is really at the core of what it means to have a particular kind of a religious identity"
- Not speaking Hebrew "you're able to get to a certain point where something might have meaning for you... before you actually know what it means"
- "I definitely had experiences of actually reading the translations and being taken aback by them... this is what I've been saying?"
- Hebrew School "I told my parents that it I thought it was a waste of time and I didn't want to keep going"
- In high school "sought out Jewish education on my own... I discovered I was the only person there whose parents hadn't forced them to be there... it was a miserable class"
- "I had a Jewish wedding... one of the conversations that we had with our Rabbi was that we didn't want god to be mentioned"
- "Threading that needle... preserve some elements of a tradition that's meaningful... how to do it in a way that's consistent with other values that I hold."
- "I think I'm a straightforward boring naturalist"
- "I have no doubt that I routinely employ all sorts of background assumptions that I have not subjected to scrutiny & that I could not give good evidence based arguments for..."
What Matters?
Who Matters?
A Better Future?

...and much more. Full show notes at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sentientism.info⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.
Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sentientism.info⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Join our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠"I'm a Sentientist" wall⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ via ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠this simple form⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.
Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here on FaceBook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Come join us there!