All Reviews
Reviews are listed in reverse chronological order, with the most recent review appearing first in the list.
Enactive Psychiatry
Ludwig Wittgenstein famously described the philosophical method as ‘therapy’, as a process that produces therapeutic relief by dissolving the linguistic misconceptions that masquerade as philosophical problems. While Sanneke de Haan’s Enactive Psychiatry
The Falling in Love Montage
While the same-sex love themes may what brings some readers to The Falling in Love Montage, they are not really a big issue in the novel. The theme of dementia is more deeply explored and makes Smyth’s work stand out as interesting. Saoirse is going throu
Good Work If You Can Get It
Brennan’s book is a good introduction to graduate school and to the search for a position once you have finished your degrees. It is not easy!
Thin Girls
Lily and Rose are twins. Thin Girls starts when they are in their early twenties, with Rose living in an in-patient eating disorders program. She has been there a year, because she has found a way to keep herself at her weight, eating just enough to stay
Too Much and Never Enough
For anyone concerned about the psychological make-up and the background of Donald Trump, I recommend Mary Trump’s book with both thumbs up. It is not great literature, it does not advance a bold new paradigm, but it is a useful, instructive, and often ent
Science and Enlightenment
In clear and well-written prose Maxwell makes the ambitious and far-reaching argument that scientific method, properly conceived, can be applied not just to the acquisition of knowledge but to problems of living. By this method academic inquiry should aim
Tomboy
In a 2017 New York Times opinion piece My Daughter Is Not Transgender. She’s a Tomboy., Lisa Selin Davis wrote about her daughter, who was 7 at the time. Her daughter, 7 years old at the time, rejected girly clothes and stereotypical girl behavior, and wa
Camming
Camming: Money, Power and Pleasure in the Sex Work Industry by Angela Jones is devoted to exploring the online world of “camming” as a form of sex work. Camming is online sex work in the erotic webcam industry. Cammers typically use various online platfor
Sway
Pragya Agarwal’s book, Sway: Unravelling unconscious bias, is three things: an interesting and lively scholarly account of different types of human biases, including their sources, modes of operation, and consequences; a personal, but also intensely invol
We Know It When We See It
Lifelong learners will read this for fun. Expect this book to be regularly recommended for undergraduate or graduate courses in biology, neurobiology, microbiology, anatomy, or cognitive science. Philosophers (studying the mind, agency, or consciousness)
Debating Sex Work
In Debating Sex Work, Lori Watson and Jessica Flanigan present opposing view regarding criminalization or decriminalization of prostitution or sex work. Watson endorses the Nordic model and believes that prostitution is oppressive to women, whereas Flanig
You Were Never Broken
In the opening chapter “Everything is Welcome,” author Jeff Foster speaks to those readers who have engaged in self-help work and yet who still feel empty. Reflecting the book’s title, Foster emphatically tells the reader “there is nothing wrong with you
Transcendence
Insofar as the author is a science journalist, we might expect a popularization or a “dumbing down” of her data and arguments, but happily, this is not the case. She presents a cogent and intriguing – but possibly eclectic – case for the essential adaptab
The Truth About Denial
This book provides its readers with a serious lesson. It is to motivate its readers to be self-aware about how they come to believe what they do, and how they sometimes protect their established beliefs against competing ideas, even ones that are more des
Hidden Valley Road
Hidden Valley Road is one of the best accounts of mental illness available. It takes a familiar format, combining the narrative of the central characters affected by mental illness with the development of scientific thought about, and medical treatments f
The Tao of Ordinariness
This is a case where confirmation bias didn’t work. Both the academic-philosopher and the spiritual-seeker in me expected this to be as intellectually inspiring as it would be personally uplifting. Unfortunately, it was neither. I found the title intrigui
Overkill
Paul Offit has written a number of books, mostly on how people misuse medicine and give bad medical advice. Overkill is largely about how doctors themselves often make serious mistakes and give patients the wrong recommendations. It is a book that may cha
Outgrowing Addiction
In Outgrowing Addiction: With Common Sense Instead of “Disease” Therapy, Stanton Peele and Zack Rhoads dismiss the common theory of addiction as being a brain disease, usually expressed in the medical model. Instead, the authors endorse a developmental mo
Music
Ted Gioia gives a history of music from ancient times up to rock and rap, highlighting the ways in which the most innovative music is most commonly at first disruptive and even a threat to the establishment ways, and then gets absorbed into the mainstream
Scaffolded Minds
In many respects Scaffolding Minds succinctly synthesizes Somogy Varga’s articles over the past decade. It provides pertinent paraphrases for its target audience of philosophical scholars and clinical and cognate practitioners reflecting upon the nature o
We Are Totally Normal
We Are Totally Normal is a YA novel set on the west coast. Nandan is from an Indian family in an Indian community, but the story is basically about sex and partying. Nandan is a junior in high school, and he spends a lot of his time hooking up, trying to
Hypersanity
Early chapters present a thoughtful review of basic logic, pointing out the limits of pure logic when engaging in social discourse on the many outlets available to us these days. You will even be able to test yourself to become more aware of “self-decepti
Ordinary Unhappiness
Writer, journalist, and the founding editor of The Point, Jon Baskin, has written an admirable book called Ordinary Unhappiness: The Therapeutic Fiction of David Foster Wallace. In this book, he illustrates how Wallace’s fiction is an encounter with vario
Human and Animal Minds
Are animals phenomenally conscious? You won’t find a categorical ‘yes’ to this question in Peter Carruthers’ new book. You won’t find a categorical ‘no’ either. You will find instead a case in favor of the thesis that there is no fact of the matter concer
The Moral Psychology of Internal Conflict
Ellis’ project intends to confront an increasing relativization of ethics. We may avoid relativistic ethics because – and this is his main thesis – the search for truth is a natural human tendency. If the truth is properly pursued, relativity is blocked.
Read the full review of The Moral Psychology of Internal Conflict