Joseph LeDoux argues that ideas like the self are increasingly barriers to discovery and understanding. He offers a new framework, theorizing four realms of existence--bodily, neural, cognitive, and conscious. Together, these four realms operate continuously as an "ensemble of being" to make humans who and what we are.
The “happiness agenda” is a worldwide movement that claims that happiness is the highest good, happiness can be measured, and public policy should promote happiness. Against Happiness is a thorough and powerful critique of this program, revealing the flaws of its concept of happiness and advocating a renewed focus on equality and justice. Written by an interdisciplinary team of authors, this book provides both theoretical and empirical analysis of the limitations of the happiness agenda. The authors emphasize that this movement draws on a parochial, Western-centric philosophical basis and demographic sample. They show that happiness defined as subjective satisfaction or a surplus of positive emotions bears little resemblance to the richer and more nuanced concepts of the good life found in many world traditions. Cross-cultural philosophy, comparative theology, and social and cultural psychology all teach that cultures and subcultures vary in how much value they place on life satisfaction or feeling happy. Furthermore, the ideas promoted by the happiness agenda can compete with rights, justice, sustainability, and equality—and even conceal racial and gender injustice. Against Happiness argues that a better way forward requires integration of cross-cultural philosophical, ethical, and political thought with critical social science. Ultimately, the authors contend, happiness should be a secondary goal—worth pursuing only if it is contingent on the demands of justice.
Examines the role that the brain's circuitry plays in the development of human emotions and responses and how this relationship needs to be understood in order to improve treatment of emotional disorders.
The ability to learn about adverse events has a special significance for survival. A body of work established the key role of the amygdala in acquisition, consolidation, and extinction of defense (fear) responses that protect the organism in the presence of learned threats. More than a decade ago, our lab showed that exposure to a learned threat, leading to the retrieval or reactivation of the memory, leads to a reconsolidation (re-storage) of the memory in the amygdala. This finding reinvigorated interest in the role of memory retrieval in memory stability and change. In this chapter, we summarize research on the role of the amygdala in defense learning and memory and then discuss memory reconsolidation in the amygdala and its theoretical and clinical implications.
In this book we are trying to illuminate the persistent and nag ging questions of how mind, life, and the essence of being relate to brain mechanisms. We do that not because we have a commit ment to bear witness to the boring issue of reductionism but be cause we want to know more about what it's all about. How, in deed, does the brain work? How does it allow us to love, hate, see, cry, suffer, and ultimately understand Kepler's laws? We try to uncover clues to these staggering questions by con sidering the results of our studies on the bisected brain. Several years back, one of us wrote a book with that title, and the ap proach was to describe how brain and behavior are affected when one takes the brain apart. In the present book, we are ready to put it back together, and go beyond, for we feel that split-brain studies are now at the point of contributing to an understanding of the workings of the integrated mind. We are grateful to Dr. Donald Wilson of the Dartmouth Medi cal School for allowing us to test his patients. We would also like to thank our past and present colleagues, including Richard Naka mura, Gail Risse, Pamela Greenwood, Andy Francis, Andrea El berger, Nick Brecha, Lynn Bengston, and Sally Springer, who have been involved in various facets of the experimental studies on the bisected brain described in this book.
Joseph LeDoux argues that ideas like the self are increasingly barriers to discovery and understanding. He offers a new framework, theorizing four realms of existence--bodily, neural, cognitive, and conscious. Together, these four realms operate continuously as an "ensemble of being" to make humans who and what we are.
This book offers a broad exploration of classic and contemporary research on current and emerging topics in the field of psychology. Investigates the "how's" and "why's" of research methods presented, and offers frequent examination of the validity of conclusions drawn. Presents information in a lively conversational style. Investigates behavioral issues surrounding things like gender and sexual orientation, economic status, cultural diversity, motivation and emotion, and workplace issues relate to the study of psychology. Compares findings of psychological research with widely held popular beliefs. For readers interested in learning psychological concepts, examining the research methods and outcomes, and understanding the impact of these issues on everyday life.
What people ultimately want from opera, audience research suggests, is to be absorbed in a story that engages their feelings, even moves them deeply, and that may lead them to insights about life and, perhaps, themselves. How and why can this combination of music and drama do that? What causes people to be moved by opera? How is it that people may become more informed about living and their own lives? Seeing Opera Anew addresses these fundamental questions. Most approaches to opera present information solely from the humanities, providing musical, literary, and historical interpretations, but this book offers a “stereo” perspective, adding insights from the sciences closely related to human life, including evolutionary biology, psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience. It can be hoped that academic specialists less familiar with the science will find points of interest in this book’s novel approach, and that open-minded students and inquisitive opera-goers will be stimulated by its “cultural and biological perspective.”
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