65 - Tania Lombrozo: Explanation and Human Psychology

Tania Lombrozo is Arthur W. Marks ’19 Professor of Psychology at Princeton University, where she directs the Concepts & Cognition Lab. Before that, she did her undergraduate work at Stanford University (!), her graduate work at Harvard University, and then taught at the University of California, Berkeley. Robinson and Tania discuss her work on explanation. Among other things, they touch on our intuitions about what makes explanations good, what makes certain observations seem to demand explanation, some of the differences between religious and scientific explanations, and how we reason about morally charged situations. Keep up with Tania’s work through:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TaniaLombrozo

Tania’s Website: https://psych.princeton.edu/people/tania-lombrozo

The Concepts & Cognition Lab: https://cognition.princeton.edu

OUTLINE:

00:00 Introduction

2:23 From Philosophy to Psychology

8:03:39 Tania’s Interest in Learning and Explanation

11:28 Experiments to Test Our Intuitions About Explanation

16:16 Our Intuitions About What Makes a Good Explanation

27:06 Explanation-Based Processes

29:30 What Demands Explanation?

38:33 Religious and Scientific Explanation?

40:51 What Makes a Good Answer?

43:59 Marr’s Levels of Explanation

48:36 Tania’s Work with Neuroscientists

54:05 More on Explanations in Science and Religion

1:00:58 Moral Reasoning and Explanation

1:07:28 Can Science Explain the Human Mind?

1:12:57 Philosophy and Psychology

1:16:39 Psychology in Tania’s Life

Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com

Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University. Join him in conversations with philosophers, scientists, weightlifters, artists, and everyone in-between.