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.