Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas

223 | Tania Lombrozo on What Explanations Are

Jan 16, 2023

Tania Lombrozo, a cognitive psychologist at Princeton, dives into the primal human urge for explanations. She explores how our quest for understanding shapes our reasoning and learning processes. Lombrozo discusses the balance between storytelling and rationality, highlighting how narratives can overshadow empirical data. She also examines the complexities of explanation-seeking across species, revealing insights into curiosity's role in learning. The conversation unveils the philosophical dilemmas surrounding what constitutes a 'good' explanation and our limits in understanding.

01:10:45

Episode guests

Tania Lombrozo

Highlights

AI Chapters

Episode notes

The Role of Philosophers in the Development of Explanation Theory

03:20

The Bottoming Out of Explanations

02:18

The Role of Explanation in Learning

02:56

Is There a Relationship Between Explanation and Cause?

02:55

Intro

4min

The Nature of Explanation in Cognition

15min

The Impact of Explanation Seeking on Learning and Categorization

2min

The Complexity of Explanations

19min

The Psychology of Explanatory Preferences

8min

Balancing Storytelling and Rationality in Understanding

2min

The Quest for Understanding: Limits and Mysteries

14min

Curiosity Unleashed: Understanding Behavior Across Species

9min

There are few human impulses more primal than the desire for explanations. We have expectations concerning what happens, and when what we experience differs from those expectations, we want to know the reason why. There are obvious philosophy questions here: What is an explanation? Do explanations bottom out, or go forever? But there are also psychology questions: What precisely is it that we seek when we demand an explanation? What makes us satisfied with one? Tania Lombrozo is a psychologist who is also conversant with the philosophical side of things. She offers some pretty convincing explanations for why we value explanation so highly.

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Tania Lombrozo received her Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard University. She is currently a professor of psychology at Princeton. Among her awards are the Gittier Award from the American Psychological Foundation, an Early Investigator Award from the Society of Experimental Psychologists, and the Stanton Prize from the Society for Philosophy and Psychology.

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