First, is our behavior free will or is it partly due to parasites? New science shows how parasites change behaviors throughout the animal kingdom. What does that mean for human behavior? [ dur: 14 mins. ]
- Dr. Dickson Despommier is a Professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia University. He is the author of The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century and People, Parasites, and Plowshares: Learning From Our Body’s Most Terrifying Invaders.
- Patrick House is Neuroscientist at Stanford University. He is the co-author of Predator Cat Odors Acdivate Sexual Arousal Pathways in Brains of Toxoplasma Gondii infected Rats.
Then, for this Valentine’s week we spend the rest of the hour exploring the phenomena of love. They may have been some of the world’s greatest or most influential thinkers, but they were also great failures at love. Joining us is Andrew Shaffer author of Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love. [ dur: 15 mins. ]
- Andrew Shaffer is the author of Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love and Literary Rogues: A Scandalous History of Wayward Authors.
Later, Spencer Downing charts a historical timeline of love’s many ways, suggesting how we have come to understand love in the twenty-first century.
- Spencer Downing is Director of Programs and Operations at The Center at Blessed Sacrament
Finally, on the scholars’ panel, what is love? Is it emotional? Is it biological? Can it be summoned by rational decision and how does it play out in society? [ dur: 28 mins. ]
- Simon May is a Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Kings College London. He is the author of Love: A History and Nietzsche’s Ethics and his War on ‘Morality’.
- Bennett W. Helm is a Professor of Philosophy at Franklin & Marshall College. He is the author of Love, Friendship, and the Self: Intimacy, Identification, and the Social Nature of Persons and Emotional Reason: Deliberation, Motivation, and the Nature of Value.
- Dr. Robert Epstein is a Senior Research Psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology. He is currently working on a book called Making Love: How People Learn To Love, and How You Can Too, which is based on his research on how love emerges over time in arranged marriages. He is also the author of, Cognition, Creativity, and Behavior: Selected Essays.
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