Essays on Cognition
By Dr Neel Burton — Psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine writer; Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford; author of over twenty books.
I have found power in the mysteries of thought… —Euripides
Thinking involves far more than reasoning—or intelligence.
We form concepts, tell stories, detect patterns, make judgements, and try to distinguish between true and false, right and wrong.
Even clever people can believe foolish things, fall for bad arguments, and deploy their intelligence to defend whatever suits them.
Meanwhile, we neglect non-rational forms of cognition, such as intuition, imagination, and wonder, that make all the difference between a technician and an artist.
This page brings together my essays on cognition.
Reason and Its Limits
What Is Intelligence? — The West’s Dangerous Obsession With Analytical Intelligence
The Problem with Critical Thinking — Why Are People No Wiser Than Before?
Why Do Clever People Fall for Bad Arguments? — How Logical Fallacies Exploit Human Nature
What Is Truth? — Why Truth Matters More than Ever
Why the God Debate Is a Non-Debate — First, Tell Me What You Mean by God
Kant’s Biggest Idea: The Critique of Pure Reason — 800 Pages in One Simple Essay
The Psychology and Philosophy of Wisdom — Ever Met a Clever Fool? Why Intelligence Alone Is Not Enough
Language & Thought
How the Language You Speak Influences the Way You Think — Does Language Merely Express Our Thoughts—or Does It Help to Create Them?
Beyond Words: The Benefits of Being Bilingual — To Have Another Language Is to Have Another Self
How to Say Something Without Saying It — How We Can Mean Much More Than We Say
Why Metaphor Is a Sign of Genius — What the Logicians Have Missed
Expression and Persuasion
The Sophist Gorgias and the Magic of Words — If You Love Words, Read On.
The Most Beautiful Thing in the World — Diogenes, Free Speech, and the Freedom to Become
How to Structure a Speech or Essay, The Classical Way — Learn the Six Classical Parts of Discourse Used by Cicero
Why Three of Anything Is More Persuasive — I Came, I Saw, I Conquered
Learning, Memory, and Interpretation
The Ancient Technique That Changes Minds — The Socratic Method: Why Socrates Is Remembered for His Method, Not His Answers
The Limits of Teaching — Can the Highest Forms of Human Excellence Be Taught?
Can Reading Make You Stupid? — Schopenhauer on the Benefits of Skipping School
Memorise a Speech with This Simple Ancient Technique — The Method of Loci, or ‘Mind Palace’—and the Gruesome Story Behind It
Why We Never Read the Same Book Twice — What Homer’s Odyssey Teaches Us About Great Literature
Extra-Rational Forms of Intelligence
What Is Hypersanity? — There’s More to Life than Mere Sanity
Some Insights Into Having Insights — Aha, Uh-Oh, and D’oh! The Psychology of Insight
Intuition vs Instinct: Key Differences Explained — The Psychology and Philosophy of Intuition
Why Imagination Matters — The Psychology and Philosophy of Imagination
Why Wonder is the Beginning of Wisdom — The Psychology and Philosophy of Wonder
Why Laughter Is Complicated — Every Theory of Laughter Explained—and Superseded
Why Computers Could Never Experience Beauty — What Kantian Aesthetics Reveals About Human Nature
How the Western Mind Nearly Took an Eastern Turn — The Surprising Affinities Between Greek and Indian Philosophy
Why Intelligent People Crave Silence — Hate Noise? You Might Be a Genius
Continue Exploring
Explore more subjects in the Index Scriptorum.
See the Bigger Picture
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