David Smith has new philosophy blog at invitation of Psychology Today

David Livingstone Smith, Ph.D., UNE associate professor of philosophy, was invited to publish a periodic blog for Psychology Today. His blog is titled Philosophy Dispatches: Thoughts on Human Nature. His first two posts are The "Teleologist's Dilemma: Life Has No Purpose" (Nov. 24, 2011) and "Dehumanization, Genocide, and the Psychology of Indifference" (Dec. 3, 2011).

In November Smith was a participant of La Ciudad de las Ideas - described as a "festival of brilliant minds" - in Puebla, Mexico. La Ciudad gathered 25 world-renowned personalities - including Paul Krugman, Nobel-winning economist and New York Times columnist; Oliver Stone, Academy Award-winning filmmaker; Steven Levitt, economist and co-author of Freakonomics; and Morgan Spurlock, documentary filmmaker best known for his Academy Award-nominated "Super Size Me."

Smith's most recent book is Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others, which he recently discussed on NPR's Talk of the Nation. He is also the author of  Why We Lie: The Evolutionary Roots of Deception and the Unconscious Mind and The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War.