Apr
13

Thursday April 13, 2023

4:30pm - 6:00pm

“Can We Feel at One with All of Humanity?” - Dr. Helen De Cruz 

Colby Fane-Cushing '25, second from right, poses with fellow student researchers and Saint Michael's College professors at the Eastern Psychological Association's annual meeting in 2023. The team attended the meeting in Boston to present their findings related to a study on how VR meditation can affect stress levels. (Photo courtesy of Melissa VanderKaay Tomasulo)

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“Can We Feel at One with All of Humanity?” - Dr. Helen De Cruz 

Edmundite Center for Faith and Culture presents “Can We Feel at One with All of Humanity?” by Dr. Helen De Cruz

Thursday, April 13, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. in the Farrell Room, Saint Edmund’s Hall

Dr. Helen De Cruz holds the Danforth Chair in the Humanities at Saint Louis University. Her work is concerned with the question why and how humans form beliefs in domains that are quite remote from everyday life, such as in mathematics, theology, and science. How do the concepts in these domains relate to our everyday, ordinary cognitive skills? What is the evolutionary origin of our capacities to form beliefs in these abstract domains? Dr. De Cruz observed, “I argue human high-level cognitive processes have precursors in nonhuman animal cognition (e.g., a sense of numbers is shared with other vertebrates), but that humans have expanded their conceptual toolkit by their reliance on other minds and on material culture.”