On October 24, Goodwin College English instructor Professor Randy Laist was selected by The New York Times for inclusion in The Stone, a collection of writings by contemporary philosophers and other thinkers on issues both timely and timeless. The series moderator is Simon Critchley, who teaches philosophy at The New School for Social Research in New York. Laist’s article, Why I Identify as Mammal, take an insightful — and often wry — look at how we choose to define ourselves. Laist writes, “In a world of conscious beings, identity matters. Self-perception plays a vital role in behavior, so the question of how human beings think about themselves in relation to the world is more than simply one of semantics; ways of seeing lead, directly and indirectly, to ways of acting. Given all that, I choose to identify as mammal.” Click here to read Laist’s article.
