@leader-ship.bsky.social
Epistemic Psychology & Fiduciary Governance Innovator https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Peter-Kahl
Three days ago, Financial Times columnist Joel Suss described the American economy as paralysed by polarisation. Polarisation, he wrote, is no longer just social—it’s economic.
And I add, it’s also fiduciary. Read my essay.
open.substack.com/pub/pkahl/p/...
What happens when you clap? 👏
A simple gesture hides a psychology of trust and truth.
My new essay explores how cognitive dissonance, belonging, and candour shape what we call “reality.”
pkahl.substack.com/p/what-happe...
#EpistemicPsychology #CognitiveDissonance #PhilosophyOfMind
When the University of Reading asked for feedback, I didn’t tick boxes — I wrote 25,000 words.
The 25,000-Word Feedback Form asks how universities listen, perform, and forget to hear — and proposes feedback as covenant, not survey.
pkahl.substack.com/p/the-25000-...
#HigherEd #Ethics
My new paper, Reconceptualising Knowing as Care, shows that trust, recognition, and moral containment form the true architecture of mind — bridging psychology, psychiatry, and philosophy.
pkahl.substack.com/p/reconceptu...
#EpistemicPsychology #PhilosophyOfMind #Psychiatry #MoralPsychology
What if trust, conflict, and dependence were not emotional states but moral architectures of knowing?
www.researchgate.net/publication/...
#EpistemicPsychology #Psychiatry #RelationalTherapy #CognitiveDissonance #FiduciaryEthics #TrustDynamics
Remember the first cry?
A newborn’s wail is more than biology. It’s the first act of knowing—a claim for recognition that shapes how autonomy, trust, and resilience unfold across a life.
Read: pkahl.substack.com/p/remember-t...
#Psychology #Parenting #EpistemicLife #Philosophy #AttachmentTheory
What if psychology has misunderstood its own greatest discoveries?
My new paper — Re-founding psychology as epistemic psychology — argues that dissonance, conformity, and authority are not anomalies but the grammar of human life.
doi.org/10.13140/RG....
#CognitiveDissonance #Psychiatry
A cracked television screen shows late-night hosts Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, and Jon Stewart, their faces fractured by the shattering. In front of the TV stands the dark silhouette of Donald Trump, hands on hips. The image symbolises political pressure on broadcasters, censorship, and the authoritarian ‘architecture of obedience’ discussed in the essay.
When a late-night host is suspended under political pressure, dissent is re-coded as disobedience. What we are seeing in Trump’s America is not free debate—it is an architecture of obedience.
Read my essay:
Kimmel Suspended, Colbert Outraged
doi.org/10.13140/RG....
Front page of the work, its tile, and author's name: Authoritarianism and the Architecture of Obedience From Fiduciary–Epistemic Trusteeship to Clientelist Betrayal Peter Kahl
Nazi camp guard as test case: obedience = epistemic submission.
Redefines authority, post-Raz, as fiduciary–epistemic trusteeship.
doi.org/10.13140/rg....
#Democracy #Philosophy #Authoritarianism
Cartoon in a bold pop-art style showing a smiling civil servant in a suit riding a tricycle out of a “Policy Design Pavilion” towards a cliff labelled “Public Trust.” He is cheered on by colleagues with balloons and applause, while protesters on the other side hold placards reading “Ignored Input,” “Critical Voices,” and “Unheard Knowledge.” A bright starburst labelled “Fiduciary Duty” is in the sky, ignored by the official. The image illustrates the paper’s argument that UK Civil Service “serious games” and participatory design practices create the spectacle of inclusion while disregarding critical voices, breaching fiduciary–epistemic duties and eroding democratic trust.
UK Civil Service “serious games” = theatre, not democracy.
Symbolic inclusion, scripted outcomes, fiduciary breaches.
I set out Fairness Duties in Participatory Design: notice, reasons, access, proportionality.
Without them, participation is hollow.
dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG....
#Democracy
民主好多時候唔係俾人一夜推倒，係慢慢滲蝕走。
當社會將矛盾「收聲化」，沉默就變成「識做」，忠誠就包裝成美德——咁就開始出事。
香港行過呢條路，西方都唔一定例外。
全文 pkahl.substack.com/p/why-the-ho...
#民主 #倒退 #香港 #認知失調 #知識俸客主義
Democracies rarely fall by force. They erode when institutions pacify our cognitive dissonance — recasting silence as responsibility, loyalty as virtue.
Hong Kong shows the pattern. The West is not immune.
pkahl.substack.com/p/why-the-ho...
#Democracy #Backsliding #EpistemicClientelism #HongKong
Speaking new languages taught me resilience + empathy.
That’s exactly what our democracies need when Trumpism + disinformation push us toward slogans + certainties.
Pluralism requires tolerance of dissonance. Language learning trains us for it.
pkahl.substack.com/p/what-learn...
#Democracy
Learning a foreign language is more than words—it’s training in epistemic resilience. Speaking into dissonance teaches us to live with discomfort and embrace plurality.
Read: Speaking into Dissonance
pkahl.substack.com/p/speaking-i...
#CognitiveDissonance #Bilingualism #Pluralism #EpistemicJustice
Cognitive dissonance isn’t error — it’s the signal of our limits. Most collapse into conformity (epistemic clientelism). But endured, it yields bounded freedom. My new paper explores how fiduciary scaffolds can protect that fragile freedom.
pkahl.substack.com/p/cognitive-...
#Psychology #Freedom
Ce projet appelle à une nouvelle devise pour le savoir :
Liberté épistémique, Égalité des voix, Fraternité des libres penseurs.
Une cité où l’autorité n’est plus souveraine, mais fiduciaire.
pkahl.substack.com/p/vers-une-c...
#LibertéÉpistémique #ÉgalitéÉpistémique #FraternitéÉpistémique
Une scène surréaliste aux couleurs ardentes. Au premier plan, une silhouette sombre enchaînée avance dans un désert jonché de fragments métalliques. À droite, une roue dentée monumentale est fissurée par un éclair incandescent, symbole de rupture et de libération. Dans le ciel dramatique, un œil immense observe, tandis que des oiseaux s’élancent vers la lumière. Des flammes et des éclats en suspension accentuent la tension entre oppression et émancipation.
Vers une cité des libres penseurs
Un manifeste multimodal — poésie, essai, image — qui affirme que l’émancipation épistémique commence par le refus : le doute comme semence, le silence comme terre, l’auto-affranchissement comme acte.
philpapers.org/rec/KAHVUC
#LibertéÉpistémique #Philosophie
My new multimodal manifesto — poetry, essay, and image interwoven — argues that epistemic emancipation begins with refusal: doubt as seed, silence as ground, emancipation as act.
open.substack.com/pub/pkahl/p/...
#EpistemicFreedom #Philosophy #Manifesto #HigherEducation #FreeThinkers
If Plato’s Cave shows us shadows, what if those shadows are currency?
In my new essay, I read the Cave as a parable of epistemic clientelism, silence, and fiduciary authority.
Read: pkahl.substack.com/p/the-silent...
#Philosophy #Plato #EpistemicJustice
If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it — does it make a sound?
In my new essay, I reframe this classic riddle as a parable of epistemic clientelism, trust, and silence, and propose fiduciary ways of hearing otherwise.
pkahl.substack.com/p/the-silent...
#Philosophy #Epistemology
Illustrated scene of three Black women joyfully dancing at Notting Hill Carnival, each wearing vibrant Rio-style costumes with feathered headdresses in orange, turquoise, and green. They smile with arms raised as colourful confetti falls, while a diverse crowd of onlookers cheers behind them.
Went to Notting Hill Carnival for the first time this Monday.
What struck me wasn’t just feathers + sound systems, but how those usually invisible in Britain take the centre stage. For 3 days a year, the margins become the centre.
pkahl.substack.com/p/the-carniv...
#NottingHillCarnival #Race
Universities misrepresent knowledge when collective labour is rebranded as executive charisma. Substitutive visibility isn’t PR — it’s a fiduciary breach.
pkahl.substack.com/p/substituti...
#EpistemicJustice #HigherEducation #GovernanceReform
A suited man stands at a market stall stacked with bright yellow lemons under a sign reading ‘UNIVERSITY RANKINGS’. He examines a lemon closely with a sceptical expression, holding a folder in his other hand. The scene symbolises doubt and mispricing in higher education rankings.
Are UK universities becoming a lemons market?
Opaque rankings and conflicted think tanks misprice £200bn in systemic risk.
Read:
pkahl.substack.com/p/the-market...
#HigherEducation #SystemicRisk #Markets #Governance #Transparency #RatingsReform #PublicAccountability #StudentLoans
UK higher ed is becoming a lemons market.
Opaque rankings + conflicted think tanks misprice £200bn in risk.
The Market for Lemons in UK Higher Education
pkahl.substack.com/p/the-market...
#SystemicRisk #HigherEducation #Markets #Governance #RatingsReform
UK higher education is fragile, opaque, fiscally exposed. My new report to the HoC Education Select Committee: treat it as critical infrastructure.
pkahl.substack.com/p/higher-edu...
#HigherEducation #Governance #SystemicRisk #ParliamentaryOversight #PolicyReform
Potential breaches of fiduciary and trustee duties lie at the heart of the UK higher education crisis.
My new essay shows why nationalisation alone won’t fix systemic opacity, lobbying, and entrenched leadership—and sets out a blueprint for reform.
pkahl.substack.com/p/higher-edu...
#HigherEd
New report out:
Times Higher Education isn’t just journalism.
It ranks, consults, paywalls — & hosts elites behind closed doors.
This isn’t independence. It’s conflict of interest at the heart of HE governance.
pkahl.substack.com/p/report-on-...
#HigherEd #Transparency #Accountability
Just released: Directors’ Epistemic Duties and Fiduciary Openness
Directors don’t just owe loyalty + care — they also carry epistemic duties: to listen, engage, and integrate stakeholder knowledge.
pkahl.substack.com/p/directors-...
#corporategovernance #epistemicjustice #fiduciaryduty
When it comes to publishing, the house rules.
Getting into print has never been a pure reward for brilliance. It’s about passing the gatekeeper’s test. My new essay traces how publishing power has shaped what we read — and the reality we think we know.
pkahl.substack.com/p/when-it-co...
A pop art–style comic illustration divided diagonally by a bold yellow lightning bolt. On the left, a serious-looking man in glasses, a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, and a patterned tie stands beside a printing press, holding an old-fashioned black telephone handset to his ear. He reads from a sheet of paper and says “GOT IT.” in a speech bubble. On the right, a wealthy-looking older man in a suit and gold tie lounges in a plush red chair with gold trim, holding a matching old-fashioned telephone handset to his ear. In front of him sits a glass of whiskey with a single large ice cube. The background features halftone textures and saturated colors in the style of Roy Lichtenstein, with thick black outlines.
Publishing ≠ pure merit.
It’s passing the gatekeeper’s test.
When It Comes to Publishing, the House Rules — how what we read (and believe) is shaped long before it reaches us.
pkahl.substack.com/p/when-it-co...
#PublishingGatekeepers #MediaPower #EditorialBias
