Hi, I’m Maarten.

Hi, I’m Maarten.

I write, research, teach and coach

  • I published a popular science book arguing that people are actually pretty rational, which is nominated for the Socratesbeker 2024. I used to publish essays on cognitive psychology (used to have >100.000 monthly views on Medium) and op-eds in newspapers (like this one on fake news).
  • In my scientific research, I combine empirical studies — focusing on aspects such as biases, misinformation, and motivated reasoning — with philosophical arguments about rationality and social epistemology. To help refine our interpretation of the empirical results, I develop improved normative assessments of them, and square them with our own experiences of (ir)rationality.
  • I teach courses on (the philosophy of) misinformation, cognitive psychology & communication science and philosophy at Radboud University, Nijmegen.
  • I also coach people in information management and writing (would love to have you!), and teach an online course on personal knowledge management that I’m very proud of: Academic Mastery with Roam. Sign up to master the process from “I have read a bunch of papers” to “I now have synthesized the literature and have a set of promising angles of attack on my research problem”. More information here.
  • In my podcast, I used to interview interesting thinkers (like Damiaan Denys, Jeroen de Ridder and Sander van der Linden) on cool intellectual and societal topics. Unfortunately I don’t have time for this anymore, but would love to get back into it.