Peter Kahl (they/them)
leader-ship.bsky.social
Peter Kahl (they/them)
@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/...
The Economics of Distrust
How Fiduciary Failure Became America’s Deepest Recession
open.substack.com
October 29, 2025 at 1:39 PM
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
What happens when you clap?
How a simple gesture reveals the relational architecture of truth
pkahl.substack.com
October 23, 2025 at 6:39 AM
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
The 25,000-Word Feedback Form
Why the University of Reading’s LLM experience reveals how modern universities listen, perform, and forget to hear
pkahl.substack.com
October 18, 2025 at 3:22 PM
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
Reconceptualising Knowing as Care
The New Science of Epistemic Intimacy
pkahl.substack.com
October 15, 2025 at 9:39 AM
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
Remember the first cry?
Why a baby’s voice teaches us how to know
pkahl.substack.com
October 4, 2025 at 11:43 AM
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
ResearchGate
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doi.org
September 22, 2025 at 8:52 AM
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....
September 20, 2025 at 11:47 AM
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
September 19, 2025 at 2:34 PM
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
September 17, 2025 at 10:22 AM
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
Why the Hong Kong Protests Collapsed
And What It Teaches Us About Freedom
pkahl.substack.com
September 14, 2025 at 12:57 PM
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
Why the Hong Kong Protests Collapsed
And What It Teaches Us About Freedom
pkahl.substack.com
September 14, 2025 at 12:52 PM
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
What Learning Languages Taught Me About Strength and Tolerance
How stumbling through new languages taught me resilience and empathy
pkahl.substack.com
September 11, 2025 at 9:43 AM
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
Speaking into Dissonance
Foreign Language Learning, Cognitive Dissonance, and Epistemic Plurality
pkahl.substack.com
September 10, 2025 at 1:35 PM
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
Cognitive Dissonance as Epistemic Event
Clientelism, Bounded Freedom, and Fiduciary Scaffolding
pkahl.substack.com
September 6, 2025 at 8:38 AM
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
Vers une cité des libres penseurs
Une odyssée à travers les théâtres du savoir
pkahl.substack.com
September 3, 2025 at 4:12 PM
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
September 3, 2025 at 8:51 AM
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
Toward a City of Free Thinkers
A Journey across the Theatres of Knowledge
open.substack.com
September 3, 2025 at 8:28 AM
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
The Silent Shadows
Epistemic Clientelism and Plato’s Cave
pkahl.substack.com
September 2, 2025 at 5:18 AM
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
The Silent Tree
Epistemic Clientelism and the Politics of Sound
pkahl.substack.com
September 1, 2025 at 2:16 PM
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
August 26, 2025 at 11:28 AM
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
Substitutive Visibility and Epistemic Monarchism in Academia
Fiduciary Breach and the Case for a Pedagogy of Openness
pkahl.substack.com
August 23, 2025 at 7:00 AM
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
August 21, 2025 at 12:32 PM
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
The Market for Lemons in UK Higher Education
Why Opaque Rankings and Think Tanks Demand Ratings Reform
pkahl.substack.com
August 21, 2025 at 9:36 AM
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
Higher Education as Critical Infrastructure
Governance Reform for Systemic Resilience
pkahl.substack.com
August 20, 2025 at 3:57 PM