Three Organons: the evolving instruments of knowledge
What do we count as knowledge—and what should guide the intelligent systems we build? My book The Emotion Organon proposes a third Organon, in conversation with two influential traditions of inquiry.
Ancient Greece
Aristotle
The Organon
The tradition of logic, reasoning, and structured argument as instruments for understanding.
Logic & reason
17th century
Francis Bacon
Novum Organum
A new emphasis on observation, experiment, and empirical methods for investigating nature.
Observation & evidence
A contemporary proposal
Cindy Mason
The Emotion Organon
Bringing discoveries in emotion, compassion science, and interdisciplinary medicine into the foundations of knowledge and technology.
Emotion & human biology
Conceptual layout for preview. Your original Three Organons historical illustration can replace this graphic in the final version.
Not replacing logic or empirical inquiry—expanding what informs our understanding of people, intelligence, and the technologies we create.
The third Organon is the author's proposed intellectual framework, not an established historical classification.
Three books · One connected vision
The science. The responsibility. The design.
Following that proposal, these books explore different parts of a shared question: how can what we're learning about human emotion, compassion, and well-being reshape the technologies we create?
Book one · Published 2024
The Emotion Organon
Why should our ideas of knowledge stop at logic and observation? Explore emotion science, bioplasticity, positive human experience, and what these discoveries mean for intelligent systems.
When systems make decisions affecting human lives, care must not be an afterthought. A new social contract for the age of algorithms, written with Curt Hall.
How might technology amplify compassion, support healthy relationships, and protect people? An exploration of compassion-centered design in everyday devices and digital environments.
Images above are title pages from the uploaded book manuscripts, not commercial cover photographs. The third book uses a typographic placeholder.
A personal note
How I came to think differently about intelligence
I began my career as an AI researcher. But while working on AI at U.C. Berkeley and Stanford, my work became intertwined with positive psychology and compassion science.
I also worked as a compassion therapist with seriously ill patients in local hospitals. I saw firsthand how important compassion could be to health, survival, and the way people experienced illness.
It changed how I thought about intelligence. If kindness, connection, and care are so important to our lives, shouldn't they matter when we design technology?
Technology has become extraordinarily good at automation and efficiency. What would happen if it also became better at caring for us?
This is a condensed adaptation of the first-person account on the original ArtificialCompassion.org homepage, retaining its central experiences and ideas.
The larger picture
Three ways to rethink technology
01 / UNDERSTAND
Human biology matters
Our experiences with other people, our emotions, and our environments have biological significance. The Emotion Organon asks what this means for knowledge and technology.
02 / PROTECT
Care before harm
Algorithmic Duty of Care examines what happens when automated systems and institutions fail people—and why responsibility belongs in both law and technical design.
03 / CREATE
Design for compassion
Designing Artificial Compassion Technology explores ways digital tools might support human well-being, compassion literacy, and more humane experiences.
Book one · The Third Organon
The Emotion Organon
What counts as knowledge? Aristotle's Organon and Francis Bacon's Novum Organum helped shape traditions of logic and empirical observation. The Emotion Organon is my proposal for a third Organon. But the modern sciences of emotion, relationships, and biological adaptation allow us to study aspects of lived human experience that those earlier frameworks could not.
The Emotion Organon brings these discoveries into conversation with artificial intelligence, robotics, and technology design. It introduces bioplasticity and asks how repeated experiences with devices and digital environments may shape us—and how we might design more intentionally for positive experiences.
As algorithms increasingly influence decisions about people, who is responsible for preventing harm? Coauthored with Curt Hall, this published 2025 book draws on the Magna Carta, major algorithmic scandals, and emerging international legal frameworks.
Its central argument is preventive: accountability cannot depend only on lawsuits, investigations, or human oversight after people have already been harmed. Care must also be considered in the design of algorithms and data systems themselves.
I love what technology has already made possible. As I've said before, I'm very glad I no longer have to beat clothes against rocks to do the laundry! But efficiency is only part of what technology could offer.
Imagine tools that help us navigate difficult social situations, recognize harmful patterns, remember the people who care about us, or create healthier experiences in games, workplaces, and online communities.
This book-in-development explores the language and practice of compassion-centered design, from intelligent systems to the environments in which we live alongside them.
What readers are saying
Responses to The Emotion Organon
“The author opens a new horizon of designing and developing AI and robotics equipped with emotional viability for those interacting with them.”— Adapted excerpt from Takeshi Kimura, University of Tsukuba, Japan
“The book reveals how the emerging science of emotion is an essential and useful tool for creating a healthy world.”— Excerpt from Thomas Telving, author of Killing Sophia
Excerpts condensed from testimonials on the existing website. The original page also features reviews by Prof. Chris Puentes, Dr. Henry Lieberman, Dr. Elizabeth Morrow, and Dr. Richard Price.
A continuing conversation
What kind of world do we want to build?
Our devices and digital environments are becoming part of everyday life. These books invite us to bring a richer understanding of human beings into the way we design, govern, and live with technology.
Not just more intelligent machines. More thoughtful relationships between technology and the people it serves.
