Abstract: McWeeny and Maitra motivate the adoption of a feminist perspective in contemporary debates within the philosophy of mind to further illuminate the nature of conscious experience. They argue that the adoption of a feminist perspective leads to the implementation of a more nuanced investigation of the mind, one that avoids a conceptualization of the mind as a "uniform" concept across beings or groups, and instead, considers the role of the body and different societal contexts. In philosophy of mind, when thinking about "the mind", we are usually prompted to think about the mind as a universal thing, as something that we all (humans) have. Moreover, when exploring and investigating what makes the mind to be what it is ( i.e. which are the intrinsic and special features or consciousness), traditionally, we have been encouraged to think about certain properties of the mind that are universal and can be attributed to anyone. McWeeny and Maitra argue that this mainstream methodology in philosophy of mind is a simplistic one. Not only it overlooks the many inter and intrapersonal nuances of each individual's "mind", but also the impact of social constructs, such as gender, race, and class, in our understanding of what the mind is, and who has a mind.

1. What has been the mainstream goal of the subfield of philosophy of mind within contemporary philosophy?
2. In which way feminist philosophers have historically addressed some of the main concerns within the philosophy of mind?
3. According to McWeeny and Maitra, what is “feminist philosophy of mind”?
4. How does a feminist perspective conceptualise the “mind/consciousness”? How does this differ from mainstream definitions in philosophy of mind?
5. How could debates in the philosophy of mind change if we switch to talking about “this [particular person’s mind” instead of “the [universal] mind”?
6. How feminist perspectives can add value to current work within the philosophy of mind? And, how feminist philosophies would benefit from work in the philosophy of mind?

Abstract: In this introductory chapter to "The Routledge Companion of Feminist Philosophy", Garry, Khader and Stone examine the different applications of feminist philosophy outside political philosophy, as well as the different questions concerning this subdiscipline, other than the impact of gender in society and the injustices arising from it. While doing so, the editors advocate for a revision of the history of feminist thought in philosophy that takes a more intersectional approach, an approach that fully considers the role played by authors belonging to a minority group(s). This short chapter provides a quick overview of two very important questions. A first question is how the use of feminist approaches can enrich different more mainstream areas in philosophy, including philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and metaphysics, but also question the philosophical canon. A second question is how considering the voices that are underrepresented in the philosophical canon, including female and non-binary philosophers, but also, non-Western traditions, can shift our understanding of mainstream philosophical issues.

1. What makes feminist philosophy different from other subdisciplines in philosophy?
2. According to the authors, how can feminist philosophers in more privileged positions help to make this subdiscipline more representative?
3. How can intersectionality be applied across different domains in philosophy?
4. Do you think that a feminist perspective in philosophy is only limited to the examination of political and social issues? How could be applied to more traditional areas in the discipline?
5. How can feminist philosophy help to narrow the gap between non-Western and Western voices in philosophy?
6. How can we apply a feminist lens when re-examining the philosophical canon?
   Which aspects of the relation between body and mind were largely neglected by second-wave feminist thought?

Abstract: The notion of gender identity has been characterized as "one's sense of oneself as male, female or transgender." To have a sense of oneself at all, one must have a robust first-person perspective - a capacity to conceive of oneself as oneself in the first person. A robust first-person perspective requires that one have a language complex enough to express thoughts like "I wonder how I am going to die." Since a robust first-person perspective requires that one have a language, and languages embed whole worldviews, the question arises: in learning a language, does the robust first-person perspective itself introduce gender stereotypes? Without denying that we unconsciously acquire attitudes about gender that shape our normative expectations, this chapter argues that one's gender identity is not just attributable to the biases implicit in the language one speaks. So the robust first-person perspective itself is not responsible for which gender-specific attitudes a person acquires.

1. What role does language play in the acquisition of a first-person perspective? And is language necessary for the acquisition of gender identity?
2. Could someone have a first-person perspective that isn’t gendered?
3. Can we imagine a society where all gender norms and attitudes would disappear in virtue of social-normative and technologic-normative changes?
4. In so far as gender becomes relevant to first-person perspectives through the adoption of norms, how do gendered experiences that doesn’t exist on the normative binary of man/woman come about? Similarly, how is a plurality of gendered experiences under one unifying label (such as ‘woman’) possible?
5. To what extent does Rudder Baker imply that we have some agency over constructing our gender identity? Do you agree?

Abstract: The enactivist paradigm of embodied cognition represents a powerful alternative to Cartesian and cognitivist approaches in the philosophy of mind. On this view, the body plays a constitutive role in the integrated functioning of perception, affect, and other cognitive processes. Enactivism shares many of the central themes of feminist theory, and is extended to apply to social and political concerns. Following a discussion of the key components of the enactive approach, we apply it to explain more complex social manifestations, specifically gender performance and its reproduction through time. By employing Judith Butler's notion of performativity, we demonstrate how gender, as one marker of social identity and difference, emerges through processes of embodied and embedded sense-making as articulated by enactive theory. We argue that more attention to embodied and embedded values allows for the interruption and transformation of histories of oppressive practices and opens the door to more liberatory possibilities.

1. What does the enactive framework buy us for our understanding of gender as performance? Does looking at gender through an enactive lens apply new insights to the phenomena? If so, what are they?
2. How would you cash out power in terms of enactivism? Enactivism argues that the social environment places constraints on autonomy, but how do power imbalances arise from that?
3. Can enactivism be a liberatory framework for overcoming oppressive gender scripts, as Butnor and MacKenzie suggest?
4. As a naturalistic theory of mind, does enactivism provide us with a middle way between essentialist and social constructivist accounts of gender?
5. In so far as enactivism is a framework for life and mind, not just human cognition, what might we infer about gender and non-humans? Could other social creatures have gender identities?

Abstract:

From the introduction: This paper seeks to begin to fill a gap that thus exists both in existential phenomenology and feminist theory. It traces in a provisional way some of the basic modalities of feminine body comportment, manner of moving, and relation in space. It brings intelligibility and significance to certain observable and rather ordinary ways in which women in our society typically comport themselves and move differently from the ways that men do. In accordance with the existentialist concern with the situatedness of human experience, I make no claim to the universality of this typicality of the bodily comportment of women and the phenonemological description based on it. The account developed here claims only to describe the modalities of feminine bodily existence for women situated in contemporary advanced industrial, urban, and commercial society. Elements of the account developed here may or may not apply to the situation of woman in other societies and other epoch, but it is not the concern of this paper to determine to which, if any, other social circumstances this account applies.

1. Name other examples of what Young describes as distinctly female body comportment. What makes them ‘female’ and why have these come about?
2. Does Young accurately capture the differences in the way that different genders are expressed in embodiment?
3. In the characterization of women as immanent beings, does Young (and de Beauvoir) overlook the agential (or transcendent) experiences that also define womanhood?
4. Given the habitual nature of gender that is impressed on women from without, how is resistance possible?
5. When does female body comportment materially disadvantage women? How does it otherwise contribute to their oppression?

Abstract:

In this article, Maitra explores the intersection of feminist theory and philosophy of mind, aiming to develop a feminist theory of mental content. She examines how traditional theories of mental content in the philosophy of mind have not properly captured the experiences and mental states of marginalised groups. These theories, according to Maitra, have overlooked the role of historical and sociocultural forces and how they shape the content of many social constructs. The article advocates for a more inclusive and context-sensitive approach to mental content, one that acknowledges the impact of social and cultural factors on individual cognition and experiences. To that aim, Maitra offers a feminist modification of Millikan's Teleosemantic View by articulating a notion of "function", the content of representational content, as resulting from cultural and social contexts. She ends the article by showing an application of this modified Teleosemantic View for understanding how certain oppressive terms (i.e. 'whiteness', 'immigrant') come to have the content they do, by drawing into José Jorge Mendoza's article "Illegal: White Supremacy and Immigration Status".

1. Why does Maitra think that externalism is the most appropriate view for a feminist approach to mental content? And which sort of externalism?
2. In your opinion, what makes mental states have the content they have? Are those affected by internal or external factors?
3. From a feminist perspective, what should we reject internalism?
4. What do mainstream externalist theories fail to consider? What would a feminist externalist account of mental content be like?
5. Maitra criticizes Putnam’s Twin Earth thought experiment as lacking a social dimension. Do you think that in general, thought experiments in philosophy lack this dimension? Think of any examples and how they would benefit from integrating this dimension.
6. How does Maitra apply Millikam’s Teleosemantic model for examining the content of some oppressive words?
7. How do you think internalised racism (or implicit bias) might affect the function of certain words?

Abstract: Scheman argues against individualism, the thesis that psychological states are intrinsic objects that can exist independently from the context in which the individual lives. Scheman argues that while individualism is taken as de facto theory about the ontology of psychological objects given its alignment with physicalism, individualism is an ideological position rooted in a patriarchal system. According to Scheman, individualism prevents us from wholly considering psychological objects in relation to socially embedded norms. Scheman advocates for an anti-individualist position by examining how individualist approaches arise as a result of an embedment of liberal individualism and patriarchal culture.

1. What is psychological individualism?
2. Why one should question psychological individualism from a feminist perspective?
3. Why is individualism such a universally accepted assumption about the ontology of psychological states?
4. What’s Scheman’s argument for the role of liberal individualism in maintaining individualist positions?
5. How does Scheman rely on Freudian ideas to defend that patriarchal child-rearing practices lead to individualism? Is she right?
6. How can Scheman’s anti-individualism be adopted for a feminist conception of mental content?

Abstract: Antony challenges Naomi Scheman's claim that "psychological individualism", sustains the ideology of patriarchy. According to Scheman, psychological individualism fails to consider the social and relational context that influences psychological phenomena. Antony challenges Scheman's view that psychological individualism has no place within a feminist approach. According to Antony, Scheman's criticism about psychological individualism is misplaced and psychological states can be individuated while at the same time maintaining their part in a more complex system (i.e. social context).

1. Why does Antony consider that radical feminist revisions of mainstream philosophical ideas have been received negatively? What is her position on these approaches?
2. According to Antony, what’s Scheman’s rationale for connecting psychological individualism with patriarchy?
3. Can psychological objects be individuated at all?
4. In which way does Antony use the example of the essence of baseballs to challenge Scheman’s view against psychological individualism?
5. Do you think that one can be an individualist while still maintaining a feminist approach to the ontology of psychological objects?

Abstract: In this essay, James challenges current psychological theories on personal identity - theories arguing that psychological continuity is a criterion for personal identity. James offers a feminist examination of popular thought experiments aimed at showing that one's person's character and memories could be transplanted into someone's else body, thus, preserving a person's survival. According to James, those thought experiments don't take into account the role of the body in constructing one's identity and character, as well as influencing one's memories.

1. What do you think makes psychological transplant cases so intuitive and attractive to some philosophers?
2. Discuss: could all character’s traits survive any sort of alterations to the body? If not, which sort of alterations might have an impact?
3. In which way does James think that transplant cases regard the body as a mere receptacle?
4. In your view, are we born with an already established character and identity?
5. Consider the comparison between the twin case and the female fashion model in the body of a male garage mechanic presented by James. Which role does gender play in these cases? Would the female fashion model case be different if she were to be transplanted into another female body?
6. According to James, in which way have patriarchal ideologies played a role in downplaying the role of the body in the preservation of personal identity?
7. In the words of James, “What is it to survive”? For you, what would it mean that “personhood” has been preserved in transplant cases and other similar thought experiments?

Abstract: "How can one die in Vietnam or fail to survive a death camp and still live to tell one's story? How does a life- threatening event come to be experienced as self- annihilating? And what self is it who remembers having had this experience?" By examining the lived experience of survivors from traumatic events, Brison sets to explore what exactly "the self" is. According to Brison, the self is "both autonomous and socially dependent", which makes it prone to be disrupted by traumatic events, but also, can be healed through safe and healthy relationships.

1. Discuss: What do you think about the definition of “trauma” that Brison provides? Do you think that it should be wider or narrower?
2. According to Brison, after a traumatic event, “”one can no longer be oneself even to oneself, since the self exists fundamentally in relation to others””. What do you think of this claim? Can one exist independently of their relation to others?
3. Discuss: Why do you think that the body has been historically rejected by (male) philosophers? Could that view have been different in a non-patriarchal society?
4. In Brison’s view, how do traumatic events challenge psychological (or memory) views of personal identity?
5. According to Brison, how reporting the traumatic event to others might eventually become therapeutic? What do you think?
6. What does it say about the relational self, the fact that trauma survivors do better by engaging with others? (others being empathic to them)

Abstract: In this article, Gonzalez-Arnal challenges Susan James' embodied conception of personal identity by analysing transexual narratives. According to Gonzalez-Arnal, James' account cannot fully capture the experience of transexual persons since they describe the continuity of their personal (but also gender) identity despite significant changes in their bodies. Gonzalez-Arnal examines how other two theories of personal identity, a reductionist and a dualist one, might provide a better picture of the transexual narratives. After concluding that none the reductionist nor the dualist account does much better than an embodied view of personal identity, Gonzalez-Arnal proposes an improvement to James' view that accommodates transexual experiences, namely, acknowledging the integration of the "inner" self and other's perception of one's body in shaping one's "outer self".

1. According to Gonzalez-Arnal, why James’ embodied conception of the self does not capture the sense of personal identity in transexual narratives?
2. What is Gonzalez-Arnal rationale to argue that for certain important aspects of our personal identity, such as gender identity, the role of the body might be necessary but not sufficient? Can you think of other aspects of our self to which the same rationale might be applied?
3. What sort of criticism can be made to reductionist accounts of personal identity regarding gender as a culturally and historically variable construct?
4. How could a Cartesian account of the self be applied to understand the idea that transexual persons might have an “inner ‘core”‘ which is incongruent with their bodily characteristics?
5. On Prosser’s theory, what are the differences between the “inner” and the “outer” body, between what can be “felt” and what can be “seen”? Other than in cases of transsexuality, in which those two don’t seem to match, can you think of other cases in which incongruencies might also take place?
6. Following Green’s narrative on becoming a visible man, how do you think a relational account of the self might be useful to explain his process of coming out as trans? How our relationship with others might turn helpful in cases in which the inner self doesn’t match with the outer self?

Abstract: Empathy is sometimes thought to be, if not a moral panacea for crimes against humanity, then a moral motivator to work against them. This chapter argues that the construction of black people's minds in Manichaean opposition to that of white people's is at the root of white failures of empathy for black people. The chapter maintains that it is primarily due to this Manichaean-structured opposition, grounded in a fundamental difference between white and black fungibility, that white people's ability to successfully perceive or empathize with black people is impeded. This view understands white and black fungibility as established by and derived from the nature of the kinds of minds constructed through anti-black, white-supremacist logics. Black fungibility is derivatively attributed to black bodies and implemented through them. The chapter proposes that rather than seek to empathize with black people, white people aim to self-empathize.

1. Name some cases in which Black people, stories or bodies are used in popular media (film, TV, literature etc.) as a vehicle for White exploration. How are Black individuals ‘fungible’ in these cases?
2. What problems could Jones’s account of the failure of White empathy also pose for models of social cognition? Are these frameworks (e.g. Theory Theory, Simulation Theory) constructed along White expectations of empathetic understanding?
3. How are White and Black fungibility importantly different and how can this difference be used to move past problematic forms of White empathy?
4. What kind of depth of empathy does Jones think White people should strive for? What does this entail and where can it go wrong?
5. How might Jones’ analysis apply to to her theories of empathy not mentioned?

Abstract: The paper suggests that we can usefully approach whiteness through the lens of phenomenology. Whiteness could be described as an ongoing and unfinished history, which orientates bodies in specific directions, affecting how they 'take up' space, and what they 'can do'. The paper considers how whiteness functions as a habit, even a bad habit, which becomes a background to social action. The paper draws on experiences of inhabiting a white world as a non-white body, and explores how whiteness becomes worldly through the noticeability of the arrival of some bodies more than others. A phenomenology of whiteness helps us to notice institutional habits; it brings what is behind to the surface in a certain way.

1. Given the strength of which Whiteness is an ingrained habit of being in the world, how is resistance possible and how does it already occur?
2. Think about the reading group/tutorial/seminar/workshop in which you are discussing this text. What are the stopping and orientation devices at play and how do they work?
3. How could Ahmed’s analysis apply to other kinds of orientations (e.g. gender, class, sexuality, disability)?
4. How do you think Ahmed would diagnose the problem of failures of White empathy?
5. In what ways are we shaped by what we inherit and what we are proximal to? Give examples.

Abstract: This paper considers the ontological implications of encountering varying levels of intelligibility when one traverses social structures, such as when one immigrates to a new culture or works in a place with people of a different economic class than one's own. This paper terms this phenomenon "world-travelling," which the paper understands as the shift in self-experience that occurs when an oppressed person moves from an environment where she is readily perceived as an active subject to one where she is perceived as a passive instrument of others' wills and desires. Such a situation opens on an ontological paradox because it seems that the same person is capable of possessing two contradictory attributes at the same time. The chapter explains how this paradoxical situation could obtain by arguing that attributes of consciousness are world-dependent. It concludes that the self is actually "a plurality of selves" and that the structure of subjectivity is neither unitary, universal, nor ahistorical.

1. What characterises ‘arrogant perception’?
2. Does Jones’ worries about transference and fungibility in White empathy apply in the case of Lugones’ loving perception, where identification is key?
3. Lugones links a lack of playfulness with a lack of health. How should we understand this claim? Are all serious individuals ‘sick’?
4. If we are different ‘selves’ in the worlds we inhabit, what creates continuity, or is there any?
5. is there a difference between world-travelling and code-switching?

Abstract: Contrary to influential medical and cognitivist models governing how mental disorder is usually understood today, the socially embedded, disordered "mind," or subject, of feminist theory leaves little room for idiopathic causal analyses, with their narrow focus on the brain and its functioning, and reluctant acknowledgment of symptoms. Mental disorder must originate well beyond the particular brain of the person with whom it is associated, feminist analyses imply. Because the voiced distress of the sufferer cannot be reduced to the downstream, "symptomatic" effects of brain dysfunction, symptoms can be seen differently, as central to the diagnostic identity, and constitutive of (at least some) disorders. And new attention is required for the testimony of women diagnosed with mental disorder, vulnerable as it is to epistemic injustices. Corrected explanations of women's mental disorder leave remaining concerns, both epistemological and ethical, over the madwoman narrating her symptoms.

1. Can/ should a feminist approach to madness and mental disorder be associated with the medical model at all? Is the feminist approach to ‘amend’ the medical model?
2. How can we use feminist theory to bridge the ‘experiential gap’ between clinicians and patients to avoid epistemic injustices?
3. How could the epistemic injustices Radden mentions affect disorder experience itself?
4. Are there important differences between mental and somatic illnesses in the ways that women are treated?
5. How does simply having disordered experience itself marginalise individuals as ‘minded’ beings?
6. Can we overcome epistemic injustices with more socially informed scientific research (as in Jacobson’s chapter)?

Abstract: In recent years, autopoietic enactivism has been used to address persistent conceptual problems in psychiatry, such as the problem of demarcating disorder, that other models thus far have failed to overcome. There appear to be three main enactive accounts of psychopathology with subtle, although not incompatible, differences: Maiese characterizes disorder as distinct disruptions in autonomy and agency; Nielsen characterizes disorder as behaviors that relevantly conflict with the functional norms of an individual; De Haan emphasizes patterns of disordered sense-making, that are transformed through the existential dimension. Given that these accounts are intended to provide not only an ontologically richer account of psychopathology but also reduce the stigma experienced by individuals with mental disorders by accounting for lived experience, a critical analysis of these approaches is needed. Russell provides a problematization of enactive accounts of mental disorder, showing that this particular framework does not, as it stands, necessarily reduce the harm and suffering experienced by individuals with mental disorder because of its ontological openness; enactivism leaves much to be interpreted and applied by the clinician (or patient) such that practical and ethical problems in its use arise.

1. How does enactivism overcome the problems with reductive models of mental disorder?
2. Does enactivism plausibly provide better understanding of disorder experience?
3. Are the claims made by enactivism ‘mixed’, as Russell claims? Is this a problem for other models of mental disorder?
4. What kinds of frameworks, as Russell suggests, be supplemented to overcome the issues with enactive psychiatry?
5. Does enactivism convincingly naturalise the normative?

Abstract: Cognitive neuroscience can offer us new explanations of episodes human behavior that, unlike many explanations traditionally available, do not draw on questionable past theories arising from cultures and traditions that are in fact patriarchal. At the same time, feminists have had a number of reasons for regarding it suspiciously as, among other things, reductive and dehumanizing. In this paper, new work on borderline personality disorder provides an illustrative example of the first. It is also used in an extended argument against the second. Cognitive neuroscience is interested principally in explaining how creatures function well in their niches. It is replete with covert references to values and interests. The paper draws an important distinction between cases in which culture creates new conditions for old functions to be realized and those where it creates new functions.

1. When men largely dictate the interests of fields like neuroscience, how do feminists steer those interests towards equality and liberation?
2. One may argue that the neuroscientific view inherently excludes lived experience; how does a feminist philosophy of neuroscience prevent epistemic injustices that have come about from the historical exclusion of lived experience in health research?
3. How do we adjudicate between competing interests in neuroscience?
4. Can a neuroscience that incorporates normativity ever be called ‘objective’? What does that mean for the strength of neuroscientific claims?
5. Can the incorporation of values in CNS help adjust the power balance between researchers/clinicians and patients? If so, how?

Abstract: The significance of critical phenomenology for psychiatric praxis has yet to be expounded. In this paper, Rituanno argues that the adoption of a critical phenomenological stance can remedy localised instances of hermeneutical injustice, which may arise in the encounter between clinicians and patients with psychosis. In this context, what is communicated is often deemed to lack meaning or to be difficult to understand. While a degree of un-shareability is inherent to subjective life, Rituanno argues that issues of unintelligibility can be addressed by shifting from individualistic conceptions of understanding to an interactionist view. This takes into account the contextual, historical and relational background within which meaning is co-constituted. She concludes by providing a corrective for hermeneutical injustice, which entails a specific attentiveness towards the person's subjectivity, a careful sensitivity to contingent meaning-generating structures, and a degree of hermeneutical flexibility as an attitude of openness towards alternative horizons of possibility.

1. What are the kinds of challenges that clinicians and patients may face when communicating?
2. In what way is hermeneutic injustice a ‘harm’?
3. Does Ritunnano’s focus on critical phenomenology help us overcome hermeneutical gaps?
4. How might Lugones’ idea of playful world travelling (from week 5) contribute to the discussion on hermeneutic injustice?
5. Can critical phenomenology help with overcoming testimonial injustices as well?

Abstract: This article develops a new framework for addressing the attribution question, the question of which bodies have minds, by bringing a feminist perspective to metaphysical considerations about the mind. McWeeny argues that the attribution question, when applied to individuals who have been subject to different sorts of oppression, is not only a question about whose bodies have minds but also a question about the degree of "mentality" attributed to certain individuals and the mental constitution of those individuals.

1. According to McWeeny, what are the benefits of Cavendishian panpsychism over Russellian panpsychism? Do you think it provides a more feminist approach to the mind-body problem than other frameworks?
2. What are the risks of Cavendishian panpsychism? Would the assumption of an equal attribution ratio for every single body lead to the overinclusion of minds? (i.e. fetuses, micro-organisms).
3. According to Cavendish, “bodies are necessarily minded”. Do think that her view could affect current developments in AI and robotics? Shall we reframe what we mean by “body”?
4. In your view, how the “degree attribution” might still prevail nowadays as a result of implicit racism? Discuss.
5. How does Cavendish reject the “degree attribution” by maintaining a difference in the kind of conscious experience across species?
6. According to McWeeny’s analysis, how capitalism has contributed to a mechanistic view of the body? How could we change this?
7. McWeeny closes the article with the following: “Here we find that not all views of mind are equal when it comes to explaining mental phenomena, nor are all conceptions of mind equally egalitarian when it comes to instantiating liberatory configurations of the social. The task of a feminist philosophy of mind is to hold both desiderata at the same time”. How do you think feminist philosophy of mind can help to advance research in this respect?

Abstract: In this article, Droege defends a nonreductive account of materialism, which in her view, can be endorsed by feminists since it considers the dynamic relations among mind, body, and environment. Droege shows how "new materialism" or nonreductive materialism preserves the role of social interactions in explaining the constitution of mental states, while at the same time, also considers the role of the physical. Droege argues that ignoring the physical is a mistake that some feminists commit that prevents us from offering a full picture of the nature of social constructs, such as "gender". In the materialist view that Droege supports, physical causation is seen as "indeterminate, constantly in flux, and potentially both disruptive and supportive of human projects". Droege closes the article by showing how feminist methods, by taking an interdisciplinary approach, can provide a more nuanced picture of the nature of the mind, one that considers both the role of the physical and social world.

1. Droege states: “A belief is a meaningful object only at the psychological level of explanation”. Why does she claim so? And do you agree?
2. Droege claims that “physical explanations […] are tempting because they offer the possibility of simple solutions”. She presents the example of two explanations such as “testosterone makes men aggressive” or “poor diet explains poverty”. Can you think of similar examples in the philosophy of mind? And how could those explanations benefit from a more careful examination of the social and political sphere?
3. Why does Droege think that we need an ontology of the physical world to fully capture social constructs?
4. Droege claims: “Feminists should be materialists, because our engagement with the material world shapes who we are and holds the promise of what we can become”. Do you agree?
5. According to Droege, work on animal cognition is less patriarchal, yet is not published as “feminist”. Why do you think this is the case?
6. Why does Droege think that feminists can help researchers deal with interdisciplinary research? Isn’t this an extra burden for the feminist? (i.e. to play the role of “mediator”?
7. Droege quotes Janice Moulton and says “Philosophers problematically assume that ‘”the only, or at any rate, the best, way of evaluating work in philosophy is to subject it to the strongest or most extreme opposition’. Why is that problematic? And how is this hindering the field of philosophy instead of advancing it?
8. Is Droege right in considering the methods of cognitive ethologists similar to those of feminists, and thus, to regard them as feminist methods? Is this just a matter of semantics? (p.265)
9. Discuss: Was Nagel wrong after all, can you know what is it like to be a bat? (p.266)

Abstract:

This is a revision of Scheman's seminal paper originally published in 2000 which provides one of the first pieces showing how mainstream philosophy of mind can benefit from the insertion of feminist thought in its practices. In this article, Scheman criticises mainstream physicalism as ignoring the social context in its explanations of the mental. According to Scheman, this dismissal is a mistake since "beliefs, desires, emotions, and other phenomena of our mental lives are the particulars that they are because they are socially meaningful [...]".

1. According to Scheman, why feminists have been critical of dualism? (For more on this, see James’ text on Week 4). Are those the same reasons held to argue against physicalism?
2. Do you think that, according to Scheman, we should reject any form of physicalism? Can we have a form of physicalism that considers mental states as dependent on the social? Do you think that physicalism could still reconcile the role of the social context?
3. Why should we take the example of the music performance as a counter-example against physicalism and the principle of causal closure? Does it succeed in showing that a physical event didn’t have a physical cause?
4. Could it be that the physicalist project and Scheman’s criticisms are pointing at different levels of explanation? It seems that one is to determine what is the cause of one event (i.e. mental state) and the other, how to account for the nature of that state (i.e. social). Discuss.
5. In pp. 248-49, Scheman compares the notion of mental states to socially constructed notions such as “woman”. How does she relate both notions? What is the alternative, if both, dualism and physicalism should be rejected? What is the solution offered by Scheman?

Abstract: Focusing on the "orientation" aspect of "sexual orientation", Ahmed examines what it means for bodies to be situated in space and time. Bodies take shape as they move through the world directing themselves toward or away from objects and others. Being "orientated" means feeling at home, knowing where one stands, or having certain objects within reach. Orientations affect what is proximate to the body or what can be reached. A queer phenomenology, Ahmed contends, reveals how social relations are arranged spatially, how queerness disrupts and reorders these relations by not following the accepted paths, and how a politics of disorientation puts other objects within reach, those that might, at first glance, seem awry.

1. What does it meen to ‘straighten’ queer orientations? In what ways are queer desires ‘straightened’?
2. To what extent does Ahmed successfully psychoanalyse Freud? Are you convinced by her analysis?
3. What are hereosexual objects? Name some examples. How do they come into being?
4. How do sexual orientations like bisexuality or pansexuality, where one could ‘pass’ as straight, fit into Ahmed’s analysis? How could you apply queer phenomenology to understand these orientations?
5. How is sexual orientation linked to the idea of the ‘gift’? What is this gift?

Abstract: Talk about sexual orientations is widespread in our society and our culture, but very few analytic philosophers have paid attention to questions about the nature of sexual orientations, such as what sexual orientations are and what "sexual orientation" means. This chapter examines the main theories that are available in the recent and growing literature on this issue, including behaviorism, ideal and ordinary versions of dispositionalism, structuralism, and views according to which sexual orientations are mental states such as sexual desires. It discusses several objections to these views, and develops and defends a new version of the view that characterizes sexual orientations in terms of sexual desires.

1. Is there an important way in which Cary may be different from other heterosexual men? Can the views presented capture this difference?
2. Are there any other intuitive examples against the Bidimensional Dispositionalism view?
3. Is asexuality a sexual orientation on the desire view?
4. Do you agree with Díaz-León that it is politically useful to capture the sex-gender of the person in question when defining their sexual orientation? Does Díaz-León’s new definition capture everything that is politically useful?
5. In footnote 7, Díaz-León describes a solution to a problem case raised to the structural definition of sexual orientation . Does this response adequately capture the nature of sexual desire between both trans women and cis-women, and between cis-women and other cis-women?

Abstract: Gender performativity is one of the core concepts in Judith Butler's work. In this paper Butler re-examines this term and completes it with the idea of precarity, by making a reference to those who are exposed to injury, violence and displacement, those who are in risk of not being qualified as a subject of recognition, There are issues that constantly arise in the nation-states, such as claiming a right when there is not a right to claim, or being forced to follow certain norms in order to change these norms. This is particularly relevant in the sexual policies that are shaped within the nation-states.

1. What are the norms behind legibility and recognition? How are these enacted and enforced to include some and exclude others?
2. Are there possible connections between Butler’s analysis in this paper and the literature on epistemic injustice? Would a notion of epistemic justice overcome some of the hegemonic issues Butler raises?
3. What is the connection between ‘translation’ and ‘performance’?
4. Does Butler take an overly pessimistic view of the subversion of particular norms? Is it possible to forge new, innovative norms and identities?
5. What can we do such that other forms of living, i.e. other than heteronormativity, become less precious, without assimilating these ways of living into the normative ‘standard’?