Rorty, Amelie Oksenberg. Explaining Emotions
1978, The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 75, issue 3
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Added by: Jimena ClavelAbstract:
Sometimes our emotions change straightaway when we learn that what we believed is not true. The grieving husband recovers when he learns that, because she missed her plane, his wife did not die in the fatal plane crash. But often changes in emotions do not appropriately follow changes in belief. Their tenacity, their inertia, suggests that there is akrasia of the emotions; it reveals the complex structure of their intentionality.'Comment: In this paper, Rorty discusses the complexity of the intentionality of emotions by focusing on the phenomenon of akrasia. The paper can be included in a session on the recalcitrance of emotions or on the intentionality of emotions. The paper can be listed as recommended reading for an advance undergraduate course or as mandatory for a graduate course.
Sawyer, Sarah. Privileged Access to the World
1998, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 76 (4): 523-533.
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Added by: Giada Fratantonio, Lukas SchwengererSummary: Addresses the so-called McKinsey problem, which aims to show that semantic externalism and armchair access to the contents of one's own thoughts are incompatible: the conjunction of the two theses leads to the disastrous conclusion that it is possible to have armchair knowledge of the external world. Sawyer defends externalism by biting the bullet, thereby arguing that we do in fact have armchair knowledge of the external world.Comment: This paper can be used as a further reading on semantic externalism or self-knowledge. It is well suited for advanced undergraduate or graduate students. Sawyer provides a clear and concise formulation of the McKinsey problem and explores a possible response for externalists by embracing the consequences of accepting both semantic externalism and privileged access.
Schellenberg, Susanna. Perceptual Content Defended
2011, NOUS 45 (4), pp. 714 - 750
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Abstract:
Recently, the thesis that experience is fundamentally a matter of representing the world as being a certain way has been questioned by austere relationalists. I defend this thesis by developing a view of perceptual content that avoids their objections. I will argue that on a relational understanding of perceptual content, the fundamental insights of austere relationalism do not compete with perceptual experience being representational. As it will show that most objections to the thesis that experience has content apply only to accounts of perceptual content on which perceptual relations to the world play no explanatory role. With austere relationalists, I will argue that perceptual experience is fundamentally relational. But against austere relationalists, I will argue that it is fundamentally both relational and representational.Comment: This paper discusses two of the dominant positions regarding the content of perceptual experience. It can be used in an advanced course on philosophy of perception or as further reading.
Scheman, Naomi. Individualism and the Objects of Psychology
1983, in Hardin, S. and Hintikka, Merrill, B. (eds) Discovering Reality. Dordrecht: Reidel Publishing Company, pp. 225-44
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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.Comment (from this Blueprint): This is one of the seminal articles linking feminist philosophies to work in philosophy of mind. In here, Scheman offers a nuanced examination of how a popular doctrine in philosophy of mind, individualism, has the widespread acceptance it has if we consider its background assumptions: the need to individualise psychological states to commit to a physicalist theory of the mind. Scheman also provides a critical analysis of why individualism should be rejected from a feminist standpoint since it does not take into account the socially embedded norms in which psychological objects exist. The article is a bit difficult to follow, but reading it together with Antony's quite aid comprehension.
Scheman, Naomi. Against Physicalism
2022, in McWeeny, J. and Maitra, K. (eds). Feminist Philosophy of Mind. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 239-254
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Added by: Adriana Alcaraz Sanchez and Jodie RussellAbstract:
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 [...]".
Comment (from this Blueprint): Scheman's article is a revision of a 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 [...]". This article can be nicely paired with the reading of Droege's one for a different viewpoint on how to develop a feminist theory on the mind/body problem.
Scrutton, Tasia. Divine Passibility: God and Emotion
2013, Philosophy Compass 8(9): 866-874.
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Added by: Emily PaulAbstract: While the impassibility debate has traditionally been construed in terms of whether God suffers, recent philosophy of religion has interpreted it in terms of whether God has emotions more generally. This article surveys the philosophical literature on divine im/passibility over the last 25 years, outlining major arguments for and against the idea that God has emotions. It argues that questions about the nature and value of emotions are at the heart of the im/passibility debate. More specifically, it suggests that presuppositions about the dichotomy between emotions and reason (or the 'heart and the head') have negatively impacted the debate. It contends that the debate can only move forward in response to serious reflection on our affects as we experience them, aided by historical and anthropological as well as contemporary philosophical perspectivesComment: A great paper to use when teaching non-classical conceptions of God. Could follow a lecture on the 'omni' God who is immutable, impassible, etc. It could also be interesting as a gateway to feminist Philosophy of Religion - i.e. the classical conceptions of God are typically 'masculine'
Series, Peggy, Mark Sprevak. From Intelligent machines to the human brain
2014, in M. Massimi (ed.), Philosophy and the Sciences for Everyone. Routledge
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Added by: Laura JimenezSummary: How does one make a clever adaptive machine that can recognise speech, control an aircraft, and detect credit card fraud? Recent years have seen a revolution in the kinds of tasks computers can do. Underlying these advances is the burgeoning field of machine learning and computational neuroscience. The same methods that allow us to make clever machines also appear to hold the key to understanding ourselves: to explaining how our brain and mind work. This chapter explores this exciting new field and some of the philosophical questions that it raises.Comment: Really good chapter that could serve to introduce scientific ideas behind the mind-computer analogy. The chapter zooms in on the actual functioning of the human mind as a computer able to perform computations. Recommendable for undergraduate students in Philosophy of Mind or Philosophy of science courses.
Shah, Nishi. How Truth Governs Belief
2003, Philosophical Review 112 (4): 447-482.
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Added by: Simon FoktAbstract: Why, when asking oneself whether to believe that p, must one immediately recognize that this question is settled by, and only by, answering the question whether p is true? Truth is not an optional end for first-personal doxastic deliberation, providing an instrumental or extrinsic reason that an agent may take or leave at will. Otherwise there would be an inferential step between discovering the truth with respect to p and determining whether to believe that p, involving a bridge premise that it is good (in whichever sense of good one likes, moral, prudential, aesthetic, allthings-considered, etc.) to believe the truth with respect to p. But there is no such gap between the two questions within the first-personal deliberative perspective; the question whether to believe that p seems to collapse into the question whether p is true.Comment: This text will be most useful in advanced Epistemology, Philosophy of Mind, Metaethics and Philosophy of Action classes. The core argument of should be manageable for students who have read a bit of epistemology/metaethics/mind, but substantial familiarity with these areas is necessary to get the paper as a whole. The paper is also valuable for its critique of Alan Gibbard’s noncognitivist account of normative judgments and J. David Velleman’s teleological account of truth’s normative governance of belief (Diversifying Syllabi).
Shellenberg, Susanna. Phenomenal Evidence and Factive Evidence
, in Symposium withcomments by Matt McGrath, Ram Neta, and Adam Pautz, Philosophical Studies
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Added by: Giada FratantonioSummary: In this paper, the author presents the so-called capacity view, namely, the view that "that perceptual states are systematically linked to what they are of in the good case, that is, the case of a successful perception, and thereby provide evidence for what they are of in the good case". The author discusses the main committments of the view and the implications it has when it comes to the justification of our beliefs and the transparency of our mental states.Comment: Good as further reading for a postgraduate course on epistemology of percpetion.
Sherman, Nancy. Taking Responsibility for our Emotions
1999, Social Philosophy and Policy 16(2): 294.
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Added by: John BaldariAbstract: We often hold people morally responsible for their emotions. We praise individuals for their compassion, think less of them for their ingratitude or hatred, reproach self-righteousness and unjust anger. In the cases I have in mind, the ascriptions of responsibility are not simply for offensive behaviors or actions which may accompany the emotions, but for the emotions themselves as motives or states of mind. We praise and blame people for what they feel and not just for how they act. In cases where people may subtly mask their hatred or ingratitude through more kindly actions, we still may find fault with the attitude we see leaking through the disguise.Comment: Use this text as a recommended reading to compliment the earlier work on The Fabric of Character.
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