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Added by: Rossen Ventzislavov
Summary: Goldberg provides a richly illustrated historical account of the intimate connection between identity and performance art. Starting from the feminist art of the 1960's, the recognition and assertion of identity was a fundamental bid for social visibility. The next frontier was social recognition, which concerned ethnic and sexual minorities as much as it did women. The final frontier - political equality - is one that is still out of reach. Still, according to Goldberg, performance art continues to chart new territories of identification. In fact, while at the outset performance art used early feminist writing as inspiration, Goldberg recognizes a gradual reversal - today's feminists are as likely to chart new philosophical directions as they are to follow the exploratory charge of their performance art counterparts.Goldstein, Rebecca. Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away2014, Pantheon Books.-
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Added by: Jamie Collin
Publisher's Note: Imagine that Plato came to life in the twenty-first century and embarked on a multi-city speaking tour. How would he mediate a debate between a Freudian psychoanalyst and a 'tiger mum' on how to raise the perfect child? How would he handle the host of a right-wing news program who denies there can be morality without religion? What would Plato make of Google, and of the idea that knowledge can be crowdsourced rather than reasoned out by experts? Plato at the Googleplex is acclaimed thinker Rebecca Newberger Goldstein's dazzling investigation of these conundra. With a philosopher's depth and erudition and a novelist's imagination and wit, Goldstein probes the deepest issues confronting us by allowing us to eavesdrop on Plato as he takes on the modern world; it is a stunningly original plunge into the drama of philosophy, revealing its hidden role in today's debates on religion, morality, politics and science.Comment: Useful in a general intro to philosophy course. This is partcularly suited for a general introduction course because it touches on a number of disparate parts of philosophy, and because it provides arguments for the continued value of philosophy.
Gonzalez-Arnal, Stella. Personal identity and transsexual narratives2012, in Gonzalez-Arnal, S., Jagger, Gi., and Lennon, K. (eds) Embodied Selves. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 66-83-
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Added by: Adriana Alcaraz Sanchez and Jodie RussellAbstract:
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".Comment (from this Blueprint): This article would be a good pairing to support the reading of James' "The Question on Personal Identity" (2002). In this article, Gonzalez-Arnal presents a compelling counter-example to James' argument that her theory should be preferred over psychological theories on personal identity given the role of embodiment on personal identity. According to James, mainstream thought experiments involving body swaps rarely discuss cases involving two bodies of different gender because they, intuitively, do not bring us to believe that Person A would survive a body swap with a Person B of different gender. Gonzalez-Arnal challenges James' argumentation by presenting the example of transsexuality by showing that their personal identity is preserved even though significant changes in their body take place.
Goodship, Laura. On Dialethism1996, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 74 (1):153 – 161-
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Added by: Franci MangravitiAbstract:
The paper discusses two problems with Graham Priest's version of dialetheism: the thesis that one cannot be rationally obliged to both accept and reject something, and the use of a Contraction-less conditional in dealing with Curry paradoxes. Some solutions are suggested.
Comment: A useful supplement to any discussion of dialetheism, as the origin of what is now known in the literature as the "Goodship project". Some familiarity with Priest's account is required for context.
Gopnik, Alison. The Child as Scientist1996, Philosophy of Science 63 (4):485-514-
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Added by: Andrea Blomqvist
Abstract: This paper argues that there are powerful similarities between cognitive development in children and scientific theory change. These similarities are best explained by postulating an underlying abstract set of rules and representations that underwrite both types of cognitive abilities. In fact, science may be successful largely because it exploits powerful and flexible cognitive devices that were designed by evolution to facilitate learning in young children. Both science and cognitive development involve abstract, coherent systems of entities and rules, theories. In both cases, theories provide predictions, explanations, and interpretations. In both, theories change in characteristic ways in response to counterevidence. These ideas are illustrated by an account of children's developing understanding of the mind.Comment: In the mindreading debate, this is one of the main papers arguing for Theory Theory. It offers a good introduction of the theory as well as empirical support. It is suitable in a second or third year module on social cognition.
Gover, K. E.. Artistic Freedom and Moral Rights in Contemporary Art: The Mass MoCA Controversy2011, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 69 (4):355-365.-
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag Uidhir
Introduction: The concept of artistic freedom, like that of academic freedom, is as potent as it is slippery. Its indeterminacy may in fact lend the concept some power, since it can be uncritically applied to many different kinds of situations involving artists and their creations. Philosopher Paul Crowther has observed that the prevailing conception of artistic freedom is essentially negative in character: it is based 'purely on the absence of ideological or conceptual restraint.' There is a widespread art-world intuition that the creative freedom of the artist should be given virtually absolute precedence in decisions about the creation, exhibition, and treatment of artworks. As a recent controversy involving Swiss artist Christoph Buchel and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass MoCA) shows, the dominant conception of artistic freedom also entails freedom from financial and logistical constraints such as museum budgets and exhibition deadlines. In this particular case, the artist and his supporters argued that the museum violated his artistic freedom by attempting to display his unfinished and abandoned artwork against his wishes. As with the Tilted Arc controversy in the 1980s, this case raises provocative questions about the nature of artistic freedom as 'artistic' as it comes into conflict with the needs and interests of the institutions that pay for, exhibit, and, in Mass MoCA's case, construct the work.Comment:
Govier, Trudy. What’s Wrong with Slippery Slope Arguments?1982, Canadian journal of philosophy. 12(2): 303-316.-
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Added by: Simon Fokt
Content: Govier distinguishes four kinds of slippery slope arguments - conceptual, precedential, causal and mixed - and argues that only the last kind are likely to ever be sound.Comment: Useful in teaching about fallacious arguments in general, and about moral arguments an popular discourse about such arguments in particular.
Gow, Laura. Colour2014, Philosophy Compass 9: 803-813.-
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Added by: Simon Fokt, Contributed by: Simon Prosser
Abstract: The view that physical objects do not, in fact, possess colour properties is certainly the dominant position amongst scientists working on colour vision. It is also a reasonably popular view amongst philosophers. However, the recent philosophical debate about the metaphysical status of colour properties seems to have taken a more realist turn. In this article, I review the main philosophical views – eliminativism, physicalism, dispositionalism and primitivism – and describe the problems they face. I also examine how these views have been classified and suggest that there may be less disparity between some of these positions than previously thought
Comment: Useful survey article on colour and colour perception.
Gow, Laura. The Limitations of Perceptual Transparency2016, Philosophical Quarterly 66: 723-744-
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Added by: Björn Freter
Abstract: My first aim in this paper is to show that the transparency claim cannot serve the purpose to which it is assigned; that is, the idea that perceptual experience is transparent is no help whatsoever in motivating an externalist account of phenomenal character. My second aim is to show that the internalist qualia theorist's response to the transparency idea has been unnecessarily concessive to the externalist. Surprisingly, internalists seem to allow that much of the phenomenal character of perceptual experience depends essentially (and not just causally) upon externally located properties. They argue that we can also be aware of internal, non-intentional qualia. I present an alternative response the internalist can make to the transparency claim: phenomenal character is wholly internal, and seeming to be aware of externally located properties just is being aware of internally constituted experiential features.
Comment: Clarifies the debate on whether perceptual experience is transparent and what significance this has. Points out some mistaken assumptions that both sides of the debate have made. Suggests how internalists should respond to the claim that perceptual experience is transparent. Easy to read if one has prior knowledge of the transparency idea.
Graff Fara, Delia. Shifting Sands: An Interest-Relative Theory of Vagueness2000, Philosophical Topics 28(1): 45-81.-
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Added by: Emily Paul
Summary: I propose that the meanings of vague expressions render the truth conditions of utterances of sentences containing them sensitive to our interests. For example, 'expensive' is analyzed as meaning 'costs a lot', which in turn is analyzed as meaning 'costs significantly greater than the norm'. Whether a difference is a significant difference depends on what our interests are. Appeal to the proposal is shown to provide an attractive resolution of the sorites paradox that is compatible with classical logic and semantics.Comment: An important paper to use for an advanced UG Philosophy of Language/Metaphysics course. Would definitely need to be a core reading and be taught in a lecture first, as there are many important things going on here.
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Goldberg, RoseLee. Identities: Feminism, Multiculturalism, Sexuality
2004, In: Performance: Live Art Since the 60's. New York: Thames & Hudson. 128-145.
Comment: This text provides a historical background on the relationship between identity politics and art. It would be useful in classes on performance art, on the social context of art, as well as classes focusing on philosophy or race, gender and sexuality and ways to achieve social visibility.