Diversity Reading List

Abstract: Beginning with Thomas Nagel, various philosophers have proposed setting conscious experience apart from all other problems of the mind as ‘the most difficult problem-. When critically examined, the basis for this proposal reveals itself to be unconvincing and counter-productive. Use of our current ignorance as a premise to determine what we can never discover is one common logical flaw. Use of ‘I-cannot-imagine- arguments is a related flaw. When not much is known about a domain of phenomena, our inability to imagine a mechanism is a rather uninteresting psychological fact about us, not an interesting metaphysical fact about the world. Rather than worrying too much about the meta-problem of whether or not consciousness is uniquely hard, I propose we get on with the task of seeing how far we get when we address neurobiologically the problems of mental phenomena.

Content: Patridge discusses and rejects some of the main arguments for the exclusivist thesis that no pornography can be art: Levinson’s, Mag Uidhir’s, and one based on Rea’s definition of pornography. In doing so, she offers a useful overview of some other arguments already used against those authors. This leads her to conclude that at least some pornography can be art. A normative question follows: should we treat pornography as art? Given the high cultural status of art, and the often unethical nature of pornography, doing so might lead us to promoting unethical attitudes. She finds such treatment too unselective: at least some pornography isn’t morally problematic (and some of it can actually be morally laudable), while much of art, including erotic art, definitely is. But consumption of pornography cannot be taken out of our paternalistic and sexist cultural context. As most pornography is inegalitarian and expresses (and possibly promotes) harmful attitudes towards women, enjoying it constitutes a moral flaw. This is true even if the consumer is never inspired to actually harm women – in those cases enjoyment of pornography constitutes moral obliviousness, a ‘failure of sensitivity and solidarity with the victims of such imagery’ (54) similar to taking enjoyment in racist jokes.

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to argue that belief ascription in common- sense discourse is not uniformly non-individualistic, as Burge's conclusion suggests. (In concentrating on belief ascriptions I follow the usual practice of treating belief as the paradigm propositional attitude.) I shall present some examples which suggest that when giving common-sense explanations of action we do not individuate thoughts with reference to agents' linguistic environment in the manner indicated by Burge's thought-experiment. The challenge supposedly presented to the Continuity Thesis by Burge's thought-experiment is thus removed. I then discuss whether the mode of individuation characteristic of our explanatory practice deserves to be called individualistic, and conclude with some remarks on the expressibility of thought contents.

Introduction: The question I want to explore is whether experience supports an antireductionist ontology of time, that is, whether we should take it to support an ontology that includes a primitive, monadic property of nowness responsible for the special feel of events in the present, and a relation of passage that events instantiate in virtue of literally passing from the future, to the present, and then into the past.

Abstract: It seems natural to choose whether to have a child by reflecting on what it would be like to actually have a child. I argue that this natural approach fails. If you choose to become a parent, and your choice is based on projections about what you think it would be like for you to have a child, your choice is not rational. If you choose to remain childless, and your choice is based upon projections about what you think it would be like for you to have a child, your choice is not rational. This suggests we should reject our ordinary conception of how to make this life-changing decision, and raises general questions about how to rationally approach important life choices.

Abstract: In this paper I consider recent discussions within the representationalist theories of phenomenal consciousness, in particular, the discussions between first order representationalism (FOR) and higher order representationalism (HOR). I aim to show that either there is only a terminological dispute between them or, if the discussion is not simply terminological, then HOR is based on a misunderstanding of the phenomena that a theory of phenomenal consciousness should explain. First, I argue that we can defend first order representationalism from Carruthers' attacks and ignore higher order thoughts in our account of phenomenal consciousness. Then I offer a diagnostic of Carruthers' misunderstanding. In the last section I consider further reasons to include mindreading abilities in an explanation of phenomenal consciousness.

Abstract:
In this paper I would like to propose the notion of "affective artifact", building on an analogy with theories of cognitive artifacts (cf. Casati 2017; Fasoli 2018; Heersmink, 2013, 2016; Hutchins 1999) and referring to the development of a situated affective science (cf. Colombetti 2014; Colombetti and Krueger 2015; Colombetti and Roberts 2015; Griffiths and Scarantino 2009). Affective artifacts are tentatively defined as objects that have the capacity to alter the affective condition of an agent, and that in some cases play an important role in defining that agent's self.The notion of affective artifacts will be presented by means of examples supported by empirical findings, by discussing a tentative definition and classification, and by considering several related but differing notions (cf. Colombetti and Krueger 2015; Heersmink 2018). Within the framework of situated affectivity, the notion of affective artifacts will represent a further step in the enterprise of understanding how the environment helps us scaffold our affective processes. I will conclude that affective artifacts play a key role in the philosophy of cognitive science, the philosophy of technology and in the debate about the self.

Abstract:
From the introduction: The body's epistemic significance is a shared preoccupation for both feminist theory and neurophilosophy, two fields that rarely interact. Neurocognitive theories of embodied mind seek to identify the features of embodiment that inform cognition and consciousness. They share with feminist epistemologies a view that consciousness is inextricably linked to lived embodiment and situated in the environment, and they each offer powerful challenges to the disembodied, abstract Cartesian subject. This convergence bears deeper consideration. In this chapter I address claims of their compatibility, and also how feminist concerns trouble neurophilosophical interpretations of the embodied mind. I begin with a brief introduction to neurobiologically informed views of mind that embrace reductive physicalism, and then I describe the non-reductive physicalism of embodied mind theories. Later, I take up feminist epistemology and its parallels and tensions with this subfield of neurophilosophy. I raise the question of epistemic difference as an opening for critical engagement. (p. 1 - online version)

Abstract:
In this article, I argue that (1) transgender adolescents should have the legal right to access puberty-blocking treatment (PBT) without parental approval, and (2) the state has a role to play in publicizing information about gender dysphoria. Not only are transgender children harmed psychologically and physically via lack of access to PBT, but PBT is the established standard of care. Given that we generally think that parental authority should not go so far as to (1) severally and permanently harm a child and (2) prevent a child from access to standard physical care, then it follows that parental authority should not encompass denying gender-dysphoric children access to PBT. Moreover, transgender children without supportive parents cannot be helped without access to health care clinics and counseling to facilitate the transition. Hence there is an additional duty of the state to help facilitate sharing this information with vulnerable teens.

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.