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Russell, Jodie Louise. Problems for enactive psychiatry as a practical framework
2023, Philosophical Psychology, pp.1458-1481

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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.

Comment (from this Blueprint): This cheeky inclusion of Russell's paper as further reading would suitably compliment both the readings on mental disorder, and Butnor and MacKenzie's chapter on gender, for a deeper discussion. The positive feminist thesis is left vague at the end of this paper, which provides a nice starting point to discuss solutions to the problems with enactivism raised therein. This paper also provides a nice entry-point into the enactive literature, which might provide an enticing, situated model of mind to compliment particular feminist outlooks.

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Sagi, Gil. Models and Logical Consequence
2014, Journal of Philosophical Logic 43(5): 943-964.

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Added by: Berta Grimau

Abstract: This paper deals with the adequacy of the model-theoretic definition of logical consequence. Logical consequence is commonly described as a necessary relation that can be determined by the form of the sentences involved. In this paper, necessity is assumed to be a metaphysical notion, and formality is viewed as a means to avoid dealing with complex metaphysical questions in logical investigations. Logical terms are an essential part of the form of sentences and thus have a crucial role in determining logical consequence. Gila Sher and Stewart Shapiro each propose a formal criterion for logical terms within a model-theoretic framework, based on the idea of invariance under isomorphism. The two criteria are formally equivalent, and thus we have a common ground for evaluating and comparing Sher and Shapiro philosophical justification of their criteria. It is argued that Shapiro's blended approach, by which models represent possible worlds under interpretations of the language, is preferable to Sher’s formal-structural view, according to which models represent formal structures. The advantages and disadvantages of both views’ reliance on isomorphism are discussed.

Comment: This paper provides an original view on the debate on the adequacy of the model-theoretic notion of logical consequence as well as a good overview of the relevant part of the debate. It can be used as standing on its own, but it can also serve as a complement to Sher (1996), also written by a female logician, and Shapiro (1998). Adequate for a general course on philosophy of logic or in a more specialized course on logical consequence. The paper is not technical, although students should've have taken at least an introductory logic course.

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Saw, Ruth. What Is a “Work of Art”?
1961, Philosophy, 36: 18–29.

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Added by: Simon Fokt

Abstract: This examination of the concept “work of art” has been prompted by the desire to find a starting point for aesthetic inquiry which, to begin with at any rate, will arouse no dispute. A claim for general agreement such as Clive Bell's: “The starting point for all systems of aesthetics must be the personal experience of a pecular emotion”, is countered by I. A. Richards's “the phantom aesthetic state”, and any attempt to claim “beauty” as the central concept is straightway confused by the varied contexts in which “beauty” and “beautiful” may function. We hear much more often of a beautiful stroke in cricket than in painting, and many of our moral judgments have an aesthetic flavour. An action may be bold, dashing, mean, underhanded, unimaginative, cringing, fine, as well as right or wrong. Aesthetic adjectives and adverbs may occur in any context, and part of our job is to separate out the various uses and establish their inter-relationships.

Comment: The text is written in an approachable and somewhat digressive narrative, which makes it a pleasant read, but might require the lecturer to provide the students with some reading guidance. The classificatory account proposed by Saw is rather general – discussing it might be instructive in helping the students understand what sort of conditions are likely to be successful in a definition. The claim which can inspire most class discussion concerns the distinction between the qualities of works which make them art in the classificatory sense, from the qualities which are subject of appraisal.

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Schaper, Eva. Fiction and the suspension of disbelief
1978, British Journal of Aesthetics 18 (1):31-44.

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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag Uidhir

Abstract: I want to suggest that the notion of the suspension of disbelief cannot coherently be used to explain or account for our reactions to fictional characters and events, and that in any case it is unnecessary to the solution of the alleged paradox. I take fiction here to cover art works in which a story is told, presented or represented, i.e. novels, short stories, plays, certain kinds of painting and sculpture and dance-any works in fact is connection with which it makes sense to speak of characters appearing and events taking place in them.

Comment:

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Schattschneider, Doris. Marjorie Rice (16 February 1923–2 July 2017)
2018, Journal of Mathematics and the Arts, 12(1): 51-54.

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Added by: Fenner Stanley Tanswell
Abstract:
Marjorie Jeuck Rice, a most unlikely mathematician, died on 2 July 2017 at the age of 94. She was born on 16 February 1923 in St. Petersburg, Florida, and raised on a tiny farm near Roseburg in southern Oregon. There she attended a one-room country school, and there her scientific interests were awakened and nourished by two excellent teachers who recognized her talent. She later wrote, ‘Arithmetic was easy and I liked to discover the reasons behind the methods we used.… I was interested in the colors, patterns, and designs of nature and dreamed of becoming an artist’?

Comment (from this Blueprint): Easwaran discusses the case of Marjorie Rice, an amateur mathematician who discovered new pentagon tilings. This obituary gives some details of her life and the discovery.

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Schechtman, Marya. The Narrative Self
2011, In Shaun Gallagher (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Self. OUP Oxford.

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Added by: Rie Iizuka

Abstract: This article examines the narrative approach to self found in philosophy and related disciplines. The strongest versions of the narrative approach hold that both a person's sense of self and a person's life are narrative in structure, and this is called the hermeneutical narrative theory. This article provides a provisional picture of the content of the narrative approach and considers some important objections that have been raised to the narrative approach. It defends the view that the self constitutes itself in narrative and argues for something less than the hermeneutical view insofar as the narrative is less agency-oriented and without an overarching thematic unity.

Comment: This chapter offers a good introduction to the concept of narrative self. It surveys a few different types of narrative self, and covers some representative objections. The article would be perfect in classes focusing on different concepts of self, and on personal identity in general.

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Schellekens Dammann, Elisabeth. The aesthetic value of ideas
2007, In Peter Goldie & Elisabeth Schellekens (eds.), Philosophy and Conceptual Art. Oxford University Press.

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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag Uidhir

Introduction: One of the least controversial aspects of the highly provocative project that was early conceptual art was its wholesale rejection of the modernist paradigm. For artists adhering to the conceptual approach, modernism's loyalty to the notions of beauty, aesthetic sensation, and pleasing form, represented a commitment to obsolete artistic axioms.' Art, it was argued, should be purged of expressivist or emotivist aims; it was to '[free] itself of aesthetic parameters' and embrace an altogether different ontological platform. On this line, a conceptual artwork was taken to be 'a piece: and a piece need not be an aesthetic object, or even an object at all' (Binkley 1977: 265). In contrast to modernism, then, conceptual art set itself, from its very beginning, a distinctively analytic agenda by proposing to revise the kind of thing an artwork can be in order to qualify as such, and pronouncing aesthetics 'conceptually irrelevant to art' (Kosuth 1969). It is in view of this that conceptual art, to use the words of some of its most prominent exponents, can be understood as 'Modernism's nervous breakdown' (Art - Language 1997).

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Schellekens Dammann, Elisabeth. Three Debates in Meta-Aesthetics
2008, In New Waves in Aesthetics and Value Theory, [ed] Stock, K. & Thomson-Jones, K, London: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Christy Mag Uidhir

Abstract: Few philosophical debates seem to allow for as little theoretical disparity as that on the subject of Realism or Anti-Realism. That the two antithetical positions uphold the broad structure of a dichotomy may come as no surprise: the question under scrutiny is, after all, one about whether the world and its contents are autonomous of our minds, or whether the world and its contents simply cannot be said to exist independently of our perception and understanding of them. There does not, in other words, seem to be much leeway between the two stances, at least partly because what they capture is a deeply entrenched conceptual divide over what does and does not exist. How, one may ask, could some thing exist but a little?

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Scrutton, Tasia. Thinking through Feeling: God, Emotion and Passibility
2011, New York: Continuum.

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Added by: John Baldari
Publisher’s Note:
Publisher: This book examines some of the primary questions for the impassibility debate through the lens of contemporary philosophy of emotion: is the property of being able to experience emotions a susceptibility and a weakness, or a capacity and a strength? What does it mean to experience emotions, and what sort of being is able to experience them? In examining these questions, it explores the relationship between emotions, body, will and intelligence, addressing questions concerning whether emotions are essentially physiological or cognitive, whether emotions detract from intelligence or may actually contribute towards it, and whether (and to what extent) emotions can be controlled and/or cultivated. The book moves away from some of the artificially extreme accounts of emotion towards a more subtle account that sees most emotions as on a spectrum between cognitive and physiological, voluntary and non-voluntary.

Comment: This book will be of interest to those working within contemporary philosophy of emotion, its primary value lies in applying these insights to the impassibility debate within theology and philosophy of religion.

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Scrutton, Tasia. Why Not Believe in an Evil God? Pragmatic Encroachment and Some Implications for Philosophy of Religion
2016, Religious Studies 52(3): 345-360.

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Added by: Emily Paul

Abstract: Pointing to broad symmetries between the idea that God is omniscient, omnipotent and all-good, and the idea that God is omniscient, omnipotent but all-evil, the evil-God challenge raises the question of why theists should prefer one over the other. I respond to this challenge by drawing on a recent theory in epistemology, pragmatic encroachment, which asserts that practical considerations can alter the epistemic status of beliefs. I then explore some of the implications of my argument for how we do philosophy of religion, arguing that practical and contextual as well as alethic considerations are properly central to the discipline.

Comment: A thought-provoking paper to use when teaching non-classical conceptions of God, which I think would be useful in an undergraduate course after teaching classical conceptions of God. Omnibenevolence in particular is an attribute that isn't often construed in a non-classical way, which makes this paper particularly interesting.

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