Robinson, Jenefer, Ross, Stephanie. Women, Morality, and Fiction
1990, Hypatia 5 (2):76-90.
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag UidhirAbstract: We apply Carol Gilligan's distinction between a "male" mode of moral reasoning, focussed on justice, and a "female" mode, focussed on caring, to the reading of literature. Martha Nussbaum suggests that certain novels are works of moral philosophy. We argue that what Nussbaum sees as the special ethical contribution of such novels is in fact training in the stereotypically female mode of moral concern. We show this kind of training is appropriate to all readers of these novels, not just to women. Finally, we explore what else is involved in distinctively feminist readings of traditional novelsComment: This is a stub entry. Please add your comments below to help us expand it
Robinson, Jenefer. Startle
1995, The Journal of Philosophy, XCII, No. 2
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Added by: Jimena ClavelAbstract:
Philosophers tend to take very sophisticated and culture bound emotions as their paradigms for emotion in general. So Gilbert Ryle discusses an interest in symbolic logic; William Lyons discusses being awestruck by the beauty of a golden eagle; Patricia Greenspan talks about being warily suspicious of an insurance salesman; and Robert Gordon talks about being embar rassed about the publicity for one's wedding.' Psychologists, on the other hand, tend to stick to very different examples; several of them have studied the startle reaction as an example of an emo tion, a suggestion most philosophers would consider laughable. I shall argue that startle does belong on the spectrum of emotional response, and that indeed, if we abstract from the startle response, we can come up with a useful model of emotional response in general.Comment: This paper develops a non-cognitive theory of emotions. Robinson begins with a characterization of 'startle' as an emotional reaction. She then generalizes from these characteristics to a more general theory of emotions and emotional reactions. The paper is a helpful introduction to non-cognitive theories of emotions. It is a nice piece to contrast cognitive and non-cognitive theories that focuses on a specific emotion.
Rochberg, Francesca. Before Nature: Cuneiform Knowledge and the History of Science
2016, Chicago University Press
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, Contributed by: Quentin PharrPublisher’s Note:
In the modern West, we take for granted that what we call the “natural world” confronts us all and always has—but Before Nature explores that almost unimaginable time when there was no such conception of “nature”—no word, reference, or sense for it. Before the concept of nature formed over the long history of European philosophy and science, our ancestors in ancient Assyria and Babylonia developed an inquiry into the world in a way that is kindred to our modern science. With Before Nature, Francesca Rochberg explores that Assyro-Babylonian knowledge tradition and shows how it relates to the entire history of science. From a modern, Western perspective, a world not conceived somehow within the framework of physical nature is difficult—if not impossible—to imagine. Yet, as Rochberg lays out, ancient investigations of regularity and irregularity, norms and anomalies clearly established an axis of knowledge between the knower and an intelligible, ordered world. Rochberg is the first scholar to make a case for how exactly we can understand cuneiform knowledge, observation, prediction, and explanation in relation to science—without recourse to later ideas of nature. Systematically examining the whole of Mesopotamian science with a distinctive historical and methodological approach, Before Nature will open up surprising new pathways for studying the history of science.Comment: For students wondering whether or not "philosophy" was done before Socrates and the Pre-Socratics, this text is a fairly comprehensive overview of how ancient Assyro-Babylonians conceived of "nature," their place within it, studied it, and recorded their findings about it. But, more than anything else, this text also shows that ancient Near Eastern cuneiform texts are not to be ignored by budding scholars of ancient philosophy or historians and philosophers of the sciences and their methodologies. Some prior engagement with ancient Greek philosophy, as well as the history and philosophy of science, will help to understand this text.
Rogers, Dorothy. America’s First Women Philosophers
2005, Bloomsbury.
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Added by: Alison StonePublisher's Note: The American idealist movement started in St. Louis, Missouri in 1858, becoming more influential as women joined and influenced its development. Susan Elizabeth Blow was well known as an educator and pedagogical theorist who founded the first public kindergarten program in America (1873-1884). Anna C. Brackett was a feminist and pedagogical theorist and the first female principal of a secondary school (St. Louis Normal School, 1863-72). Grace C. Bibb was a feminist literary critic and the first female dean at the University of Missouri, Columbia (1878-84). American idealism took on a new form in the 1880s with the founding of the Concord School of Philosophy in Massachusetts. Ellen M. Mitchell participated in the movement in both St. Louis and Concord. She was one of the first women to teach philosophy at a co-educational college (University of Denver, 1890-92). Lucia Ames Mead, Marietta Kies, and Eliza Sunderland joined the movement in Concord. Lucia Ames Mead became a chief pacifist theorist in the early twentieth century. Kies and Sunderland were among the first women to earn the Ph.D. in philosophy (University of Michigan, 1891, 1892). Kies wrote on political altruism and shared with Mitchell the distinction of teaching at a coeducational institution (Butler College, 1896-99). These were the first American women as a group to plunge into philosophy proper, bridging those years between the amateur, paraprofessional and professional academic philosopher. Dorothy Rogers's new book at last gives them the attention they deserve.Comment: A book covering many US 19th-century women philosophers, mostly influenced by Hegel to some extent. Could be used as supplementary reading on a history of philosophy course if it covers the nineteenth century, so that students are aware there were women active in philosophy then.
Rogers, Dorothy. The Other Philosophy Club: America’s First Academic Women Philosophers
2009, Hypatia 24(2): 164-185.
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Added by: Alison StoneAbstract: Recent research on women philosophers has led to more discussion of the merits of many previously forgotten women in the past several years. Yet due to the fact that a thinker’s significance and influence are historical phenomena, women remain relatively absent in 'mainstream' discussions of philosophy. This paper focuses on several successful academic women in American philosophy and takes notice of how they succeeded in their own era. Special attention is given to three important academic women philosophers: Mary Whiton Calkins, Ellen Bliss Talbot, and Marietta Kies.Comment: Focusing on three nineteenth-century women philosophers, Mary Whiton Calkins, Ellen Bliss Talbot, and Marietta Kies. Could be used as supplementary reading on a history of philosophy course if it covers the nineteenth century.
Rooney, Phyllis. What is Distinctive about Feminist Epistemology at 25?
2012, in Sharon L. Crasnow, and Anita M. Superson (eds), Out from the Shadows: Analytical Feminist Contributions to Traditional Philosophy, Studies in Feminist Philosophy. New York: Oxford Academic.
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Added by: Jimena ClavelAbstract:
Attempts to identify feminist epistemology by picking out particular topics or projects that supposedly all feminist epistemologists engage, or by focusing on specific claims or theories about knowledge (justification, objectivity) to which all or most feminist epistemologists subscribe, often end up mischaracterizing the field. I argue that what makes feminist epistemology distinctive, a quarter century into its development, is best determined by examining what makes mainstream epistemology still so distinctively non‐feminist. For example, feminist epistemology includes a critical examination of historical and contemporary forms of epistemic subordination and disempowerment that it seeks to bring out from the shadows of traditional theorizing in epistemology, that is, forms of exclusion or distancing of women and other “others” from domains, conceptions, and idealizations of knowledge and of epistemology. This feminist project, though it encompasses quite a range of specific inquiries, is distinctive to the extent that proponents of mainstream projects or perspectives in epistemology remain hostile to, dismissive of, or notably ignorant of it. Mainstream marginalizations and dismissals of feminist work are underwritten by distinctively limited understandings of specific features of epistemological theorizing that come to the fore in an examination of the relationship between feminist and mainstream work in epistemology. These features include: a recognition of the historical situatedness of epistemology; an appreciation of different types of relationships between epistemology and politics; the promotion of epistemological reflexivity; critical re-assessments of starting concepts and questions in epistemology; and recognition of important connections between epistemic normativity and moral or political normativity.Comment: The paper is this a good introduction to the overarching project of feminist epistemology. This chapter offers not only a review of the project of feminist epistemology, but also a critical overview of mainstream epistemology by examining the reception of the former by the latter. It also highlights the crucial contributions of feminist epistemology to epistemology, more widely. In addition to epistemology courses, it can also be a good addition to courses that aim to explore how philosophers have sought to transform canonical and traditional philosophy.
Root, Deborah. Fat-Eaters and Aesthetes: The Politics of Display
1996, in Cannibal Culture: Art, Appropriation, and the Commodification of Difference. USA: Westview Press.
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Added by: Erich Hatala MatthesSummary: Root employs Méxica mythology as a lens for revealing the consumptive, and even cannibalistic, character of power. In particular, she points to the way colonial power sets up Westerners as "experts" and arbiters of art and culture, presenting appreciation of culture as a pretext for violence and control.Comment: This chapter serves as an introduction to Root's booklength study of these themes, so the presentation only gestures at these relationships and provides a brief selection of examples that illustrate them. However, if can be useful for raising initial questions about the relationships among power, art, and culture. It provides a counterpoint to a more sanguine perspective on cross-cultural appreciation expressed by Thomas Heyd in "Rock Art Aesthetics and Cultural Appropriation."
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.
Roskies, Adina L.. Neuroscientific challenges to free will and responsibility
2006, Trends in Cognitive Sciences 10(9): 419-423.
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Added by: Simon FoktAbstract: Recent developments in neuroscience raise the worry that understanding how brains cause behavior will undermine our views about free will and, consequently, about moral responsibility. The potential ethical consequences of such a result are sweeping. I provide three reasons to think that these worries seemingly inspired by neuroscience are misplaced. First, problems for common-sense notions of freedom exist independently of neuroscientific advances. Second, neuroscience is not in a position to undermine our intuitive notions. Third, recent empirical studies suggest that even if people do misconstrue neuroscientific results as relevant to our notion of freedom, our judgments of moral responsibility will remain largely unaffected. These considerations suggest that neuroethical concerns about challenges to our conception of freedom are misguided.Comment: Roskies offers an overview of the debate, providing useful glossary of positions related to it together with a graph representing the relations between them. This can be particularly useful when explaining the differences between the metaphysical, epistemic and ethical claims made in this debate.
Ross, Steven, Warenski, Lisa. Socratic Metaethics Imagined
2017, Sophia and Philosophia 1.3., 1-8
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Added by: Björn Freter
Abstract: A time machine mysteriously appeared one day in ancient Athens. Curious about the future of philosophical dialogue, Socrates entered the device and traveled to the 21st Century. He spent several months in the United Kingdom and United States discussing metaethics before returning to Athens, now a devoted and formidable quasi-realist moral genderexpressivist.
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