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Added by: Simon Fokt, Contributed by: Simon Prosser
Publisher's Note: What do we see? We are visually conscious of colors and shapes, but are we also visually conscious of complex properties such as being John Malkovich? In this book, Susanna Siegel develops a framework for understanding the contents of visual experience, and argues that these contents involve all sorts of complex properties. Siegel starts by analyzing the notion of the contents of experience, and by arguing that theorists of all stripes should accept that experiences have contents. She then introduces a method for discovering the contents of experience: the method of phenomenal contrast. This method relies only minimally on introspection, and allows rigorous support for claims about experience. She then applies the method to make the case that we are conscious of many kinds of properties, of all sorts of causal properties, and of many other complex properties. She goes on to use the method to help analyze difficult questions about our consciousness of objects and their role in the contents of experience, and to reconceptualize the distinction between perception and sensation. Siegel's results are important for many areas of philosophy, including the philosophy of mind, epistemology, and the philosophy of science. They are also important for the psychology and cognitive neuroscience of vision.
Siegel, Susanna & Silins, Nicholas. The epistemology of Perception2015, in Matthen, Mohan (eds.) Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Perception, Oxford-
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Added by: Giada Fratantonio
Abstract: An overview of the epistemology of perception, covering the nature of justification, immediate justification, the relationship between the metaphysics of perceptual experience and its rational role, the rational role of attention, and cognitive penetrability. The published version will contain a smaller bibliography, due to space constraints in the volume.Comment: A great overview on the epistemology of perception, covering issues from the nature of justification, the rational role of experience, as well as the topic of cognitive penetrability. Good to use as background/overview reading for a course on epistemology of perception.
Silvers, Anita. From the Crooked Timber of Humanity, Beautiful Things Can Be Made2000, in: Brand, Peg Zeglin (ed.), Beauty Matters, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 197-221.-
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Added by: Hans Maes
Summary: Starting from our appreciation of cubist portraits, asks why it to commonplace for us to contemplate distorted depictions of faces with eagerness and enjoyment but to be repelled by real people whose physiognomies resemble the depicted ones. Argues that the aesthetic process that permits our attraction to portrayed human anomalies can be expanded so as to offset the devalued social positioning of real people whose physiognomic features are anomalous. Presenting an anomaly as originality rather than deviance is crucial.Comment: Useful in discussing portraiture and depiction, beauty, as well as the links between aesthetics and ethics.
Artworks to use with this text:
Pablo Picasso, Maya with a Doll (1938)
Cubist portrait of a child. Silvers interestingly compares this to a photo of a child with osteogenesis imperfecta. Useful in discussing portraiture and depiction, beauty, as well as the links between aesthetics and ethics.
Artworks to use with this text:
Pablo Picasso, Maya with a Doll (1938)
Cubist portrait of a child. Silvers interestingly compares this to a photo of a child with osteogenesis imperfecta.
Silvers, Anita. From the Crooked Timber of Humanity, Beautiful Things Should Be Made!2011, APA Newsletter, 10(2): 1-5.-
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Added by: Hans Maes, Contributed by: Christy Mag Uidhir
Summary: Follow-up essay on her 'From the Crooked Timber of Humanity, Beautiful Things Can Be Made' (note the one-word difference in the title). Adds the idea that medical professionals have at least a mild duty to cultivate aesthetic judgment of individuals with biological differences. Also makes the case that beauty is not the same thing as attractiveness or normalcy.Comment: Useful in discussing portraiture and depiction, beauty, as well as the links between aesthetics and ethics.
Artworks to use with this text:
Riva Lehrer, Susan Nussbaum (1998)
This portrait of disability activist Nussbaum invokes Picasso's famous portrait of Gertrude Stein (1906). It is discussed in Garland-Thomson. Useful in discussing portraiture and depiction, beauty, as well as the links between aesthetics and ethics.
Artworks to use with this text:
Riva Lehrer, Susan Nussbaum (1998)
This portrait of disability activist Nussbaum invokes Picasso's famous portrait of Gertrude Stein (1906). It is discussed in Garland-Thomson.
Silvers, Anita. Has her(oine’s) time now come?1990, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 48 (4):365-379.-
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag Uidhir
Abstract: Following suggestions drawn from both analytic and postmodernist sources, I shall advise revisionist artwriters to follow Fou- cault's caution against conceiving of the artists whose stories are related in arts scholarship as historical persons who originated (that is, were the origins of) their art, and who, consequently, are prior to and separate from it. From this perspective, it is problematic how references to properties external to works of art-properties like gender-function in the kind of artwriting crucial to canonical reform.Comment:
Sliwa, Paulina. In defense of moral testimony2012, Philosophical Studies 158 (2): 175-195.-
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Added by: Nick Novelli
Introduction: Moral testimony has been getting a bad name in the recent literature. It has been argued that while testimony is a perfectly fine source for nonmoral belief, there's something wrong with basing one's moral beliefs on it. This paper argues that the bad name is undeserved: Moral testimony isn't any more problematic than nonmoral testimony.Comment: This is a very good, easy to understand article on moral epistemology. The examples used are clear and well-presented, and it would be suitable even for students with no previous experience with moral epistemology. As the issue addressed, moral testimony, is a central one, this article would be recommended for an introductory course in moral epistemology.
Slowther, Anne. Truth-telling in health care2009, Clinical Ethics 4 (4):173-175.-
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Simon Fokt
Abstract: This article is about the description of all the situations in which clinician find difficult to tell the truth to patients regarding their condition. Moral importance of telling the truth is recognized in both moral theory and in the practical reality of everyday living. However, empirical studies continue to show that health- care professional identify the question of truth-telling and disclosure as a source of moral and psychological discomfort in many situations. Other situation creating difficulties for clinicians are not related directly to the patient's wants or needs regarding their illness but to wider issues such as disclosure of medical error and identifying poor performance in colleagues.Comment:
Smith, Subrena. Organisms as Persisters2017, Philosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology 9 (14)-
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Added by: Simon Fokt, Contributed by: Ellen Clarke
Abstract: This paper addresses the question of what organisms are and therefore what kinds of biological entities qualify as organisms. For some time now, the concept of organismality has been eclipsed by the notion of individuality. Biological individuals are those systems that are units of selection. I develop a conception of organismality that does not rely on evolutionary considerations, but instead draws on development and ecology. On this account, organismality and individuality can come apart. Organisms, in my view, are as Godfrey-Smith puts it “essentially persisters.” I argue that persistence is underpinned by differentiation, integration, development, and the constitutive embeddedness of organisms in their worlds. I examine two marginal cases, the Portuguese Man O’ War and the honey bee colony, and show that both count as organisms in light of my analysis. Next, I examine the case of holobionts, hosts plus their microsymbionts, and argue that they can be counted as organisms even though they may not be biological individuals. Finally, I consider the question of whether other, less tightly integrated biological systems might also be treated as organisms.
Comment: This paper is ideal for teaching the problem of biological individuality, in a philosophy of biology course
Sommers, Roseanna. Commonsense Consent2020, Yale Law Journal, 2232-
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Added by: Tomasz Zyglewicz, Shannon Brick, Michael GreerAbstract:
Consent is a bedrock principle in democratic society and a primary means through which our law expresses its commitment to individual liberty. While there seems to be broad consensus that consent is important, little is known about what people think consent is. This article undertakes an empirical investigation of people’s ordinary intuitions about when consent has been granted. Using techniques from moral psychology and experimental philosophy, it advances the core claim that most laypeople think consent is compatible with fraud, contradicting prevailing normative theories of consent. This empirical phenomenon is observed across over two dozen scenarios spanning numerous contexts in which consent is legally salient, including sex, surgery, participation in medical research, warrantless searches by police, and contracts. Armed with this empirical finding, this Article revisits a longstanding legal puzzle about why the law refuses to treat fraudulently procured consent to sexual intercourse as rape. It exposes how prevailing explanations for this puzzle have focused too narrowly on sex. It suggests instead that the law may be influenced by the commonsense understanding of consent in all sorts of domains, including and beyond sexual consent. Meanwhile, the discovery of “commonsense consent” allows us to see that the problem is much deeper and more pervasive than previous commentators have realized. The findings expose a large—and largely unrecognized—disconnect between commonsense intuition and the dominant philosophical conception of consent. The Article thus grapples with the relationship between folk morality, normative theory, and the law.Comment (from this Blueprint): Content warning: details of rape. This article presents a series of experimental studies that have an important result for understanding a legal puzzle that has plagued many feminist theorists. Sommers argues that the dominant explanation of the puzzle has been wrongly diagnosed by feminist theorists, and that attention to folk intuitions about the nature of consent can explain the law's inconsistent treatment of consent that is procured by deception.
Song, Sarah. Justice, Gender, and the Politics of Multiculturalism2007, Cambridge University Press.-
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Sarah Song
Publisher's Note: Justice, Gender and the Politics of Multiculturalism explores the tensions that arise when culturally diverse democratic states pursue both justice for religious and cultural minorities and justice for women. Sarah Song provides a distinctive argument about the circumstances under which egalitarian justice requires special accommodations for cultural minorities while emphasizing the value of gender equality as an important limit on cultural accommodation. Drawing on detailed case studies of gendered cultural conflicts, including conflicts over the 'cultural defense' in criminal law, aboriginal membership rules and polygamy, Song offers a fresh perspective on multicultural politics by examining the role of intercultural interactions in shaping such conflicts. In particular, she demonstrates the different ways that majority institutions have reinforced gender inequality in minority communities and, in light of this, argues in favour of resolving gendered cultural dilemmas through intercultural democratic dialogue.Comment: The book combines political philosophy with case studies exploring conflicts between gender equality and multiculturalism. It could be used in graduate or undergraduate courses on the topic of gender and multiculturalism, paired with Susan Okin's 'Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?'
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Siegel, Susanna. The Contents of Visual Experience
2011, Oxford University Press
Comment: Background reading on intentionalism in philosophy of perception