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Added by: Lea CantorAbstract:
This paper reconsiders the debates around the interpretation of Parmenides’ Being, in order to draw out the preconceptions that lie behind such debates and to scrutinize the legitimacy of applying them to a text such as Parmenides’ poem. With a focus on the assumptions that have driven scholars to seek clarity within the notoriously ambiguous verse of the poem, I ask whether it is possible to develop an analysis of Parmenides’ Being that is sympathetic both to his clear interest in argument, logic, knowledge and truth and to his ambiguous expression and cultural and literary resonances.
Buchak, Lara. Risk and Rationality2013, Oxford: Oxford University Press.-
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Added by: Jie Gao
Publisher's Note: Lara Buchak sets out a new account of rational decision-making in the face of risk. She argues that the orthodox view is too narrow, and suggests an alternative, more permissive theory: one that allows individuals to pay attention to the worst-case or best-case scenario, and vindicates the ordinary decision-maker.Comment: This book argues for an alternative account of ideal rationality as opposed to the orthodox view in terms of expected utility theory. Buchak manages to explain the technical details of her theory in such a non-technical way that any student of philosophy will be able to follow her discussion. The book moreover contains very interesting passages on what we might call "the philosophy of decision theory", such as metaphysical and epistemological issues concerning utilities and probabilities. This makes it a good teaching material for courses on decision theory and philosophy of action.
Buchak, Lara. Faith and Steadfastness in the face of Counter-Evidence2017, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 81(1-2): 113-133.-
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Added by: Emily Paul
Abstract: It is sometimes said that faith is recalcitrant in the face of new evidence, but it is puzzling how such recalcitrance could be rational or laudable. I explain this aspect of faith and why faith is not only rational, but in addition serves an important purpose in human life. Because faith requires maintaining a commitment to act on the claim one has faith in, even in the face of counter-evidence, faith allows us to carry out long-term, risky projects that we might otherwise abandon. Thus, faith allows us to maintain integrity over time.Comment: This would be a great paper to set for further reading, with Buchak's 'Can it be Rational to Have Faith'? as a primary reading. It could alternatively be a primary reading, but in a more specialised Philosophy of Religion course - for instance, one that is specifically on Religious Epistemology or on Faith and Reason.
Buchak, Lara. Can it be Rational to Have Faith?2012, in Jake Chandler & Victoria Harrison (eds.) Probability in the Philosophy of Religion. Oxford University Press: 225-247.-
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Added by: Emily Paul
Abstract: This paper provides an account of what it is to have faith in a proposition p, in both religious and mundane contexts. It is argued that faith in p doesn't require adopting a degree of belief that isn't supported by one's evidence but rather it requires terminating one's search for further evidence and acting on the supposition that p. It is then shown, by responding to a formal result due to I.J. Good, that doing so can be rational in a number of circumstances. If expected utility theory is the correct account of practical rationality, then having faith can be both epistemically and practically rational if the costs associated with gathering further evidence or postponing the decision are high. If a more permissive framework is adopted, then having faith can be rational even when there are no costs associated with gathering further evidenceComment: A great paper for an intermediate philosophy of religion course, especially because many arguments from students are to the contrary: it's irrational to believe in God when we don't have satisfactory evidence. It could be nice to set up a debate centering around this paper. It could work particularly well towards the end of the course.
Buchak, Lara. Rational Faith and Justified Belief2014, in Laura Frances Callahan & Timothy O'Connor (eds.) Reigious Faith and Intellectual Virtue. Oxford University Press: 49-73.-
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Added by: Emily Paul
Abstract: In 'Can it be rational to have faith?', it was argued that to have faith in some proposition consists, roughly speaking, in stopping one's search for evidence and committing to act on that proposition without further evidence. That paper also outlined when and why stopping the search for evidence and acting is rationally required. Because the framework of that paper was that of formal decision theory, it primarily considered the relationship between faith and degrees of belief, rather than between faith and belief full stop. This paper explores the relationship between rational faith and justified belief, by considering four prominent proposals about the relationship between belief and degrees of belief, and by examining what follows about faith and belief according to each of these proposals. It is argued that we cannot reach consensus concerning the relationship between faith and belief at present because of the more general epistemological lack of consensus over how belief relates to rationality: in particular, over how belief relates to the degrees of belief it is rational to have given one's evidence.Comment: This could be a great paper to set for further reading, with Buchak's 'Can it be Rational to Have Faith?' as a primary reading. If being discussed as a primary reading, it would be good to get very clear on Buchak's four candidates for the relationship between belief and degrees of belief: perhaps by splitting the room into four groups, and getting each group to discuss one proposal - as well as what follows about the relationship between faith and belief according to that proposal.
Bullock, Emma. A Normatively Neutral Definition of Paternalism2015, Philosophical Quarterly 65(258): 1-21.-
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Added by: Carl Fox
Abstract: In this paper, I argue that a definition of paternalism must meet certain methodological constraints. Given the failings of descriptivist and normatively charged definitions of paternalism, I argue that we have good reason to pursue a normatively neutral definition. Archard's 1990 definition is one such account. It is for this reason that I return to Archard's account with a critical eye. I argue that Archard's account is extensionally inadequate, failing to capture some cases which are clear instances of paternalism. I refine each of his three conditions, ultimately providing an improved definition of paternalistic interference. This revised definition meets specific methodological constraints, offering a definition that is both neutral between anti- and pro-paternalistic intuitions, but that also explains why paternalism is normatively significant. Specifically, this definition captures the conflict between interfering with an individual's choices and treating the individual benevolently, without making paternalism permissible or impermissible by definition.Comment: This paper updates Archard's attempt to provide a normatively neutral account of paternalism, and would be a good further reading for any topic touching on paternalism.
Buss, Sarah. Personal autonomy2008, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.-
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Simon Fokt
Abstract: To be autonomous is to be a law to oneself; autonomous agents are self-governing agents. Most of us want to be autonomous because we want to be accountable for what we do, and because it seems that if we are not the ones calling the shots, then we cannot be accountable. More importantly, perhaps, the value of autonomy is tied to the value of self-integration. We don't want to be alien to, or at war with, ourselves; and it seems that when our intentions are not under our own control, we suffer from self-alienation. What conditions must be satisfied in order to ensure that we govern ourselves when we act? Philosophers have offered a wide range of competing answers to this question.Comment:
Butnor, Ashby, Matthew MacKenzie. Enactivism and Gender Performativity2022, In McWeeny, J. and Maitra, K. (eds) Feminist Philosophy of Mind. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 190-206-
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Added by: Adriana Alcaraz Sanchez and Jodie RussellAbstract:
The enactivist paradigm of embodied cognition represents a powerful alternative to Cartesian and cognitivist approaches in the philosophy of mind. On this view, the body plays a constitutive role in the integrated functioning of perception, affect, and other cognitive processes. Enactivism shares many of the central themes of feminist theory, and is extended to apply to social and political concerns. Following a discussion of the key components of the enactive approach, we apply it to explain more complex social manifestations, specifically gender performance and its reproduction through time. By employing Judith Butler's notion of performativity, we demonstrate how gender, as one marker of social identity and difference, emerges through processes of embodied and embedded sense-making as articulated by enactive theory. We argue that more attention to embodied and embedded values allows for the interruption and transformation of histories of oppressive practices and opens the door to more liberatory possibilities.Comment (from this Blueprint): Butnor and MacKenzie apply a specific paradigm - the enactive model of cogniton - to the understanding of gender identity in this chapter. This chapter is thus a useful introduction to the enactive framework, but is also an important reading for those already familiar with the literature as it both tries to consider how gender can be 'natural' but also deeply social and political. As such, Butnor and MacKenzie straddle the line between the scientific and the political by provising a non-reductive, natural account of gender that does liberatory work. This reading is also highly relevant to feminists who are critical of essentialist views of gender and poses to them the question of whether we can have our naturalist cake and eat it too.
Calhoun, Cheshire. The Virtue of Civility2000, Philosophy and Public Affairs 29 (3):251-275.-
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Added by: Simon Fokt, Contributed by: Eline Gerritsen
Abstract: The decline of civility has increasingly become the subject of lament both in popular media and in daily conversation. Civility forestalls the potential unpleasantness of a life with other people. Without it, daily social exchanges can turn nasty and sometimes hazardous. Civility thus seems to be a basic virtue of social life. Moral philosophers, however, do not typically mention civility in their catalogues or examples of virtue. In what follows, I want to suggest that civility is a particularly interesting virtue for moral philosophers because giving an adequate account of the virtue of civility requires us to rethink the relationship between moral virtue and compliance with social norms.
Comment: This paper has a clear argumentative structure, gives many examples and does not require prior knowledge of the topic. It can be used on its own in a discussion of virtue ethics, e.g. to illustrate how you can argue that something is a virtue and how to differentiate virtues. It can also be used in a discussion of the relation between morality and social norms.
Camp, Elisabeth. Two Varieties of Literary Imagination: Metaphor, Fiction, and Thought Experiments2009, Midwest Studies in Philosophy 33 (1):107-130.-
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag Uidhir
Abstract: Recently, philosophers have discovered that they have a lot to learn from, or at least to ponder about, fiction. Many metaphysicians are attracted to fiction as a model for our talk about purported objects and properties, such as numbers, morality, and possible worlds, without embracing a robust Platonist ontology. In addition, a growing group of philosophers of mind are interested in the implications of our engagement with fiction for our understanding of the mind and emotions: If I don't believe that Anna Karenina exists, can I really pity her, or hope or desire that she extricate herself from her tragic situation? And why is there no 'morality fiction,' analogous to science fiction? I suspect that philosophers have been especially comfortable thinking about fiction because it seems, at least prima facie, to employ the imagination in a way that conforms to a standard model of the mind. Specifically, contemporary philosophers tend to think of imagination as a form of mental pretense. Mental pretense can take two main forms: a cognitive attitude of supposing a set of propositions to be true (make-believe) or else an experiential state of imaging a scenario as if it were before one (imaging). Much of our pretense intertwines the cognitive and experiential modalities, of course. But both share a crucial common feature: all of one's imaginative effort is invested in pretending that certain contents obtain. In this sense, we can understand imagination as the 'offline' simulation of actual beliefs and perceptions (and perhaps other attitudes as well), where we analyze these in the normal way, as states individuated by their attitude and representational content. While I share the burgeoning interest in fiction, I want to suggest that we also have a lot to learn from poetry, and in particular from poetic metaphor. I will argue..Comment:
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Bryan, Jenny. The Pursuit of Parmenidean Clarity
2020, Rhizomata, 8(2), pp. 218–238.
Comment: This article offers a critical overview of recent debates concerning Parmenides' philosophy, which it does a good job of summarizing for the reader without presupposing much knowledge about the Presocratics. The article clearly identifies a number of tacit interpretive assumptions underlying dominant readings of Parmenides' poem, highlighting the complexities involved in reconstructing Parmenides' philosophical motivations within his proper cultural milieu. This article can easily be integrated into introductory courses on Parmenides and/or Presocratic philosophy.