Diversity Reading List

Comment (from this Blueprint): Jacobson's chapter is an insightful exemplar of feminist philosophy of neuroscience that charts a course between hard-naturalism of mind in science and the pure social-constructivist theories of mental disorder. Jacobson's case study of Boderline Personality Disorder (BPD) demonstrates the ways in which values may be embedded in psychiatric categories, but the phenomena can nevertheless be accounted for using normatively-informed neuroscience. Feminist philosophy of science at large is an influence here, and thus this chapter is an important bridge between this topic and our own, feminist philosophy of mind.

Comment (from this Blueprint): This chapter should be read as a complimentary to McWeeny and Maitra's as further food for thought on how feminist thought can be applied to different areas of philosophy. Additionally, the authors introduce the notion of "intersectionality" and argue for a revision of the history of philosophy that considers the impact of discrimination in the promotion of different forms of thought. This text can also be a useful starting point or complimentary text for the readings of week 5.

Comment (from this Blueprint): McWeeny provides a novel examination of the attribution question by looking into what might be considered one of the most inclusive theories about the mind: panpsychism. According to Panpsychism, "mentality is ubiquitous in nature". Thus, we should expect panpsychism to hold an equal attribution across all bodies, and assert that all bodies have minds, without discrimination. McWeeny shows us, upon further examination, how mainstream panpsychist views (Russelian or physicalist panpsychism) fail to do so. McWeeny provides a detailed analysis of how Cavendishian Panpsychism is more well-placed to give a feminist perspective on the attribution question.

Comment (from this Blueprint): Roege defends a nonreductive account of materialism, which, in her view, doesn't stand against feminist criticisms of physicalism. Similarly to Scheman's "Against Physicalism", Droeger argues that mainstream physicalist theories have ignored the role of the social in their explanations about the mental. Droeger offers an analysis of how feminist practices can illuminate work on the philosophy of mind by taking an interdisciplinary approach that brings together findings and viewpoints from different disciplines.

Comment (from this Blueprint): Díaz-León's paper is an approachable entry point into the literature on defining sexual orientation. This paper works well without background reading on the wider debate and is especially approachable for those already familiar with behaviourism and its issues. Díaz-León also demonstrates the different feminist projects we may take up within the literature on the mind: the descriptive and the political. Both of which provide fertile ground for discussion and debate.

Comment (from this Blueprint): This is the introductory chapter to the anthology "Feminist Philosophy of Mind" (OUP). In here, McWeeny and Maitra (the editors) offer one of the first definitons "feminist philosophy of mind" as a subdiscipline and as a methodology to the study of the mind. They argue that current methods and theoretical work in philosophy of mind has highly overseen the role of the body and society in our understanding of the mind. This text works as a prompt to intitiate the blueprint and to consider how the study of the mind could benefit from the application of tools from feminist philosophy.

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.

Comment (from this Blueprint): Antony offers a juxtaposed view to that of Scheman on the role of the social in understanding the nature of mental states. Antony rejects individualism as a "piece of ideology" and Scheman's claim that a feminist standpoint in philosophy of mind cannot accept the individuation of mental states. This text should be read together with Scheman's.

Comment (from this Blueprint): Trigger warning: This article discusses accounts of trauma, including descriptions of an event of sexual assault that occurred to the author, as well as its aftermath. If used in a syllabi, this text should be presented as "optional" and students should be warned about its sensitive nature. A brief notice of TW should also be presented a the beginning of a session where the text is discussed. Also note that the suggested prompted questions for guiding reading of this article, as well as prompting discussion, also treat sensitive topics. Susan Brison provides a compelling argument about the embodied nature of the self by examining how traumatic events can have an impact on our personal identity and highly disrupt our personhood. Brison defends a relational account of the self in which the self is constructed through our interactions with others, and at the same time, affected by those interactions, making it vulnerable. By drawing first-hand from her own experience with trauma, Brison shows the importance of integrating lived experiences in the development of philosophical accounts.

Comment (from this Blueprint): Radden's paper introduces the reader to broad concerns with the dominant medical model of disorder from a feminist perspective, highlighting the tension with a naturalistic, reductionist approach with the situated and ecological approach of Radden's feminism. This article touches on topics mentioned in other readings (such as enactive concpetions of mind and epistemic injustice) but contextualises them within the field of philosophy of psychiatry. As such, this article is a fruitful springboard for critically considering the nature of medicine and psychiatry from multiple angles. This chapter would be complimented by the further reading of Russell's (2023) paper on Enactive Psychiatry.