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Abstract:
Talk about sexual orientations is widespread in our society and our culture, but very few analytic philosophers have paid attention to questions about the nature of sexual orientations, such as what sexual orientations are and what "sexual orientation" means. This chapter examines the main theories that are available in the recent and growing literature on this issue, including behaviorism, ideal and ordinary versions of dispositionalism, structuralism, and views according to which sexual orientations are mental states such as sexual desires. It discusses several objections to these views, and develops and defends a new version of the view that characterizes sexual orientations in terms of sexual desires.McWeeny, Jennifer, Keya Maitra. Introduction: What Is Feminist Philosophy of Mind?2022, in McWeeny, J. and Maitra, K. (eds) Feminist Philosophy of Mind. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 1-37-
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Added by: Adriana Alcaraz Sanchez and Jodie RussellAbstract:
McWeeny and Maitra motivate the adoption of a feminist perspective in contemporary debates within the philosophy of mind to further illuminate the nature of conscious experience. They argue that the adoption of a feminist perspective leads to the implementation of a more nuanced investigation of the mind, one that avoids a conceptualization of the mind as a "uniform" concept across beings or groups, and instead, considers the role of the body and different societal contexts. In philosophy of mind, when thinking about "the mind", we are usually prompted to think about the mind as a universal thing, as something that we all (humans) have. Moreover, when exploring and investigating what makes the mind to be what it is ( i.e. which are the intrinsic and special features or consciousness), traditionally, we have been encouraged to think about certain properties of the mind that are universal and can be attributed to anyone. McWeeny and Maitra argue that this mainstream methodology in philosophy of mind is a simplistic one. Not only it overlooks the many inter and intrapersonal nuances of each individual's "mind", but also the impact of social constructs, such as gender, race, and class, in our understanding of what the mind is, and who has a mind.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.
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.
Antony, Louise M.. Is Psychological Individualism a Piece of Ideology?1995, Hypatia, 10(3), pp. 157-174-
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Added by: Adriana Alcaraz Sanchez and Jodie RussellAbstract:
Antony challenges Naomi Scheman's claim that "psychological individualism", sustains the ideology of patriarchy. According to Scheman, psychological individualism fails to consider the social and relational context that influences psychological phenomena. Antony challenges Scheman's view that psychological individualism has no place within a feminist approach. According to Antony, Scheman's criticism about psychological individualism is misplaced and psychological states can be individuated while at the same time maintaining their part in a more complex system (i.e. social context).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.
Maitra, Keya. Towards a feminist theory of mental content2022, in McWeeny, J. and Maitra, K. (eds) Feminist Philosophy of Mind. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 70-85-
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Added by: Adriana Alcaraz Sanchez and Jodie RussellAbstract:
In this article, Maitra explores the intersection of feminist theory and philosophy of mind, aiming to develop a feminist theory of mental content. She examines how traditional theories of mental content in the philosophy of mind have not properly captured the experiences and mental states of marginalised groups. These theories, according to Maitra, have overlooked the role of historical and sociocultural forces and how they shape the content of many social constructs. The article advocates for a more inclusive and context-sensitive approach to mental content, one that acknowledges the impact of social and cultural factors on individual cognition and experiences. To that aim, Maitra offers a feminist modification of Millikan's Teleosemantic View by articulating a notion of "function", the content of representational content, as resulting from cultural and social contexts. She ends the article by showing an application of this modified Teleosemantic View for understanding how certain oppressive terms (i.e. 'whiteness', 'immigrant') come to have the content they do, by drawing into José Jorge Mendoza's article "Illegal: White Supremacy and Immigration Status".
Comment (from this Blueprint): Maitra is one of the first to put forward a proposal for a feminist account of mental content by offering a revision of Millikan's teleosemantic account that considers the role of the historical and societal context in the constitution of representational content. She offers a nuanced analysis of mainstream theories of mental content, including Putnam's and Burge's externalism and argues that those views should undertake some modifications before they can be adopted in a feminist framework: namely, their lack of consideration of the historical and societal context.
McConaughey, Zoe. Judgments vs Propositions in Alexander of Aphrodisias’ Conception of Logic2024, History and Philosophy of Logic: 1–15-
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Added by: Viviane FairbankAbstract:
This paper stresses the importance of identifying the nature of an author’s conception of logic when using terms from modern logic in order to avoid, as far as possible, injecting our own conception of logic in the author’s texts. Sundholm (2012) points out that inferences are staged at the epistemic level and are made out of judgments, not propositions. Since it is now standard to read Aristotelian sullogismoi as inferences, I have taken Alexander of Aphrodisias’s commentaries to Aristotle’s logical treatises as a basis for arguing that the premises and conclusions should be read as judgments rather than as propositions. Under this reading, when Alexander speaks of protaseis, we should not read the modern notion of proposition, but rather what we now call judgments. The point is not just a matter of terminology, it is about the conception of logic this terminology conveys. In this regard, insisting on judgments rather than on propositions helps bring to light Alexander’s epistemic conception of logic.
Comment: This text uses the case of Alexander of Aphrodisias’s commentaries to Aristotle’s logical treatises as a basis for making a philosophical argument about the distinction between conceptions of logic that focus on propositions, and those that focus on judgments. It is appropriate for students who already have some background in Ancient logic as well as contemporary philosophy of logic. Although the text requires some prior understanding of relevant concepts, it is clear and accessible, and would be appropriate for a course on the history of logic.
Marin, Sonia, et al.. A Pure View of Ecumenical Modalities2021, In Logic, Language, Information, and Computation. [Online]. Switzerland: Springer International Publishing AG. pp. 388–407-
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Added by: Sophie NaglerAbstract:
Recent works about ecumenical systems, where connectives from classical and intuitionistic logics can co-exist in peace, warmed the discussion on proof systems for combining logics. This discussion has been extended to alethic modalities using Simpson’s meta-logical characterization: necessity is independent of the viewer, while possibility can be either intuitionistic or classical. In this work, we propose a pure, label free calculus for ecumenical modalities, nEK, where exactly one logical operator figures in introduction rules and every basic object of the calculus can be read as a formula in the language of the ecumenical modal logic EK. We prove that nEK is sound and complete w.r.t. the ecumenical birelational semantics and discuss fragments and extensions.
Comment: Suitable for a specialist class on logical pluralism (if focussed on ecumenical systems) or alethic modalities
2021, Pimentel, E. et al. (2021) An ecumenical notion of entailment. Synthese (Dordrecht). [Online] 198 (Suppl 22), 5391–5413.-
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Added by: Sophie Nagler, Contributed by: Sophie NaglerAbstract:
Much has been said about intuitionistic and classical logical systems since Gentzen’s seminal work. Recently, Prawitz and others have been discussing how to put together Gentzen’s systems for classical and intuitionistic logic in a single unified system. We call Prawitz’ proposal the Ecumenical System, following the terminology introduced by Pereira and Rodriguez. In this work we present an Ecumenical sequent calculus, as opposed to the original natural deduction version, and state some proof theoretical properties of the system. We reason that sequent calculi are more amenable to extensive investigation using the tools of proof theory, such as cut-elimination and rule invertibility, hence allowing a full analysis of the notion of Ecumenical entailment. We then present some extensions of the Ecumenical sequent system and show that interesting systems arise when restricting such calculi to specific fragments. This approach of a unified system enabling both classical and intuitionistic features sheds some light not only on the logics themselves, but also on their semantical interpretations as well as on the proof theoretical properties that can arise from combining logical systems.
Comment: A relatively light-touch and philosophically focussed introduction to ecumenical proof systems, i.e. sequent calculi that combine aspects of different logics. Suitable for discussion in a class on philosophy of logic class or on proof theory if more philosophically focussed. Also potentially usable for a class on logical pluralism.
Nederpelt, Rob, Fairouz Kamareddine. Logical reasoning: a first course2004, Nederpelt, R. P. (Rob P. ) & Kamareddine, F. D. (2004) Logical reasoning: a first course. London: King’s College Publications.-
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Added by: Sophie Nagler, Contributed by: Sophie NaglerPublisher’s Note:
This book describes how logical reasoning works and puts it to the test in applications. It is self-contained and presupposes no more than elementary competence in mathematics. Comment: An introduction to sentential and first-order logic with a mixed philosophical and computational focus; rigorous presentation of the formalism interspersed with brief philosophical reflections on concepts, practical exercises, and pointers at technical 'real-world' applications.
Thompson, Evan, Stapleton, Mog. Making Sense of Sense-Making: Reflections on Enactive and Extended Mind Theories2009, Topoi 28: 23-30-
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, Contributed by: Jimena ClavelAbstract:
This paper explores some of the differences between the enactive approach in cognitive science and the extended mind thesis. We review the key enactive concepts of autonomy and sense-making. We then focus on the following issues: (1) the debate between internalism and externalism about cognitive processes; (2) the relation between cognition and emotion; (3) the status of the body; and (4) the difference between ‘incorporation’ and mere ‘extension’ in the body-mind-environment relation.Comment: The paper is a good introduction to enactivism within the context of other situated approaches to cognition (i.e., the extended mind thesis, the thesis of embodied cognition, the thesis of embedded cognition). It can be used in an intermediate or advanced course in philosophy of mind or philosophy of cognitive science.
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Díaz-León, E.. Sexual Orientations: The Desire View
2022, In McWeeny, J. and Maitra, K. (eds) Feminist Philosophy of Mind, New York: Oxford University Press, pp.294-309
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.