DOCSLIB.ORG

Philosophy 500, Introduction to Contemporary Philosophical

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Philosophy 500, Introduction to Contemporary Philosophical Philosophy 500, Introduction to Contemporary Philosophical Literature, Fall 2018 Thurs: 2:00 – 4:20 Scott Soames, STO 223, and MHP 107, (213)-740-0798, [email protected], website: http://dornsife.usc.edu/scottsoames, Office hours: M 9-11 in MHP 107, F 10-11 and by appointment. Description An advanced introduction to leading philosophers in the analytic tradition from Frege (1879) to the present. Topics center on philosophical logic, the philosophy of language, metaphysics and the philosophy of mind. Texts Weekly readings available from Hoose, the net, online, and, on occasion, the MHP office Books on Reserve in the Hoose Library Almog, et al Themes From Kaplan Peter Geach, Max Black, eds. Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege Gottlob Frege Foundations of Arithmetic (translated by Austin) David Lewis Philosophical Papers Volume 1 _____ Counterfactuals Saul Kripke Naming and Necessity (NN) _____ Philosophical Troubles (PT) Hilary Putnam Mind, Language, and Reality: Philosophical Papers, Vol. 2 Scott Soames The Analytic Tradition, Vol. 1 (ATP1) ____ The Analytic Tradition, Vol. 2 (ATP2) ____ Philosophical Essays, Vol. 2 (PE2) ____ Philosophy of Language (PL) ____ Analytic Philosophy in America (APA) ____ Rethinking Language, Mind, and Meaning (RLMM) Peter Ludlow, ed. Readings in the Philosophy of Language Course Requirements In addition to reading assignments, there will be weekly written assignments, 1000–1500 words in length, on specified topics, due electronically 48 hours before the class. The assignments will be returned with comments 24 hours prior to the meeting, and will be discussed, with new material, during the seminar. In addition to the Thursday seminar, the instructor will hold a weekly meeting from 9 to 10:30 each Monday in the Chair’s office in MHP. At that time students may raise and discuss any questions about the material in the seminar or the weekly assignments. Monday attendance is optional. Credit and Grading Students will be graded on their written assignments and oral participation. With the exception of class participation – which, at the discretion of the instructor, may be taken into account for up to 10% “extra credit” for the course – the weekly essays will be the sole determinants of the grade. Students completing the course will receive normal seminar credit. Schedule of Topics and Readings Weeks 1-3: Frege Week 1: Frege, The Foundations of Arithmetic, sections 1-4, 45-57, 60-63, 68-69, and 70-83. Students should, before the first class, read as much as they can of the Frege. Sections 2, 4, 5 of ATP1 may be consulted as needed for background. Week 2: Frege “On Sense and Reference,” Sections 3, 4, and 5 of Chapter 2 of ATP 1. Week 3: Frege, “The Thought” in Ludlow; Perry, “Frege on Demonstratives” in Ludlow; Kripke, “Frege’s Theory of Sense and Reference” in PT; Soames, section 7 of chapter 2 ATP1, Soames RLMM pp. 15-35. 46-56 Week 4-5: Russell Bertrand Russell “On Denoting” (available online) Week 4: "On Denoting" except for the Gray's Elegy Argument plus all of chapter 8 of ATP 1 except for section 2.3 Week 5: The Gray's Elegy argument in "On Denoting plus section 2.3.1- 2.3.5 of ATP 1 Weeks 6: Truth and Meaning Tarski “Truth and Proof” (xerox), Chapter 2 of PL, a brief selection from Dummet “Truth,” (xerox) plus chapter section 3 of chapter 9 of ATP 2. Weeks 7-9: Kripke, Putnam, Lewis on Mind and Language Week 7: Kripke Lectures 1 and 2 of NN; Soames, “Kripke on Epistemic and Metaphysical Possibility" of APA Week 8: Kripke Lecture 3 of NN, Soames, "Knowledge of Manifest Natural Kinds" in PE2 and"What are Natural Kinds;" in APA Week 9: Putnam “The Nature of Mental States” in Putnam; Lewis, “An Argument for the Identity Theory” in Vol 1 Phil Papers; Soames “Kripke on Mind-Body Identity” website. Week 10-11: Propositional Attitudes Week 10: Soames "Direct Reference, Propositional Attitudes and Semantic Content," "Why Propositions Can't be Truth Supporting Circumstances," and "Understanding Assertion" in PE2. Week 11: Kripke “A Puzzle about Belief” in Kripke; Soames chapter 4 of RLMM Week 12: Counterfactuals: Lewis, chapters 1,2, 4 Counterfactuals, Kment "Counterfactuals and Explanation" Week 13-14: Context Sensitivity Week 13: Kaplan “Demonstratives” in Almog Week 14: Salmon "Demonstrating and Necessity;" Kripke "The First Person" in PT, Soames pp 201-207 of RLMM 2 .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Beaneyanalyticphil Historyphil.Pdf
    King’s Research Portal DOI: 10.1007/978-1-137-30487-2 Document Version Peer reviewed version Link to publication record in King's Research Portal Citation for published version (APA): Beaney, M. (2013). Analytic Philosophy and History of Philosophy: The Development of the Idea of Rational Reconstruction . In E. Reck (Ed.), The Historical Turn in Analytic Philosophy (1 ed., pp. 231–260). (History of Analytic Philosophy). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-30487-2 Citing this paper Please note that where the full-text provided on King's Research Portal is the Author Accepted Manuscript or Post-Print version this may differ from the final Published version. If citing, it is advised that you check and use the publisher's definitive version for pagination, volume/issue, and date of publication details. And where the final published version is provided on the Research Portal, if citing you are again advised to check the publisher's website for any subsequent corrections. General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the Research Portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognize and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. •Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the Research Portal for the purpose of private study or research. •You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain •You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the Research Portal Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim.
    [Show full text]
  • Tense, Perspectival Properties, and Special Relativity1
    Tense, Perspectival Properties, and Special Relativity1 Peter Ludlow Universidade Estadual de Campinas Centro de Lógica, Epistemologia e História da Ciência Campinas, SP Brazil [email protected] _________________________________________________________________ Article info CDD: 121 Received: 18.11.2016; Accepted: 19.11.2016 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/0100-6045.2016.V39N4.PL ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Keywords: Tense Special Theory of Relativity Perspectivalism ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT Tensism is the view that tense is not merely a property of language and the mind (narrowly individuated), but of the world itself. Perspectivalism extends this idea to all perspectival properties be they person (e.g. first person vs. second) or locational (e.g. here vs there). One challenge that perspectivalism faces is the problem of expressing the contents of the beliefs and utterances of persons that are in other perspectival positions. One proposed solution to this problem is to allow for semantic theories that “realign” the expression of contents so that the contents expressed by persons in other perspectival positions can be re-expressed from one’s own perspectival position. In this paper I argue that a similar semantic realignment strategy could be deployed in helping perspectivalists generally (and presentists in particular) come to grips with a puzzle raised by the Special Theory of Relativity. In short, the strategy is to realign the expression of contents in another inertial frame so that they are expressed from within your inertial frame. As we will see, the strategy is not puzzle free. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ 1 Thanks to Emiliano Boccardi for some very helpful comments. Manuscrito – Rev. Int. Fil. Campinas, v. 39, n.
    [Show full text]
  • Making the Premises About Constitutional Meaning Express: the Ewn Originalism and Its Critics Andre Leduc
    Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law Volume 31 | Issue 1 Article 13 11-1-2016 Making the Premises about Constitutional Meaning Express: The ewN Originalism and Its Critics Andre LeDuc Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/jpl Part of the Constitutional Law Commons Recommended Citation Andre LeDuc, Making the Premises about Constitutional Meaning Express: The New Originalism and Its Critics, 31 BYU J. Pub. L. 111 (2016). Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/jpl/vol31/iss1/13 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by BYU Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law by an authorized editor of BYU Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. LEDUC.MACRO.FINAL_3.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 3/1/2017 6:51 PM Making the Premises about Constitutional Meaning Express: The New Originalism and Its Critics André LeDuc*1 ABSTRACT Perhaps the hottest front in the half-century-old debate over originalism turns on the introduction of semantics, pragmatics, and other techniques from the philosophy of language and linguistic the- ory. While in some ways these arguments simply build on the now familiar distinction between interpretation and construction defended by the New Originalism, the newest of the New Originalists purport to break new ground in the debate. The originalists argue that they have rehabilitated originalism so as to avoid the criticisms that had been leveled against earlier versions, including those leveled against earlier versions of New Originalism. The newest critics argue that the sophisticated tools of linguistic philosophy, when properly ap- plied in their hands, offer new and decisive challenges to originalism, including the newest of the New Originalisms.
    [Show full text]
  • Soames on Ethics
    SOAMES ON ETHICS Thomas Hurka University of Toronto Though primarily focussed on philosophy of language, metaphysics, and epistemology, Scott Soames’s Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century contains several discussions of ethics. Volume 1 contains two chapters on Moore’s ethics, one on the emotivism of Ayer and Stevenson, and one on Ross; Volume 2 adds a chapter on Hare’s prescriptivism. The bulk of the Moore chapters as well as the ones on emotivism and Hare concern metaethics, but there is also discussion of Moore’s normative views and the chapter on Ross is entirely normative. Since there is no material on ethics after Hare, the book concentrates on figures from the first half of the century. But there is much of interest in what it says about them. Soames discusses these figures without much reference to the recent literature on them or their philosophical problems, but his book is none the worse for that. Since ethics is not his main area of expertise, there are, not surprisingly, some historical inaccuracies, but they mostly concern matters of detail. On the larger issues he nicely picks out these philosophers’ most important ideas, even when they are not highlighted in their texts, and his criticisms go to the heart of those ideas; in several cases they are also novel. In this paper I will concentrate on an objection he raises against Moore’s ethics that connects to one of his book’s central themes. In his “Introduction” Soames identifies two main achievements of 20th-century analytic philosophy. One is the successful understanding of the concepts of logical consequence, logical truth, necessary truth, and a priori truth.
    [Show full text]
  • Living Words
    OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Tue Jan 28 2014, NEWGEN Living Words oxfordhb-9780198712053-FM.indd 1 1/28/2014 6:45:42 PM OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Tue Jan 28 2014, NEWGEN oxfordhb-9780198712053-FM.indd 2 1/28/2014 6:45:42 PM OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Tue Jan 28 2014, NEWGEN Living Words Meaning Underdetermination and the Dynamic Lexicon Peter Ludlow 1 oxfordhb-9780198712053-FM.indd 3 1/28/2014 6:45:42 PM OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Tue Jan 28 2014, NEWGEN 1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, ox2 6dp, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Peter Ludlow 2014 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First Edition published in 2014 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: ISBN 978–0–19–871205–3 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, cr0 4yy Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only.
    [Show full text]
  • The New Theory of Reference: Kripke, Marcus, and Its Origins
    THE NEW THEORY OF REFERENCE SYNTHESE LIBRARY STUDIES IN EPISTEMOLOGY, LOGIC, METHODOLOGY, AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE Managing Editor: JAAKKO HINTIKKA, Boston University Editors: DIRK V AN DALEN, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands DONALD DAVIDSON, University of California, Berkeley THEO A.F. KUIPERS, University ofGroningen, The Netherlands PATRICK SUPPES, Stanford University, California JAN WOLEN-SKI, Jagielionian University, KrakOw, Poland THE NEW THEORY OF REFERENCE: KRIPKE, MARCUS, AND ITS ORIGINS Edited by PAUL W. HUMPHREYS University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, U S.A. and JAMES H. FETZER University of Minnesota, Duluth, MN, US.A . ..... SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS" MEDIA, B.V. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available. ISBN 978-0-7923-5578-6 ISBN 978-94-011-5250-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-011-5250-1 Printed on acid-free paper AII Rights Reserved © 1998 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1998 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1998 No part ofthis publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, inc1uding photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permis sion from the copyright owner. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAUL W. HUMPHREYS and JAMES H. FETZER / Introduction vii PART I: THE APA EXCHANGE 1. QUENTIN SMITH / Marcus, Kripke, and the Origin of the New Theory of Reference 3 2. SCOTT SOAMES / Revisionism about Reference: A Reply to Smith 13 3. QUENTIN SMITH / Marcus and the New Theory of Reference: A Reply to Scott Soames 37 PART II: REPLIES 4. SCOTT SOAMES / More Revisionism about Reference 65 5.
    [Show full text]
  • So Language. Very Prescribe. Wow. the Familiar Popular Dispute Between Descriptivists and Prescriptivists About Grammar Is
    So language. Very prescribe. Wow. Abstract: The philosophical dispute about linguistic normativity is one battlefield in a larger war over the nature of language as an object of scientific study. For those influenced by Wittgenstein, language involves following – or failing to follow – public, prescriptive rules; for Chomsky and his followers, language is a property of individual minds and brains, and the grammatical judgements of any mature individual speaker – her competence – cannot be, in any linguistic sense, ‘wrong’. As I argue here, the recent ‘doge meme’ internet fad provides surprising evidence for the prescriptivist view. Normative attitudes towards linguistic practices are a ubiquitous feature of those practices, and there is no principled basis on which to regard them as non-linguistic. Keywords: Chomsky; Doge; I-Language; Normativity; Prescriptivism. The familiar popular dispute between descriptivists and prescriptivists about grammar is – let us not mince words here – a profoundly tiresome and pointless one (Wallace 2001), which the explosion of opportunities for pedantry afforded by the internet has done everything to amplify, and nothing to revivify; I have no intention of pursuing it here. But the dispute has roots, or at any rate analogues, in some deep issues in theoretical linguistics and the philosophy of language; and as I shall argue, interesting light is shed on that dispute by a most unlikely online phenomenon. I begin by summarising the main threads of the philosophical debate about normativity in grammar, and the apparent stalemate they have recently issued in. I then try to make whatever sense can be made of the wilfully absurd ‘Doge’ meme, before showing how that phenomenon, surprisingly, provides significant evidence for the prescriptivist case.
    [Show full text]
  • Curriculum Vitae of Alvin Plantinga
    CURRICULUM VITAE OF ALVIN PLANTINGA A. Education Calvin College A.B. 1954 University of Michigan M.A. 1955 Yale University Ph.D. 1958 B. Academic Honors and Awards Fellowships Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, 1968-69 Guggenheim Fellow, June 1 - December 31, 1971, April 4 - August 31, 1972 Fellow, American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 1975 - Fellow, Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship, 1979-1980 Visiting Fellow, Balliol College, Oxford 1975-76 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships, 1975-76, 1987, 1995-6 Fellowship, American Council of Learned Societies, 1980-81 Fellow, Frisian Academy, 1999 Gifford Lecturer, 1987, 2005 Honorary Degrees Glasgow University, l982 Calvin College (Distinguished Alumni Award), 1986 North Park College, 1994 Free University of Amsterdam, 1995 Brigham Young University, 1996 University of the West in Timisoara (Timisoara, Romania), 1998 Valparaiso University, 1999 2 Offices Vice-President, American Philosophical Association, Central Division, 1980-81 President, American Philosophical Association, Central Division, 1981-82 President, Society of Christian Philosophers, l983-86 Summer Institutes and Seminars Staff Member, Council for Philosophical Studies Summer Institute in Metaphysics, 1968 Staff member and director, Council for Philosophical Studies Summer Institute in Philosophy of Religion, 1973 Director, National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar, 1974, 1975, 1978 Staff member and co-director (with William P. Alston) NEH Summer Institute in Philosophy of Religion (Bellingham, Washington) 1986 Instructor, Pew Younger Scholars Seminar, 1995, 1999 Co-director summer seminar on nature in belief, Calvin College, July, 2004 Other E. Harris Harbison Award for Distinguished Teaching (Danforth Foundation), 1968 Member, Council for Philosophical Studies, 1968-74 William Evans Visiting Fellow University of Otago (New Zealand) 1991 Mentor, Collegium, Fairfield University 1993 The James A.
    [Show full text]
  • INTENTIONALITY Past and Future VIBS
    INTENTIONALITY Past and Future VIBS Volume 173 Robert Ginsberg Founding Editor Peter A. Redpath Executive Editor Associate Editors G. John M. Abbarno Matti Häyry Mary-Rose Barral Steven V. Hicks Gerhold K. Becker Richard T. Hull Raymond Angelo Belliotti Mark Letteri Kenneth A. Bryson Vincent L. Luizzi C. Stephen Byrum Alan Milchman H. G. Callaway George David Miller Robert A. Delfino Alan Rosenberg Rem B. Edwards Arleen L. F. Salles Andrew Fitz-Gibbon John R. Shook Francesc Forn i Argimon Eddy Souffrant William Gay Tuija Takala Dane R. Gordon Anne Waters J. Everet Green John R. Welch Heta Aleksandra Gylling Thomas F. Woods a volume in Cognitive Science CS Francesc Forn i Argimon, Editor INTENTIONALITY Past and Future Edited by Gábor Forrai and George Kampis Amsterdam - New York, NY 2005 Cover Design: Studio Pollmann The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents - Requirements for permanence”. ISBN: 90-420-1817-8 ©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2005 Printed in the Netherlands CONTENTS Preface vii List of Abbreviations ix ONE The Necessity and Nature of Mental Content 1 LAIRD ADDIS TWO Reading Brentano on the Intentionality of the Mental 15 PHILIP J. BARTOK THREE Emotions, Moods, and Intentionality 25 WILLIAM FISH FOUR Lockean Ideas as Intentional Contents 37 GÁBOR FORRAI FIVE Normativity and Mental Content 51 JUSSI HAUKIOJA SIX The Ontological and Intentional Status of Fregean Senses: An Early Account of External Content 63 GREG JESSON
    [Show full text]
  • David Lewis's Place in Analytic Philosophy Scott Soames by The
    David Lewis’s Place in Analytic Philosophy Scott Soames By the early 1970s, and continuing through 2001, David Lewis and Saul Kripke had taken over W.V.O. Quine’s leadership in metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language, and philosophical logic in the English-speaking world. Quine, in turn, had inherited his position in the early 1950s from Rudolf Carnap, who had been the leading logical positivist -- first in Europe, and, after 1935, in America. A renegade positivist himself, Quine eschewed apriority, necessity, and analyticity, while (for a time) adopting a holistic version of verificationism. Like Carnap, he placed philosophical logic and the philosophy of science at the center of philosophy. While not entirely avoiding metaphysics and epistemology, he tried to “naturalize” both. By contrast, Lewis and Kripke embraced the modalities Quine rejected.1 They also had no sympathy for his early verificationism, or his twin flights from intension and intention. As for philosophy of science, it was transforming itself into specialized philosophies of the several sciences, and did not lend itself to unified treatment. Although Lewis had deep interests in scientific issues, and was commendably realist about science in general, science itself was not the center of own distinctive approach to philosophy. Despite similarities in their opposition to Quine, the differences between Lewis and Kripke were large – especially in the semantics and metaphysics of modality. They also had different philosophical styles. Whereas Lewis was a wide-ranging thinker who pieced together a systematic philosophical world view, Kripke gave little thought to system, focusing instead on a few central topics. There is, therefore, no conflict between the two on many of the issues on which Kripke was silent.
    [Show full text]
  • Digital Dystopia: Player Control and Strategic Innovation in the Sims Online
    Chapter 12 DIGITAL DYSTOPIA: PLAYER CONTROL AND STRATEGIC INNOVATION IN THE SIMS ONLINE Francis F. Steen, Mari Siˆan Davies, Brendesha Tynes, and Patricia M. Greenfield 1. Introduction Around New Year 2004, a quiet year after the official launch, The Sims Online hit the global headlines. Disappointingly, the topic was not a celebration of how this “new virtual frontier,” this “daring collective social experiment,” had succeeded in bringing “our divided nation” together, as Time magazine had blithely prophesied [1]. Instead, the media reported that the online game had turned into a Biblical den of iniquity, a Sin City, a virtual Gomorrah—and that the whistleblower who bore witness to this had his account terminated [2–5]. Rivaling mafia organizations were practicing extortion and intimidation, pimps running brothels where underage girls provided sex for money, and con artists scamming newbies out of their start capital. Maxis, the company that designed and operated the game, maintained a relaxed laissez-fair policy of light and somewhat haphazard intervention. The first mafias and in-game brothels had been established already in the early days of beta-testing; they continued to operate unchecked. Pretend crime paid well and recruitment was good, leading to a rapidly mutating series of inventive scams targeting the inexperienced and the unwary. It wasn’t meant to be like this. Gordon Walton, one of the chief designers, had spoken in glowing terms of the game’s potential to provide opportunities for better relations between people. While “all of our mass media positions us to believe our neighbors are psychopaths, cheating husbands, and just bad people,” The Sims Online would short circuit our distrustful negative stereotypes [6].
    [Show full text]
  • Mark Thomson
    Mark Thomson Northwestern University Email: [email protected] Department of Philosophy Website: www.markdthomson.com Kresge 3512, 1880 Campus Drive Evanston, IL 60208 EDUCATION: Ph.D. Philosophy Northwestern University 2012-2020 (expected) M.A. Philosophy University of Toronto (left for Ph.D.) 2011-2012 B.A. (Honours) University of Toronto 2007-2011 Philosophy & Psychology AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION: Philosophy of Mind Philosophy Language (Metaphor, Singular Thought) Epistemology (Self-Knowledge, Moral Epistemology) AREAS OF COMPETENCE: Applied Ethics (Bioethics, Environmental Ethics) Ethics DISSERTATION: Emotional Perspectives: How Emotional Experience Structures Cognition COMMITTEE: Michael Glanzberg (co-chair), Sanford Goldberg (co-chair), Kyla Ebels-Duggan, Stephen White DISSERTATION SUMMARY: Most philosophical accounts of emotion characterize emotional experiences as analogous to occurrent attitudes, such as desires, or to perceptual experiences insofar as they are thought to have both qualitative character and representational content. My dissertation argues that emotional experiences are nonrepresentational. Instead, I develop the view that having an emotion is like taking up a perspective on a situation. On the account I offer, the qualitative features of emotional experiences are relations among our non-emotional conscious experiences. More specifically, emotional experiences are mental modifications that structure our perceptual, imaginative, cognitive, and conative representational experiences along lines of practical
    [Show full text]