Identification as a psychological concept is widely used in psychology and in social science. This use relies on an ordinary understanding of what identification is, and this understanding has itself been influenced by psychoanalysis. The concept is, however, in need of philosophical exploration. Central to its use is the idea of character, its nature and its development, which like identification itself is under-theorized. I use Richard Wollheim's philosophical analysis of identification in terms of the imagination, to trace a path from (...) ordinary psychology's conception of characterological identification to the psychoanalytic one. I link this to a short discussion of character as a conception of the self available to reflection. Making reference to some psychoanalytic case material, I defend psychoanalysis? version of identification and its applicability in psychology and the social sciences. (shrink)

Identification figures prominently in moral psychological explanations. I argue that in identification the subject has an ‘identity-thought’, which is a thought about her numerical identity with the figure she identifies with. In Freud's psychoanalytic psychology character is founded on unconscious identification with parental figures. Moral philosophers have drawn on psychoanalysis to explain how undesirable or disadvantageous character dispositions are resistant to insight through being unconscious. According to Richard Wollheim's analysis of Freud's theory, identification is the subject's disposition to imagine, unconsciously, (...) her bodily merging with the figure she identifies with. I argue that this explanation of identification is not adequate. Human character is held to be capable of change when self-reflection brings unconscious identifications to conscious self-knowledge. I argue that for self-knowledge these identifications must be an intelligible part of the subject's self-conception, and that Wollheim's ‘merging phantasy’ is not intelligible to the subject in this way. By contrast, the subject's thought that she is numerically identical to the figure she identifies with does provide an intelligible starting-point for reflecting on this identification. This psychoanalytic account provides a clear conception of identification with which to investigate puzzle cases in the moral psychology of character. (shrink)

Ever since Freud, psychoanalysts have explored the connections between psychoanalysis and literature and psychoanalysis and philosophy, while literary criticism, social science and philosophy have all reflected on and made use of ideas from psychoanalytic theory. The Academic Face of Psychoanalysis presents contributions from these fields and gives the reader an insight into different understandings and applications of psychoanalytic theory. This book comprises twelve contributions from experts in their fields covering philosophy, psychoanalysis, sociology and literary theory. The chapters are divided into (...) three distinct sections: Psychoanalysis Philosophy Social science and literary theory Louise Braddock and Michael Lacewing successfully bring these contributions together with an in-depth introduction that allows the reader to explore the connections between the different disciplines. The multi-disciplinary approach to this book is rare; it will appeal to academics and students, from the subject areas of psychoanalysis, humanities and social science. (shrink)

How exactly does a patient succeed in imposing a phantasy and its corresponding affect upon his analyst in order to deny it in himself is a most interesting problem… In the analytic situation, a peculiarity of communication[s] of this kind is that, at first sight, they do not seem as if they had been made by the patient at all. The analyst experiences the affect as being his own response to something. The effort involved is in differentiating the patient's contribution (...) from his own. 1My title, 'Understanding Projective Identification,' is intentionally ambiguous. In this paper, I aim both to show how the psychoanalyst comes to understand what the patient is trying to communicate in projective... (shrink)

This reply is only/largely to the first, main part of Leite's response to my paper. A reply to the second, which criticizes the use of the imagination in the account, has to be left aside for reasons of space. What more, following Wollheim, I have to say about the imagination and its relation to identification, can be found in Braddock.Originally, my paper was organized around the above title, my meaning being that, on the one hand, the paper showed how (...) to 'translate out' projective identification from its hermetic psychoanalytic usage by combining philosophical analysis and the 'extension of ordinary psychology' approach. This would... (shrink)

Projection does not reliably serve cognition; it all too often contributes to failures of knowledge. Our projecting not only imaginatively misrepresents the world by attributing a feature of ourself to it. In doing so it can misrepresent us as lacking that feature. It is an act of the imagination which re-locates unwanted attributes into a motivated misrepresentation which distorts our grasp of reality and of ourselves. The imaginative act itself is not consciously intended so that we take the resulting picture (...) at face value, despite the distortion. Without a strong reason to question this misperception the projection remains undetected and the misrepresentation affects our relations to others. Projection serving motivated self-deception thus evades correction. Realistic self-knowledge becomes possible through psychoanalysis when the patient's projections are received by the analyst as communications impinging on her capacity for sympathy. I show how the psychology of sympathy we find in Hume and Smith provides a philosophical frame of reference for understanding this interaction between sympathy and projection. I bring sympathy together with contemporary Kleinian psychoanalytic theory to explain how psychoanalytic interpretation engages with this interaction to reduce the effects of projection and enable a self-knowledge grounded in the subject's own experience of herself. (shrink)

This paper develops an account of the normative basis of priority setting in health care as combining the values which a given society holds for the common good of its members, with the universal provided by a principle of common humanity. We discuss national differences in health basket in Europe and argue that health care decision-making in complex social and moral frameworks is best thought of as anchored in such a principle by drawing on the philosophy of need. We show (...) that health care needs are ethically ‘thick’ needs whose psychological and social construction can best be understood in terms of David Wiggins’s notion of vital need: a person’s need is vital when failure to meet it leads to their harm and suffering. The moral dimension of priority setting which operates across different societies’ health care systems is located in the demands both of and on any society to avoid harm to its members. (shrink)

Evolutionary debunking arguments, notably Sharon Street’s Darwinian Dilemma (2006), allege that moral realists need to explain the reliability of our moral judgments, given their evolutionary sources. David Copp (2008) and David Enoch (2010) take up the challenge. I argue on empirical grounds that realists have not met the challenge and moreover cannot do so. The outcome is that there are empirically-motivated reasons for thinking moral realists cannot explain moral reliability, given our current empirical understanding.

Is the cultural evolution of morality fairly contingent? Could cultural evolution have easily led humans to moral norms and judgments that are mostly false by our present lights? If so, does it matter philosophically? Yes, or so we argue. We empirically motivate the contingency of cultural evolution and show that it makes two major philosophical contributions. First, it shows that moral objectivists cannot explain the reliability of our moral judgments and thus strengthens moral debunking arguments. Second, it shows that the (...) reliability of our moral judgments is evidence for theism over metaphysical naturalism. (shrink)

What are the epistemological implications of the cognitive science of religion (CSR)? The lion’s share of discussion fixates on whether CSR undermines (or debunks or explains away) theistic belief. But could the field offer positive support for theism? If so, how? That is our question. Our answer takes the form of an evidential argument for theism from standard models and research in the field. According to CSR, we are naturally disposed to believe in supernatural agents and these beliefs are constrained (...) in certain ways. The three main theories of this supernatural disposition are byproduct theories, adaptationist theories, and hybrid theories. We argue that our supernatural disposition—as understood by any of the main theories—is more surprising and improbable given naturalism than theism and thus serves as evidence for theism over naturalism. (shrink)

When a chimpanzee stockpiles rocks as weapons or when a frog sends out mating calls, we might easily assume these animals know their own motivations--that they use the same psychological mechanisms that we do. But as Beyond the Brain indicates, this is a dangerous assumption because animals have different evolutionary trajectories, ecological niches, and physical attributes. How do these differences influence animal thinking and behavior? Removing our human-centered spectacles, Louise Barrett investigates the mind and brain and offers an alternative (...) approach for understanding animal and human cognition. Drawing on examples from animal behavior, comparative psychology, robotics, artificial life, developmental psychology, and cognitive science, Barrett provides remarkable new insights into how animals and humans depend on their bodies and environment--not just their brains--to behave intelligently. Barrett begins with an overview of human cognitive adaptations and how these color our views of other species, brains, and minds. Considering when it is worth having a big brain--or indeed having a brain at all--she investigates exactly what brains are good at. Showing that the brain's evolutionary function guides action in the world, she looks at how physical structure contributes to cognitive processes, and she demonstrates how these processes employ materials and resources in specific environments. Arguing that thinking and behavior constitute a property of the whole organism, not just the brain, Beyond the Brain illustrates how the body, brain, and cognition are tied to the wider world. (shrink)

The paper links Freud’s early work in the ‘Project for a scientific psychology’ with the psychoanalytic psychology of Kleinian object relations theory now current. Freud is often accused of introducing mechanism into his psychology and installing at its core an irreconcilable dichotomy of two disparate ways of explaining human behaviour. I suggest that Freud’s early mechanistic thinking is an attempt at what he only partly achieves, a functional account of the ‘mental apparatus’. I consider whether this way of conceptualising the (...) mind in functional terms is methodologically relevant to psychoanalytic investigation or whether it is at best heuristically useful. From a brief consideration of Kleinian object relations theory, illustrated by case material, I conclude that there are grounds for accepting the first of these alternatives. (shrink)

Like many fields, bioethics has been constrained to thinking to race in terms of colorblindness, the idea that ideal deliberation would ignore race and hence prevent bias. There are practical and ethically significant problems with colorblind approaches to ethical deliberation, and important reasons why race is ethically relevant. Future discourse needs to understand how and why race is relevant in bioethics.

Like many fields, bioethics has been constrained to thinking to race in terms of colorblindness, the idea that ideal deliberation would ignore race and hence prevent bias. There are practical and e...

Do the cognitive origins of our theistic beliefs debunk them or explain them away? This paper develops an empirically-motivated debunking argument and defends it against objections. First, we introduce the empirical and epistemological background. Second, we develop and defend the main argument, the debunking argument from false god beliefs. Third, we characterize and evaluate the most prominent religious debunking argument to date, the debunking argument from insensitivity. It is found that insensitivity-based arguments are problematic, which makes them less promising than (...) the debunking argument from false god beliefs. (shrink)

Heightened awareness of the origins of our moral judgments pushes many in the direction of moral skepticism, in the direction of thinking we are unjustified in holding our moral judgments on a realist understanding of the moral truths. A classic debunking argument fleshes out this worry: the best explanation of our moral judgments does not appeal to their truth, so we are unjustified in holding our moral judgments. But it is unclear how to get from the explanatory premise to the (...) debunking conclusion. This paper shows how to get from here to there by way of epistemic insensitivity. First, we reconstruct Richard Joyce’s evolutionary debunking argument from insensitivity. Second, we raise epistemological difficulties for Joyce’s argument. Third, we develop and defend a new debunking argument from insensitivity. (shrink)

How should we treat patients diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) or minimally conscious state (MCS)? More specifically, should we treat them as having the full moral status of persons? Yes, or so we argue. First, we introduce the medical conditions of PVS, MCS, and the related conditions of Locked-in Syndrome and covert awareness. Second, we characterize the main argument for thinking diagnosed PVS patients are not persons. Third, we contend that this argument is defeated by mounting (...) empirical evidence for the considerable uncertainty of PVS diagnoses. Fourth, we characterize a new argument for PVS non-personhood suggested by Neil Levy and Julian Savulescu, one intended to accommodate the diagnostic uncertainty. According to this argument, even if diagnosed PVS patients are in fact MCS, it makes no difference because MCS patients are probably not persons either. Fifth, we challenge the new argument by assembling reasons for doubting the claim that MCS patients are not persons. The outcome is that it is fairly uncertain whether diagnosed PVS and MCS patients are persons or not. What should we do in light of this uncertainty? Sixth, we develop and support a guiding precautionary principle, which we call Precautionary Personhood. Finally, we apply the principle to the case of diagnosed PVS and MCS patients: we argue that given substantial uncertainty about their personhood we should go ahead and treat these patients as if they are persons. (shrink)

Dogged resistance to demanding moral views frequently takes the form of The Demandingness Objection. Premise (1): Moral view V demands too much of us. Premise (2): If a moral view demands too much of us, then it is mistaken. Conclusion: Therefore, moral view V is mistaken. Objections of this form harass major theories in normative ethics as well as prominent moral views in applied ethics and political philosophy. The present paper does the following: (i) it clarifies and distinguishes between various (...) demandingness objections in the philosophical literature, (ii) identifies a formidable and interesting form of the demandingness objection that targets a wide scope of moral views, and (iii) defuses this objection by developing a local skeptical argument from unreliability the form of which may, interestingly, be effectively deployed in other areas of philosophy. (shrink)

This paper considers the question of whether predictions of wrongdoing are relevant to our moral obligations. After giving an analysis of 'won't' claims, the question is separated into two different issues: firstly, whether predictions of wrongdoing affect our objective moral obligations, and secondly, whether self-prediction of wrongdoing can be legitimately used in moral deliberation. I argue for an affirmative answer to both questions, although there are conditions that must be met for self-prediction to be appropriate in deliberation. The discussion illuminates (...) an interesting and significant tension between agency and prediction. (shrink)

Many children and adults experience significant breakdown in the use of language. The resulting pragmatic disorders present a considerable barrier to effective communication. This book is the first critical examination of the current state of our knowledge of pragmatic disorders and provides a comprehensive overview of the main concepts and theories in pragmatics. It examines the full range of pragmatic disorders that occur in children and adults and discusses how they are assessed and treated by clinicians. Louise Cummings attempts (...) to integrate the fields of pragmatics, language pathology and cognitive science by examining the ways in which pragmatics can make a useful contribution to debates about cognitive theories of autism. The reader is encouraged to think in a critical fashion about how clinicians, experimentalists and theorists deal with pragmatic issues. (shrink)

The empirical literature seems to indicate that prehistoric humans did not believe in God or anything like God. Why is that so, if God exists? The problem is difficult because their nonbelief was natural: their evolved mind and cultural environment restricted them to concepts of highly limited supernatural agents. Why would God design their mind and place them in their environments only to hide from them? The natural nonbelief of prehistoric humans is much more surprising given theism than naturalism. Thus, (...) it constitutes strong evidence that theism is false, or so Jason Marsh (2013) has argued. The "problem of natural nonbelief" is a debunking argument that invokes the genealogy of religious belief to cast doubt upon theism. In this chapter, we put it to the test. First, we argue on empirical grounds that it is not clear that natural nonbelief was prevalent: the empirical jury is still out on what prehistoric humans believed about gods. Second, we argue that even if natural nonbelief was prevalent, it would not be very surprising given theism. We conclude that natural nonbelief presents no problem for theism. We also turn the tables and suggest that the real problem is the problem of widespread belief in a High God (common consent), which is a problem for naturalism. (shrink)

While humans have made enormous progress in the exploration and exploitation of Earth, exploration of outer space remains beyond current human capabilities. The principal challenges lie in current space technology and engineering which includes the protection of astronauts from the hazards of working and living in the space environment. These challenges may lead to a paradoxical situation where progress in space technology and the ability to ensure acceptable risk/benefit for human space exploration becomes dissociated and the rate of scientific discovery (...) declines. In this paper, we discuss the predominant challenges of the space environment for human health and argue that development and deployment of a human enhancement policy, initially confined to astronauts – for the purpose of future human space programmes is a rational solution to these challenges. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article addresses the question of whether certain experiences that originate in causes other than bereavement are properly termed ‘grief’. To do so, we focus on widespread experiences of grief that have been reported during the Covid-19 pandemic. We consider two potential objections to a more permissive use of the term: grief is, by definition, a response to a death; grief is subject to certain norms that apply only to the case of bereavement. Having shown that these objections are unconvincing, (...) we sketch a positive case for a conception of grief that is not specific to bereavement, by noting some features that grief following bereavement shares with other experiences of loss. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider the implications of grief for philosophical theorising about absence experience. I argue that whilst some absence experiences that occur in grief might be explained by extant philosophical accounts of absence experience, others need different treatment. I propose that grieving subjects' descriptions of feeling as if the world seems empty or a part of them seems missing can be understood as referring to a distinctive type of absence experience. In these profound absence experiences, I will argue, (...) the absence of a person as a condition on various possibilities is made manifest in the structure of experience over time. Thus, by paying close attention to grief, we can see that even accounts of absence experience that are presented as in competition with one another may not be so, and that to explain all kinds of absence experience we sometimes need to appeal to something overlooked in other accounts, and which is neither straightforwardly perceptual or cognitive. I also suggest that we would have good reason to take such experiences to be part of and not merely psychological effects of grief. (shrink)

The first truly multidisciplinary text of its kind, this book offers an original analysis of the current state of linguistic pragmatics. Cummings argues that no study of pragmatics can reasonably neglect the historical and contemporary influences on this.

This paper discusses the relationship between internationalisation, mobility, quality and equality in the context of recent developments in research policy in the European Research Area (ERA). Although these developments are specifically concerned with the growth of research capacity at European level, the issues raised have much broader relevance to those concerned with research policy and highly skilled mobility. The paper draws on a wealth of recent research examining the relationship between mobility and career progression with particular reference to a recently (...) completed empirical study of doctoral mobility in the social sciences (Ackers et al. Doctoral Mobility in the Social Sciences. Report to the NORFACE ERA-Network, 2007). The paper is structured as follows. The first section introduces recent policy developments including the European Charter for Researchers and Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers and the European Commission’s Green Paper on the ERA. The discussion focuses on concerns around the definition of ‘mobility’ and the tendency (in both policy circles and academic research) to conflate different forms of mobility and to equate these with notions of excellence or quality. Scientific mobility is shaped as much by ‘push’ factors (limited opportunity) as it is by the ‘draw’ of excellence. Scientists are exercising a degree of ‘choice’ within a specific and individualised framework of constraints. The following sections consider some of the ‘professional’ and ‘personal’ factors shaping scientific mobility and the influence that these have on the relationship between mobility, internationalisation and excellence. The paper concludes that mobility is not an outcome in its own right and must not be treated as such (as an implicit indicator of internationalisation). To do so contributes to differential opportunity in scientific labour markets reducing both efficiency and equality. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that olfactory experience, like visual experience, is exteroceptive: it seems to one that odours, when one smells them, are external to the body, as it seems to one that objects are external to the body when one sees them. Where the sense of smell has been discussed by philosophers, it has often been supposed to be non-exteroceptive. The strangeness of this philosophical orthodoxy makes it natural to ask what would lead to its widespread acceptance. I (...) argue that philosophers have been misled by a visuocentric model of what exteroceptivity involves. Since olfaction lacks the spatial features that make vision exteroceptive the conclusion that olfaction is nonexteroceptive can appear quite compelling, particularly in the absence of an alternative model of exteroceptivity appropriate to olfaction. I offer a model according to which odours seem to be external to the body because they seem to be brought into the nose from without by sniffing and breathing through the nostrils. I argue that some natural-seeming objections to this model rely on substantive assumptions about how the senses are distinguished from one another, and how perceptual experience is put together out of its modality-specific parts, that require defence. (shrink)

This book is a translation into English of La religion grecque by Louise Bruit Zaidman and Pauline Schmitt Pantel, described by Dr Simon Price as 'an excellent book, by far the best introduction to the subject in any language'. It is the purpose of the book to consider how religious beliefs and cultic rituals were given expression in the world of the Greek citizen - the functions performed by the religious personnel, and the place that religion occupied in individual, (...) social and political life. The chapters cover first ritual and then myth, rooting the account in the practices of the classical city while also taking seriously the world of the imagination. For this edition the bibliography has been substantially revised to meet the needs of a mainly student, English-speaking readership. The book is enriched throughout by illustrations, and by quotations from original sources. (shrink)

Among semanticists and philosophers of language, there has been a recent outburst of interest in predicates such as delicious, called predicates of personal taste (PPTs, e.g. Lasersohn 2005). Somewhat surprisingly, the question of whether or how we can distinguish aesthetic predicates from PPTs has hardly been addressed at all in this recent work. It is precisely this question that we address. We investigate linguistic criteria that we argue can be used to delineate the class of specifically aesthetic adjectives. We show (...) that there are, in fact, good motivations for keeping PPTs and aesthetic predicates apart: the semantic structure of the former, but not the latter, entails an experiencer. There are many adjectives whose semantic structure arguably also entails an experiencer, yet which are readily used in expressing aesthetic judgments. Adjectives such as provocative or moving are a case in point, since as adjectives they arguably maintain the experiencer argument from the verb they are derived from. Nevertheless, when we describe, say, a sculpture as provocative, or a theater performance as moving, we clearly make aesthetic judgments. The difficult question, then, is to articulate the relationship between an aesthetic predicate (of which beautiful and ugly are paradigms) and other predicates that just happen to be used in making an aesthetic judgment. Tightly related to this point is the more general question of the relationship between an evaluative predicate and a predicate that occurs in an evaluative judgment. One of our aims is to make some progress in addressing these questions. (shrink)

The common consent argument claims that widespread belief in God is good evidence for God’s existence. Though taken seriously throughout the history of philosophy, the argument died in the 1800s. Our philosophy of religion textbooks ignore it. In this paper, we hope to resuscitate it drawing upon the demographics of religious belief, the cognitive science of religion, and contemporary epistemology. We develop and defend two common consent arguments, which maintain that widespread belief in a High God is good evidence for (...) theism over metaphysical naturalism. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend a pluralistic view of phenomenological method which will provide evidence for particular accounts of experience without relying exclusively on the reflective method or on intuition as a criterion for truth. To this end, I discuss the prospects for indirect phenomenology. I argue that phenomenology ought to be defined by its object of investigation, first-person experience, and not by any particular method of gaining access to this object of investigation. On this view, an integration of naturalized (...) phenomenology into the cognitive sciences is far more feasible than we might have expected. (shrink)

As a gynecologic surgeon with a focus on infertility, I frequently hold complex discussions with patients, exploring with them the risks and benefits of surgical options. In the past, we physicians may have expected our patients to simply defer to our expertise and choose from the options we presented. In our contemporary era, however, patients frequently request options not favored by their physicians and even some they've found themselves online. In reproductive endocrinology and infertility, the range of options that may (...) be offered or that patients may themselves seek out is continuously widening. Physicians certainly seek to find the option that will result in the best outcome for their patients, but the information to guide us in achieving the best outcome can be vague or conflicting. Add to this the financial and emotional pressures bearing on patients seeking assisted reproduction. In this essay, I explore the extent to which clinicians in reproductive medicine should follow patient requests with which they disagree or instead try to persuade the patient to do something else or simply refuse outright to meet the request. And if persuasion is to be used, what would be legitimate methods? Clearly, coercion is unacceptable, but the line between persuasion and coercion can be elusive. At what point can or should clinicians resist such requests—and to what degree? (shrink)

Abstract: In this paper I offer an account of a particular variety of perception of absence, namely, visual perception of empty space. In so doing, I aim to make explicit the role that seeing empty space has, implicitly, in Mike Martin's account of the visual field. I suggest we should make sense of the claim that vision has a field—in Martin's sense—in terms of our being aware of its limitations or boundaries. I argue that the limits of the visual field (...) are our own sensory limitations, and that we are aware of them as such. Seeing empty space, I argue, involves a structural feature of experience that constitutes our awareness of our visual sensory limitations, and thus, in virtue of which vision has a field. (shrink)

BackgroundDealing with end of life is challenging for patients and health professionals alike. The situation becomes even more challenging when a patient requests a legally permitted medical service that a health professional is unable to provide due to a conflict of conscience. Such a scenario arises when Victorian health professionals, with a conscientious objection (CO) to voluntary assisted dying (VAD), are presented with patients who request VAD or merely ask about VAD. The Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2017 (Vic) recognizes the (...) inherent conflict of conscience that may arise for some health professionals when asked to provide VAD and responds by affording broad protection to conscientious objectors who wish to refuse to take part in the VAD process.MethodsSeventeen semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with Victorian health professionals with a self-identified CO to VAD in the lead-up to the implementation of VAD in Victoria. Interviews explored how participants anticipated they would manage their CO in practice. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed thematically.ResultsOur results reveal that the way in which health professionals claimed they would approach CO conversations is variable and was dependant on the strength of their opposition to VAD. We categorized conscientious objectors according to their approach as either dissuasive non-referrers, passive non-referrers, facilitators or negotiators. Our study also explores the perceived difficulties of exercising one’s CO as identified by our participants.ConclusionThe broad protection offered by the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2017 (Vic) encourages a range of behaviors from conscientious objectors, due to the minimal obligations imposed. In order to assist conscientious objectors, more policy, institutional guidance, and education needs to be available to conscientious objectors explicitly addressing how to effectively manage one’s CO. Such guidance is imperative to ensuring that their moral integrity is preserved and that they are exercising their CO appropriately. (shrink)