Philosophers are often interested in explaining significant contrasts between ordinary descriptive discourses, on the one hand, and discourses – such as ethics, mathematics, or mentalistic discourse – that are thought to be more problematic in various ways. But certain strategies for ‘saving the differences’ can make it too difficult to preserve notable similarities across discourses. My own preference is for strategies that ‘save the differences’ without sacrificing logico-semantic continuities or committing to deflationism about truth, but also without embracing either truth-pluralism (...) or global expressivism.I motivate my preference by examining, as a test case, mentalistic discourse. I begin by reconstructing three philosophical puzzles that have led philosophers to think of mentalistic discourse as problematic. These puzzles concern the semantic, epistemological, and metaphysical status of contrasts between first-person present-tense attributions – ‘avowals’ – and all other ordinary contingent attributions. I then briefly present my own, neo-expressivist strategy for addressing the puzzles. Unlike traditional ‘simple expressivism’, neo-expressivism is not committed to avowals’ being non-truth-apt or having non-propositional meanings. And yet it does not require embracing either deflationism about truth or global expressivism. It preserves continuities between mentalistic and other discourses while allowing us to capture discontinuities. Moreover, it is possible to apply the neo-expressivist framework in other areas where the notion of expression is deemed explanatorily useful, as illustrated by considering ethical neo-expressivism. In the final section, I make more general comments on truth and meaning and tease out some of the commitments of the approach I advocate. (shrink)

In this paper, I address a key argument in favour of logical expressivism, the view that knowing a logical principle such as Modus Ponens is not a cognitive state but a pro-attitude towards drawing certain types of conclusions from certain types of premises. The argument is that logical expressivism is the only view that can take us out of Lewis Carroll's Regress – which suggests that elementary deductive reasoning is impossible. I show that the argument does not hold scrutiny and (...) that logical cognitivism can be vindicated. In the course of the discussion, I draw substantially on a comparison with a similar argument in meta-ethics, for moral expressivism. (shrink)

This paper compares and contrasts two recent approaches to the theory of normative concepts with each other and with more traditional theories in metaethics, in order to highlight several different projects one could be engaged in when developing a theory of normative concepts. The two accounts derive from Millgram, The Great Endarkenment and Chrisman The Meaning of ‘Ought’. These accounts share in rejecting traditional attempts to explain what ‘ought’ is about or expresses. Instead these accounts treat ‘ought’ as a quantificational (...) word. However, the nature and range of the quantification are importantly different in the two accounts, which impacts on the ways in which the accounts integrate with the various projects one could be engaged in when developing a theory of normative concepts. (shrink)

To be a proposition is to possess propositional properties and to stand in inferential relations. This is the organic intuition, [OI], concerning propositional recognition. [OI] is not a circular characterization as long as those properties and relations that signal the presence of propositions are independently identified. My take on propositions does not depart from the standard approach widely accepted among philosophers of language. Propositions are truth-bearers, the arguments of truth-functions, the arguments of propositional-attitude verbs and the kind of entity capable (...) of standing in inferential relations. The aim of this paper is to argue for [OI]. In doing so, I will show that even what is probably the most repeated argument against non-descriptivism, the so-called Frege-Geach Argument, presupposes something like [OI], a presupposition that Geach shares with his critics. Despite the huge success of FGA, a thorough analysis of the actual scope of this argument has yet to be given. I will provide such an analysis in section 3 below. In this paper, I argue that [OI] is a meta-theoretical principle which is neutral with respect to specific metaphysical debates about the nature of propositions, as well as specific proposals about the semantics of declarative sentences. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to explore the connection between expressivism and disagreement. More in particular, the aim is to defend that one of the desiderata that can be derived from the study of disagreement, the explanation of ‘crossed disagreements’, can only be accommodated within a semantic theory that respects, at the meta-semantic level, certain expressivistic restrictions. We will compare contemporary dynamic expressivism with three different varieties of contextualist strategies to accommodate the specificities of evaluative language –indexical contextualism – (...) truth-conditional pragmatics –, pragmatic strategies using implicatures, and presuppositional accounts. Our conclusion will be that certain assumptions of expressivism are necessary in order to provide a semantic account of evaluative uses of language that can allow us to detect and prevent crossed disagreements. (shrink)

In this piece I characterise global expressivism, as I understand it, by contrasting it with five other views: the so-called Canberra Plan; Moorean non-naturalism and platonism; ‘relaxed realism’ and quietism; local expressivism; and response-dependent realism. Some other familiar positions, including fictionalism, error theories, and idealism, are also mentioned, but as sub-cases to one of these five.

This paper argues that there is a class of terms, orusesof terms, that are best accounted for by an expressivist account. We put forward two sets of criteria to distinguish between expressive and factual terms. The first set relies on the action-guiding nature of expressive language. The second set relies on the difference between one's evidence for making an expressive vs. factual statement. We then put those criteria to work to show, first, that the basic evaluative adjectives such as ‘good’ (...) have expressive as well as factual uses and, second, that many adjectives whose primary meanings are factual, such as ‘powerful’, also have expressive uses. (shrink)

I argue that our procedures for determining whether ascriptions of a predicate represent things as being a certain way are ultimately pragmatic. Pragmatic procedures are not subject to validation by the referential procedure – determining whether there is a property playing the role of its referent. Predicates can represent even if we can't provide an independent identification of its referent. For these predicates, the speakers’ knowledge of how they represent objects as being would have to be construed in terms of (...) the ascription practices they associate with the predicates. The same approach can be applied to semantic predicates, such as ‘is representational’ or ‘refers to’. They can be treated as representational even if we can't provide an independent identification of their referents. The availability of this position undermines accounts of the referents of semantic predicates in naturalistic terms. (shrink)

Much contemporary philosophy of religion suffers from an overly abstract and intellectualized methodology. A more ‘humane’ approach would acknowledge the vital contribution of the emotions and passions to a proper cognitive grasp of the nature of the cosmos and our place within it. The point is illustrated by reference to a number of writers, including Descartes, whose path to knowledge of God, often thought to depend on dispassionate argument alone, in fact relies on a synergy between intellect and emotions.

Most early modern philosophers held that our emotions are always passions: to experience an emotion is to undergo something rather than to do something. Spinoza is different; he holds that our emotions – what he calls our ‘affects’ – can be actions rather than passions. Moreover, we can convert a passive affect into an active one simply by forming a clear and distinct idea of it. This theory is difficult to understand. I defend the interpretation R.G. Collingwood gives of it (...) in his book, The Principles of Art. An affect, it turns out, is passive when it is ambiguous whether we or somebody else is the subject of the affect. An affect is active when we fully accept the affect as our own. Here, I outline Collingwood's interpretation and then develop it further. (shrink)

The rhetorical power of emotions came to philosophers’ attention early on in the Western tradition: emotions can exert a powerful effect on what an audience comes to believe or decides to do. It is has been surprisingly neglected since, despite abundant philosophical literature on the emotions. This paper focuses on the mechanisms and propriety of emotional persuasion. Our central focus is an apparent tension between two claims. Persuasion should succeed by getting people convinced on grounds that contribute to justifying their (...) inclination to favour what the speaker proposes; and It is not required that persuasion's methods be dispassionate. They seem in tension, and yet dropping either seems unattractive. In particular, dropping ‘ANTI-AUSTERITY’ could commit us to a position that tends to elevate further in public deliberation the contributions of already privileged voices, and to marginalise the less privileged. This paper highlights what we would need to believe, in order to hold these two claims together. In order for emotions to contribute to justification, I argue, they must be capable themselves of being epistemically justified, and of transmitting that epistemic justification to the beliefs to which they help give rise. This in turn requires that emotions have representational contents, involve the subject's accepting those contents as true, be candidates for epistemic justification, and be such that their contents can properly feature as premises in inferences that justify the subject in believing their conclusions. Such are the striking philosophical implications of some everyday observations about the persuasive use of emotions. (shrink)

How are we to view the nature of desire and its relation to value, humanity, and God? Sartre, Nietzsche, and Levinas have interesting things to say in this context, and they can be understood to be responding in their different ways to two seemingly opposed ways of conceiving of desire, namely, as lack or deficiency or as plenitude or creativity. I clarify, link, and distinguish the relevant conceptions of desire, and give a sense of what it could mean to comprehend (...) desire in either or both of these ways. I question Sartre's insistence that man is a ‘useless passion’, trace it back to his commitment to a ‘lack’ model of desire, and argue that this model, as he understands it, stands in the way of the more creative conception which is lurking in the background of his account. There will be a question of whether the atheist is entitled to this creative conception, and I shall challenge his assumption that it becomes available only when theism is overthrown. I shall suggest also that there is something important to be salvaged from the lack model. (shrink)

This paper is stimulated by and indebted to a study by Charles Altieri of the ways in which affect is present and articulated in art and literature, which, he argues, hold significance for the philosophy of emotion. I focus on Altieri's thesis that affective states may have aesthetic qualities and value. I pursue this notion first with reference to Nietzsche's attempt to recruit affect as a means of countering Schopenhauer's pessimism. I then attempt to show the coherence of the notion (...) that passion may exhibit an aesthetic dimension, drawing on Richard Wollheim's account of certain ideas in psychoanalytic theory, for which I suggest precedents in the history of philosophy. (shrink)

The content of emotion sometimes seems to be conflated with its object, but we can distinguish between content and object on the model of Fregean sense versus reference. Fear, for instance, refers to something the subject of fear is afraid of and represents that object of fear as dangerous, so that the emotion can be said to have evaluative content. Here I attempt to clarify and defend my view of emotional discomfort or other affect as what does the evaluating. Some (...) current accounts of the unpleasantness of physical pain take a similar view, but in application to emotion they call for an explanation of how emotional affect can simultaneously evaluate both the affective symptoms of emotion and the emotion's object. I suggest an explanation and indicate how it supports the link between emotional valence and motivational force. (shrink)

Within contemporary analytical philosophy there continues to be a lively debate about the emotions we feel for fictional characters. How, for example, can we feel sad about Anna Karenina, despite knowing that she doesn't exist? I propose that we can get a clearer view of this issue by turning to Spinoza, who urges us to take a different approach to feelings of this kind. The ability to keep our emotions in line with our beliefs, he argues, is a complex skill. (...) Rather than asking why we depart from it in the case of fictions, we need to begin by considering how we get it in the first place. Spinoza also considers the value of this skill. In his account, fictions function rather like Donald Winnicott's transitional objects. They enable us to negotiate the boundary between the real and the imaginary in a way that contributes to our philosophical understanding. These Spinozist proposals, I contend, suggest that the questions dominating current debate need to be reformulated. (shrink)

Is there a best way to live? If so, is this a form of ethical life? The answer, I believe, turns on what we can say about the nature and place of the passions – emotions and desires – in our lives, including in particular, our ability to be truthful about our passions and our relations with other people. I approach the question through the work of Bernard Williams. I consider first what it might be for a way of life (...) to be ‘objectively’ best, before looking more closely at the psychological conditions of such a life, using ideas from psychoanalysis on the way we hide our true passions from ourselves and the effect this can have on our understanding of both ourselves and others. I end by considering whether we can say that a truthful life is the best life, and whether it places universal and material constraints on how best to live. (shrink)

According to what is now the standard account in the history of psychology, in the 1880s William James and the Danish physician Carl Georg Lange independently developed a strikingly new theory, commonly referred to as the ‘James–Lange’ theory of emotion. In this paper it is argued that this standard account is highly misleading. Lange's views on affect in his Om Sindsbevægelser were more cautious than James allowed, and not open to criticisms that have often been levelled against the theory of (...) emotion that James claimed he shared with Lange. In fact, Lange argued for distinctions that James did not mention in his discussion of Lange's work. Even with regard to the primary emotions, the two thinkers’ explanatory models diverged significantly. The contrast between James and Lange on affect is especially striking in their respective discussions of topics in aesthetics, as is established with reference to Lange's little-known Bidrag til Nydelsernes fysiologi som grundlag for en rationel æstetik. (shrink)

A survey of theories on the passions and action in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Britain and western Europe reveals that few, if any, of the major writers held the view that reason in any of its functions executes action without a passion. Even rationalists, like Cambridge Platonist Ralph Cudworth and English clergyman Samuel Clarke, recognized the necessity of passion to action. On the other hand, many of these intellectuals also agreed with French philosophers Jean-François Senault, René Descartes, and Nicolas Malebranche that, (...) for passions to be useful or to become virtues, they must be governed by reason. Without the moderation of reason, passions will be unruly, distort our notions of good, and disrupt our rational volitions. In response to these popular early modern perspectives, Enlightenment thinker David Hume offered a now-famous argument that reason without passion cannot motivate, drawing the further conclusion that reason cannot govern the passions, either. Given that no one in Hume’s era seemed to defend the claim that reason alone can motivate action, what was Hume’s intention? (shrink)

This paper sketches an account of what distinguishes emotional intentionality from other forms of intentionality. I focus on the ‘two-sided’ structure of emotional experience. Emotions such as being afraid of something and being angry about something involve intentional states with specific contents. However, experiencing an entity, event, or situation in a distinctively emotional way also includes a wider-ranging disturbance of the experiential world within which the object of emotion is encountered. I consider the nature of this disturbance and its relationship (...) to the localized content of an emotional experience. (shrink)

In this article, we discuss the importance of emotions for ethical reflection on technological developments, as well as the role that art can play in this. We review literature that argues that emotions can and should play an important role in the assessment and acceptance of technological risk and in designing morally responsible technologies. We then investigate how technologically engaged art can contribute to critical, emotional-moral reflection on technological risks. The role of art that engages with technology is unexplored territory (...) and gives rise to many fascinating philosophical questions that have not yet been sufficiently addressed in the literature. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore the role for anticipated regret in major life decision-making, focusing on how it is employed by realistic decision-makers in a variety of realistic cases. I argue that the most obvious answers to how regret might matter in decision do not make these cases intelligible, but that we can make them intelligible through consideration of the significance of narrative in our own self-understanding.

In Simon Wiesenthal's book The Sunflower: On the Possibility and Limits of Forgiveness, Wiesenthal tells the story of a dying German soldier who was guilty of horrendous evil against Jewish men, women, and children, but who desperately wanted forgiveness from and reconciliation with at least one Jew before his death. Wiesenthal, then a prisoner in a camp, was brought to hear the German soldier's story and his pleas for forgiveness. As Wiesenthal understands his own reaction to the German soldier, he (...) did not grant the dying soldier the forgiveness the man longed for. In The Sunflower, Wiesenthal presents reflections on this story by numerous thinkers. Their responses are noteworthy for the highly divergent intuitions they express. In this paper, I consider the conflicting views about forgiveness on the part of the respondents in The Sunflower.I argue that those respondents who are convinced that forgiveness should be denied the dying German soldier are mistaken. Nonetheless, I also argue in support of the attitude that rejects reconciliation with the dying German soldier. I try to show that, in some cases of grave evil, repentance and making amends are not sufficient for the removal of guilt, and that reconciliation may be morally impermissible, whatever the case as regards forgiveness. (shrink)