Response to Selinger on Dreyfus

My claim is clear and unambiguous: no machine will pass a well-designed Turing Test unless we find some means of embedding it in lived social life. We have no idea how to do this but my argument, and all our evidence, suggests that it will not be a necessary condition that the machine have more than a minimal body. Exactly how minimal is still being worked out.

Response to Commentators on Existential Flourishing

ABSTRACT

In this piece I respond to questions and criticisms raised by commentators on my recent book, Existential Flourishing: A Phenomenology of the Virtues (Cambridge University Press, 2019). I argue for an irreducible normative plurality governing our struggle to lead good human lives, and address questions about how to decide what to do in the face of such plurality.     

Response to Gert on Practical Reason

This is a response to Joshua Gert’s criticisms of my book Reasons from Within and defense of his own contrasting position.     

Response to Commentaries

In replying to the commentaries, I continue to explore differences between a complexity model of the mind and an intrapsychic one, and elaborate aspects of the complex negotiation process that occurred between my patient, Kerri, and me. Taking up Chefetz's notion that a “change in self-state predicts observed fluctuations in the capacity to mentalize,” I consider ways that self-states in both the patient and analyst fluctuate, influence, and reorganize the unfolding process, including the systemic capacity to mentalize.     

Response to Critics

In this “Response to Critics,” Cathleen Kaveny continues the conversation in the JRE symposium centered on her recent book, Prophecy without Contempt: Religious Discourse in the Public Square. The book's central argument is that adequate discussion of contention in the contemporary public square requires attending to matters of rhetoric, particularly the rhetoric of prophetic indictment. Kaveny engages the comments of four interlocutors: Alda Balthrop‐Lewis, James Childress, William Hart, and Martin Kavka. The first section, “Overarching Goals,” summarizes the objectives of the book. The second section, “Methodology,” engages critics regarding methodological issues, highlighting Kaveny's commitment to a version of MacIntyre's tradition theory and her indebtedness to her legal training. The third section, “Structure,” responds to particular questions her interlocutors raise about the four parts of the book. The fourth section, “Larger Questions,” ponders the next stages of the academic and political discussion about contention in the public square.