Reply to Kurth,Crosby, and Basse’s review of Emotions,Values, and Agency

In this reply, I argue that the worries raised by Kurth and this coauthors are not fatal for the perceptual theory of emotions. A first point to keep in mind in discussing the analogy argument in favor of that account is that what counts is the overall balance of similarities and differences, given their respective weight. In any case, I argue that none of the alleged differences between sensory perceptual experiences and emotions are such as to rule out that emotions are a kind of perceptual experience which can confer epistemic justification of our evaluative beliefs. Finally, I suggest that the perceptual theory is in a position to nicely capture what happens when we disagree about evaluative issues.     

A Humanist Synthesis of Memory, Language, and Emotions: Qian Mu’s Interpretation of Confucian Philosophy

While Qian Mu intentionally avoided systematic philosophical arguments, his references to memory, language, and emotions, as expressed in a book he wrote in 1948, were suggestive of new interpretations of traditional Chinese, and especially Confucian, ideas such as human autonomy, mind, human nature, morality, immortality, and spirituality. The foremost contribution of Qian’s humanist synthesis rests in its articulation of the idea of the person. Across the context of memory, language, and emotions, the tiyong dynamics of mind and human nature recreate, in modern terms, the traditional Chinese concept of the person who is individually unique and simultaneously interrelated. Avoiding the extreme polarities of individualism and collectivism, he stresses rather their coexistence. His synthesis explains to the Chinese people something about who they are, the meaning in life in the framework of their culture, and how their (revitalized) way of life is at its best in the most important area, that of human relations.     

A response to Martina and Wimmer’s review of The Given

In this paper I respond to Martina and Wimmer’s review of The Given, focusing on their criticisms of the awareness of awareness thesis.     

Assembling Agency: Expression,Action, and Ethics in Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus

In response to several problems identified in the primary and secondary literature, this article advances an “expressive” conception of action and agency that (i) is consistent with the metaphysics of Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus, (ii) can underpin the ethical dimensions of this text, and (iii) meets some of the general requirements of a philosophy of action. This conception will be distinguished from standard theories in the philosophy of action, to the extent that these latter conceptualize and explain action with reference to intentions taken as psychological causes that are specifiable in advance and independently of the resultant activity. But it will also be distinguished from commentaries that, after rightly identifying the standard conception of intentional action as incompatible with Deleuze and Guattari’s metaphysics, fail to substitute a viable conception of action and agency in its stead. In short, drawing on a notion of expression, this article will advance a conception of intentions that does not treat them as prior and independently specifiable causes of action, but rather as “immanent” causes whose intelligible content is inseparable from—that is, dynamically assembled and specified within—the ecologically and socially situated, temporally extended and reality-transforming actions they animate.     

‘A philosophy of change’: Emotions,civil society and global development

Dominant paradigms of global development have historically been devoid of emotions, connected with racialized and gendered ideas of rationality and civility. Within contemporary scholarship there is however increasing recognition of the importance of emotions for understanding development processes. This paper adds to this body of work by exploring the ways that emotions shape how people who are trying to ‘do’ development actually do it. Drawing on empirical material from conversations with civil society activists based on the Caribbean islands of Grenada and Barbados, this article explores some of the emotions that are present within civil society organizing and makes the case that in this context emotions are not just felt, they are generative of civil society organizing and wider development processes. Focusing on shame, the article demonstrates how emotions are produced relationally within civil society organizing, how emotions are generative and can co-construct spaces for civil society and how civic organizing can act as counter-expressions to these feelings. Emotions are then constitutive of global development, yet often neglected in dominant discourses of civil society within the development sphere, with professional subjectivities dominant.     

What is it to be aware of your awareness of red? A review essay of Michelle Montague’s The Given

In this review essay of Michelle Montague’s The Given we focus on the central thesis in the book: the awareness of awareness thesis. On that thesis, a state of awareness constitutively involves an awareness of itself. In Section 2, we discuss what the awareness of awareness thesis amounts to, how it contrasts with the transparency of experience, and how it might be motivated. In Section 3, we discuss one of Montague’s two theoretical arguments for the awareness of awareness thesis. A view that accepts the awareness of awareness thesis, Montague argues, is to be preferred over competing views because it outperforms them in accounting for the property attributions one makes in perceptual experience. We suggest that it is not clear that this argument for the awareness of awareness thesis is successful. Finally, in Section 4 we consider the relation between Montague’s view of color experience and what she calls Strawson’s datum, arguing that Montague may not be able to explain this datum as straightforwardly as she supposes. This, we suggest, threatens Montague’s second theoretical argument for the awareness of awareness thesis.     

The Role of Basic, Self-Conscious and Self-Conscious Evaluative Emotions in Children’s Memory and Understanding of Emotion

In past research, emotion has been classified as basic, self-conscious or self-conscious evaluative, with each type of emotion being progressively more difficult for children to understand (Lewis, M. (2000a). In M. Lewis & J. M. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (2nd ed., pp. 265–280), New York, NY: The Guilford Press). Although researchers have examined children’s understanding of individual emotions (e.g., guilt), researchers have not assessed children’s understanding and memory for emotions based on this classification. In the present research, 6-, 8- and 10-year-old children’s memory and understanding of basic, self-conscious and self-conscious evaluative emotions were examined. Although a memory advantage was found for emotions, this effect was less so for the younger children and less so for non-basic emotions. In fact, 6-year-old children and, to a lesser extent 8-year-old children, were more likely than older children to recall self-conscious and self-conscious evaluative emotions with basic emotion labels, and were more likely to explain them using basic emotion labels. Overall, negative emotions (e.g., mad, guilt) were better recalled than positive emotions (e.g., happy, pride), regardless of type of emotion. Gender differences were found as girls were more likely to remember emotion than boys, especially when the emotion action was specifically labeled and a female character experienced it. Proportions of this research were presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development (2005), Atlanta, Georgia and the meeting of the Cognitive Development Society (2005), San Diego, CA.     

Exploring Pathways Related to Men’s Violence: A Qualitative Exploration of the Relationship between Violent Men’s Violence and Their Masculinities,Childhood, and Emotions

ABSTRACT

This study explored new ways of finding knowledge about violent men’s pathways toward their status as violent criminals and the mechanisms that underlie their violent behavior. The empirical data were gathered through biographical interviews with 10 men sentenced to therapy against violence and drugs at a Swedish treatment center. The men who had experienced violence and childhood maltreatment tended to bypass shame with uncontrolled anger and violence when reliving childhood traumas. Conversely, men without extreme childhood experiences seemed to exhibit more controlled violence mechanisms. Two men who had experienced brutal physical school bullying might have been expected to bypass shame with immediate violence; however, these men described their violence as controlled, suggesting that they had learnt to take cognitive control over their bypass mechanisms in order to escape the bullying.     

A review of: “Agency,Health and Social Survival: The Ecopolitics of Rival Psychologies”

Caroline New (1996) Agency, Health and Social Survival: the Ecopolitics of Rival Psychologies, London: Taylor & Francis, 190 pp., $12.95     

Mourning,Regeneration, and the Psychic Future: A Discussion of Levine’s “A Mutual Survival of Destructiveness and Its Creative Potential for Agency and Desire”

Lauren Levine’s paper illustrates how she straddled the lines between helping her patient to grieve his substantial loss and exploring new psychic possibilities. As she discusses the transformation of traumatic loss into developing capacities for mourning and regeneration, she also examines the analyst’s limits that are directly and indirectly expressed to the patient. This discussion examines the intrinsic relationship in analytic work between grieving, the depressive position, and psychic change.     

Back to the future: A review essay of paul hawken, amory lovins and L. Hunter Lovins’ Natural capitalism and Bjørn Lomberg’s The skeptical environmentalist

Conclusion Despite all the hyperbole, Natural Capitalism is not a great book and even less of a radical concept. Indeed, the "natural" is wholly unnecessary, for most of its "radical insights" amounts to nothing more than a rediscovery of the fundamental tenets of a market economy. Good capitalist entrepreneurs have always been able to figure out that pollution and waste are both inefficient and expensive. They never needed government officials or business consultants to tell them that you can do well financially and environmentally at the same time. In spite of all this, if Natural Capitalism succeeds in convincing a large segment of the population that economic growth needn’t coincide with environmental degradation, it will have played a useful role—perhaps one that long-time advocates of market economies simply cannot play. One nonetheless hopes that Hawken and the Lovins will one day take a good look at what their ancestors achieved and give some credit to writers who made all of their good points—and most of their bad ones—long before they were born. He received his Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Montreal and recently completed a two year post-doctoral fellowship at the Johns Hopkins University. His main research interests are environmental and economic development issues and intellectual property. Much of the research leading to this article was completed while the author was a research fellow at the Political Economy Research Center (Bozeman, Montana) in the Summer of 2000.     

Book review of Rafael Winkler’s Philosophy of Finitude: Heidegger,Levinas, and Nietzsche

Continental Philosophy Review -     

Allan Paivio’s response to Delprato’s review of Mind and its evolution: A dual-coding theoretical approach

The Psychological Record -     

A business frame perspective on why perceptions of top management's bottom-line mentality result in employees’ good and bad behaviors

Emerging research suggests that bottom-line mentalities (BLMs) (i.e., a sole focus on bottom-line outcomes to the exclusion of other considerations) can have dysfunctional consequences within the workplace. However, research has yet to consider how and why BLMs may result in both beneficial and dysfunctional organizational outcomes. In the present research, we examine employees’ perceptions of top management's BLM as a type of business frame that results in two cognitive states. Under the influence of this business frame, employees may adopt a mental preoccupation with work (i.e., a state of ongoing work-related cognitions) that propels beneficial employee outcomes by reducing customer incivility and enhancing customer service performance. Yet, also in response to top management's high BLM as a business frame, employees may adopt self-interest cognitions (i.e., a cognitive state of self-interest) that instigate customer-directed unethical conduct. Across two field studies, we found general support for our hypotheses. Taken together, our findings suggest that perceptions of top management's high BLM can be a mixed blessing in that it may drive employees to adopt focused work efforts (mental preoccupation with work), but also self-interest cognitions, with each cognitive state predicting beneficial or dysfunctional behaviors. We discuss the implications of these findings and directions for future research.     

A Mother’s Death,a Daughter’s Birth: A 12-Year Journey of Healing and Self Discovery

This article describes a personal journey to understand the psychological meaning in an archetypal near-death experience at the time of my birth and describes its effect on the mother–child relationship before and after my mother's death. Part of that process involved researching the subject of birth trauma and its effect on personality and ultimately on one's fate. It also outlines treatment implications for patients with birth trauma, from a Jungian perspective, based on my own experience of coming to terms with my own birth trauma and the death of my mother.