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4A literary postscript: Characters, persons, selves, individualsIn The Identities of Persons, University of California Press. pp. 301--323. 1976.
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43Moral Complexity, Conflicted Resonance and VirtuePhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 55 (4). 1995.In his admirably sensible book, Scheffler shows that it is possible—but difficult—to combine a morally upright life with one that is rich and satisfying. He identifies the psychological traits that can be enlisted as allies in our attempts to act justly, arguing that the range of moral projects—and our success in fulfilling them—varies with our political conditions. Among the harms perpetrated by an unjust state is that of forming the psychology of its citizens in such a way that the tasks of mo…Read more
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1121. The Deceptive Self: Liars, Layers, and LairsIn Brian P. McLaughlin & Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (eds.), Perspectives on Self-Deception, University of California Press. pp. 11-28. 1988.
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8From Decency to Civility by Way of Economics: "First Let's Eat and Then Talk of Right and Wrong"Social Research: An International Quarterly 64. 1997.
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7Spinoza on the pathos of idolatrous love and the hilarity of true loveIn Moira Gatens (ed.), Feminist Interpretations of Benedict Spinoza, Pennsylvania State University Press. 2009.
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116The Two Faces of CouragePhilosophy 61 (236): 151-171. 1986.Courage is dangerous. If it is defined in traditional ways, as a set of dispositions to overcome fear, to oppose obstacles, to perform difficult or dangerous actions, its claim to be a virtue is questionable. Unlike the virtue of justice, or a sense of proportion, traditional courage does not itself determine what is to be done, let alone assure that it is worth doing. If we retain the traditional conception of courage and its military connotations–overcoming and combat–we should be suspicious o…Read more
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36Experiments in Philosophic Genre: Descartes' "Meditations"Critical Inquiry 9 (3): 545-564. 1983.It would be pretty to think that Descartes’ Meditations is itself a structured transformation of the meditational mode, starting with the dominance of an intellectual, ascensional mode, moving through the penitential form, and ending with the analytic-architectonic mode. Unfortunately the text does not sustain such an easy resolution to our problems. Instead, we see that different modes seem dominant at different stages; their subterranean connections and relations remain unclear.We could try to…Read more
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11Runes and ruins: Teaching reading culturesJournal of Philosophy of Education 29 (2). 1995.Amélie Oksenberg Rorty; Runes and Ruins: teaching reading cultures, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 29, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 217–222, https://
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75User-Friendly Self-DeceptionPhilosophy 69 (268). 1994.Since many varieties of self-deception are ineradicable and useful, it would be wise to be ambivalent about at least some of its forms.1 It is open-eyed ambivalence that acknowledges its own dualities rather than ordinary shifty vacillation that we need. To be sure, self-deception remains dangerous: sensible ambivalence should not relax vigilance against pretence and falsity, combating irrationality and obfuscation wherever they occur
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131Belief and self-deceptionInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 15 (1-4): 387-410. 1972.In Part I, I consider the normal contexts of assertions of belief and declarations of intentions, arguing that many action-guiding beliefs are accepted uncritically and even pre-consciously. I analyze the function of avowals as expressions of attempts at self-transformation. It is because assertions of beliefs are used to perform a wide range of speech acts besides that of speaking the truth, and because there is a large area of indeterminacy in such assertions, that self-deception is possible. …Read more
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Political, not psychologicalIn Alan Montefiore & David Vines (eds.), Integrity in the Public and Private Domains, Routledge. 1999.
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Not every Homunculus spoils the ArgumentIn Marjorie G. Grene (ed.), Interpretations of Life and Mind: Essays Around the Problem of Reduction, Humanities Press. pp. 75. 1971.
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The Improvisatory Dramas of DeliberationIn Cheshire Calhoun (ed.), Setting the Moral Compass: Essays by Women Philosophers, Oxford University Press. 2004.
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53Adaptivity and self-knowledgeInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 18 (1): 1-22. 1975.In this paper the view is presented that self?knowledge has no special status; its varieties constitute distinctive classes, differing from one another more sharply than each does from analogous knowledge of others. Most cases of self?knowledge are best understood contextually, subsumed under such other activities as decision?making and socializing. First person, present tense ?reports? of sensations, intentions, and thoughts are primarily adaptively expressive, only secondarily truth?functional…Read more
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Hume: La Reconciliation Philosophique de la Raison et des PassionsSociété Française de Philosophie, Bulletin 85 (4): 121-151. 1991.
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255Essays on Aristotle's De anima (edited book)Oxford University Press. 1995 [1992].Bringing together a group of outstanding new essays on Aristotle's De Anima, this book covers topics such as the relation between soul and body, sense-perception, imagination, memory, desire, and thought, which present the philosophical substance of Aristotle's views to the modern reader. The contributors write with philosophical subtlety and wide-ranging scholarship, locating their interpretations firmly within the context of Aristotle's thought as a whole.u.
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41Essential Possibilities in the Actual WorldReview of Metaphysics 25 (4). 1972.While this treatment of modalities captures some of the characteristics of our use of "necessary" and "possible," there are important features that are not captured unless we complicate the analysis, and expand the notation. My remarks are not made as a criticism of the possible worlds gambit, but rather as a challenge to formulate a finer network of distinctions to capture notions that now elude us. And there is precedent for this: Plantinga's attempt to distinguish modalities de dicto and de r…Read more
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47Self-deception, akrasia and irrationalityIn Jon Elster (ed.), The Multiple self, Cambridge University Press. 1985.
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147From Passions to Emotions and SentimentsPhilosophy 57 (220). 1982.During the period from Descartes to Rousseau, the mind changed. Its domain was redefined; its activities were redescribed; and its various powers were redistributed. Once a part of cosmic Nous, its various functions delimited by its embodied condition, the individual mind now becomes a field of forces with desires impinging on one another, their forces resolved according to their strengths and directions. Of course since there is no such thing as The Mind Itself, it was not the mind that changed…Read more
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33Varieties of Pluralism in a Polyphonic SocietyReview of Metaphysics 44 (1). 1990.NO SOCIETY, NO COMMUNITY can operate without the contributions of distinctive types of mentalities and talents. No society or community is just unless it acknowledges and rewards the contributions of distinctive types of perspectives.
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3Enough already with "theories of the emotions"In Robert C. Solomon (ed.), Thinking About Feeling: Contemporary Philosophers on Emotions, Oxford University Press. 2004.
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"Socrates and Sophia Perform the Philosophic Turn"In A. Cohen and B. Desai (ed.), The Institution of Philosophy, Open Court. 1989.
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148The social and political sources of akrasiaEthics 107 (4): 644-657. 1997.Akrasia is not always --or only-- a solitary failure to act on a person's judgment of what is, all things considered, best. Nor is it always a species of moral or ethical failure prompted by a form of irrationality. It is often prompted by social support and sustained by structuring political institutions
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3Persons and personaeIn Christopher Gill (ed.), The Person and the Human Mind: Issues in Ancient and Modern Philosophy, Oxford University Press. 1990.
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125The Many Faces of Evil: Historical Perspectives (edited book)Routledge. 2001.This is the first anthology to present the full range of the many forms evil. Amelie Rorty has assembled a collection of readings that include not only the most common forms of evil, such as vice, sin, cruelty and crime, but also some which are less well known, such disobedience and willfulness. The readings are drawn from a rich array of historical, philosophical, theological, literary, dramatic, psychological and legal perspectives. Amelie Rorty's introductions to the readings sets each one in…Read more
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Harvard UniversityRegular Faculty
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Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
1 more
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Mind |
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |