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34Rousseau's Therapeutic ExperimentsPhilosophy 66 (258). 1991.‘Our passions are psychological instruments,’ Rousseau says, ‘with which nature has armed our hearts for the defence of our persons and of all that is necessary for our well-being. [But] the more we need external things, the more we are vulnerable to obstacles that can overwhelm us; and the more numerous and complex our passions become. They are naturally proportionate to our needs.’
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150The two faces of stoicism: Rousseau and FreudJournal of the History of Philosophy 34 (3): 335-356. 1996.The Two Faces of Stoicism: Rousseau and Freud AMI~LIE OKSENBERG RORTY Nor do the Stoics mean that the soul of their wisest man resists the first visions and sudden fantasies that surprise [him]: but [he] rather consents that, as it were to a natural subjection, he yields .... So likewise in other passions, always provided his opinions remain safe and whole, and.., his reason admit no tainting or alteration, and he in no whit consents to his fright and sufferance. Montaigne, Essays, I. 1 THE STOI…Read more
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146Explaining Emotions (edited book)University of California Press. 1980.The philosopher must inform himself of the relevant empirical investigation to arrive at a definition, and the scientist cannot afford to be naive about the..
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20Political Sources of Emotions: Greed and AngerMidwest Studies in Philosophy 22 (1): 21-33. 1998.
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90The Use and Abuse of MoralityThe Journal of Ethics 16 (1): 1-13. 2012.Both morality and theories of morality play many distinctive—and sometimes apparently conflicting—functions: they identify and prohibit wrongful aggression; they chart and analyze basic duties; they present ideals for emulation; they set the terms or justice, rights and entitlements; they characterize the norms of basic decency and neighborliness. Since many of these can, in practice, come into conflict with one another, morality provides guidance for integrating priorities. Claims to morality c…Read more
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101Aristotle on the Virtues of RhetoricReview of Metaphysics 64 (4): 715-733. 2011.Aristotle’s phronimos is a model of the virtues: he fuses sound practical reasoning with well formed desires. Among the skills of practical reasoning are those of finding the right words and arguments in the process of deliberation. As Aristotle puts it, virtue involves doing the right thing at the right time and for the right reason. Speaking well, saying the right thing in the right way is not limited to public oratory: it pervades practical life. Aristotle’s phronimos must acquire the habits …Read more
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The Many Faces of Philosophy. Reflections from Plato to ArendtTijdschrift Voor Filosofie 66 (2): 393-393. 2004.
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5The Many Faces of Philosophy: Reflections From Plato to Arendt (edited book)Oxford University Press USA. 2004.Philosophy is a dangerous profession, risking censorship, prison, even death. And no wonder: philosophers have questioned traditional pieties and threatened the established political order. Some claimed to know what was thought unknowable; others doubted what was believed to be certain. Some attacked religion in the name of science; others attacked science in the name of mystical poetry; some served tyrants; others were radical revolutionaries. This historically based collection of philosophers'…Read more
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24Moral Prejudices (review)Philosophical Review 104 (4): 608-610. 1995.Annette Baier sets the title, the genre, and the task of her book from Hume’s essay "Of Moral Prejudices." Rather than arguing from or towards general principles, these essays call upon a wide range of reading, observation, and experience: we are not only meant to be enlightened, but also invited to adopt the reflective habits of mind they exemplify. Like Hume, Baier analyzes and evaluates our attitudes and customs; like him, she finds that our foibles and our strengths are closely linked; and l…Read more
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14The Functional Logic of Cartesian PassionsIn Sabrina Ebbersmeyer (ed.), Emotional Minds: The Passions and the Limits of Pure Inquiry in Early Modern Philosophy, De Gruyter. pp. 3. 2012.
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39From Passions to Sentiments: The Structure of Hume's "Treatise"History of Philosophy Quarterly 10 (2): 165-179. 1993.
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117The Burdens of LoveThe Journal of Ethics 20 (4): 341-354. 2016.While we primarily love individual persons, we also love our work, our homes, our activities and causes. To love is to be engaged in an active concern for the objective well-being—the thriving—of whom and what we love. True love mandates discovering in what that well-being consists and to be engaged in the details of promoting it. Since our loves are diverse, we are often conflicted about the priorities among the obligations they bring. Loving requires constant contextual improvisatory adjustmen…Read more
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10Essays on Aristotle's de Anima (edited book)Oxford University Press UK. 1992.Aristotle's philosophy of mind has recently attracted renewed attention and respect from philosophers. This volume brings together outstanding new essays on De Anima by a distinguished international group of contributors including, in this paperback efdition, a new essay by Myles Burnyeat. The essays form a running commentary on the work, covering such topics as the relation between body and soul, sense-perception, imagination, memory, desire, and thought. the authors, writing with philosophical…Read more
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60User friendly self-deception: A traveler's manualIn Roger T. Ames & Wimal Dissanayake (eds.), Self and Deception: A Cross-Cultural Philosophical Enquiry, Albany: Suny Press. 1996.
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128Essays on Aristotle's Poetics (edited book)Princeton University Press. 1992.Aimed at deepening our understanding of the Poetics, this collection places Aristotle's analysis of tragedy in its larger philosophical context.
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24Review: Zöller & Louden (eds), Anthropology, History and Education (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2008 (6). 2008.
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76Butler on Benevolence and ConsciencePhilosophy 53 (204). 1978.It is tempting and even useful to read the history of ethics from Hobbes to Rousseau, and even to Kant, as a response to the devastation of making self-interest—the movement to the satisfaction of particular ego-oriented desires—either the basic motive, or the basic form of motivational explanation. After Hobbes, philosophical ingenuity allied with Christian sensibility to search for countervailing forces
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35Descartes and Spinoza on Epistemological EgalitarianismHistory of Philosophy Quarterly 13 (1). 1996.
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19Perspectives on Self-DeceptionUniversity of California Press. 1988.Students of philosophy, psychology, sociology, and literature will welcome this collection of original essays on self-deception and related phenomena such as wishful thinking, bad faith, and false consciousness. The book has six sections, each exploring self-deception and related phenomena from a different perspective
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124On being rationalRatio 22 (3): 350-358. 2009.To be rational is to be engaged in collaborative, corrigible, historically informed inquiry and deliberation. Critical intelligence is merely the beginning of rationality. Substantive rationality also requires reflective and imaginative inquiry. Its active exercise presupposes trust and mandates a commitment to the common good, to responsible attempts to create the political institutions and social conditions on which intellectual and political trust can flourish. Without these, formal and calcu…Read more
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326The dramatic sources of philosophyPhilosophy and Literature 32 (1). 2008.This paper traces some of the sources of Socratic dialectic: myth, drama, lyric poetry, law and the courts, pre-Socratic cosmology.
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65Witnessing philosophersPhilosophy and Literature 22 (2): 309-327. 1998.Philosophic writing appears in a variety of genres, addressed to a variety of audiences; it appears nestled within distinctive 'enterprises' : Plato, Berkeley and Hume wrote dialogues; Augustine and Rousseau wrote autobiographical confessions; Mill and Bernard Williams wrote reports to Parliament; Boethius and Descartes wrote meditations; Bacon, Montaign and Hume wrote essays; Aquinas and our contemporaries contribte articles;Leibniz and Hume wrote histories' they all wrote letters and discourse…Read more
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66Spinoza's Ironic Therapy: From Anger to the Intellectual Love of GodHistory of Philosophy Quarterly 17 (3). 2000.
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Harvard UniversityRegular Faculty
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Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
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Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Mind |
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |