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254Essays 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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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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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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"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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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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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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65Aristotle on the Metaphysical Status of PatheReview of Metaphysics 37 (3). 1984.CONTEMPORARY discussions of the passions are often puzzlingly pulled in what appear to be opposing directions. We sometimes hold people responsible for their emotions and the actions they perform from them. Yet abnormal behavior is often explained and excused by the person "suffering" an emotional condition. We treat emotions as interruptions or deflections of normal behavior, and yet also consider a person pathological if he fails to act or react from a standard range of emotions. Sometimes emo…Read more
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77The Ethics of Collaborative AmbivalenceThe Journal of Ethics 18 (4): 391-403. 2014.We are all ambivalent at every turn. “Should I skip class on this gorgeous spring day?” “Do I really want to marry Eric?” Despite being uncomfortable and unsettling, there are some forms of ambivalence that are appropriate and responsible. Even when they seem trivial and superficial, they reveal some of our deepest values, the self-images we would like to project. In this paper, I analyze collaborative ambivalence, the kind of ambivalence that arises from our identity-forming close relationships…Read more
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22The Deceptive Self: Liars and LayersAnalyse & Kritik 7 (2): 141-161. 1985.This paper gives an account of the picture of the self that saves the phenomena of self-deception. On one theory of the self, the phenomena of selfdeception are incoherent: the self as a unified critically reflective rational inquirer cannot deceive itself. On another theory of the self, the phenomena evaporate: the self as a loosely organized system composed of relatively independent subsystems can be conflicted, mistaken, ignorant, compartmentalized. But it does not deceive itself. Our practic…Read more
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85The Advantages of Moral DiversitySocial Philosophy and Policy 9 (2): 38. 1992.We are well served, both practically and morally, by moral and ethical diversity. Moral deliberation requires the collaboration of distinctive perspectives: consequentialist, deontological, perfectionist considerations each contribute significant dimensions in determining what is good and what is right; virtue theory highlights the development of reliable ethical character
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29The Transformations of PersonsPhilosophy 48 (185). 1973.In Book IV of The Odyssey , Menelaus tells Telemachus as much as he knows of Odysseus' wanderings. He reports that Odysseus, wanting to learn the end of his travels and needing directions for returning safely home through the dangerous seas, captured Proteus and held fast to him, though Proteus transformed himself into a bearded lion, a snake, a leopard, a bear, running water and finally into a flowering tree. Proteus eventually wearied, and consented to tell Odysseus something of what he wished…Read more
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63The Vanishing Subject: The Many Faces of SubjectivityHistory of Philosophy Quarterly 23 (3). 2006.
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386Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics (edited book)University of California Press. 1980.This compilation will mark a high point of excellence in its genre."--Gregory Vlastos, University of California, Berkeley
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4Philosophers on Education: New Historical Perspectives (edited book)Routledge. 1998.Philosophers on Education offers us the most comprehensive available history of philosopher's views and impacts on the directions of education. As Amelie Rorty explains, in describing a history of education, we are essentially describing and gaining the clearest understanding of the issues that presently concern and divide us. The essays in this stellar collection are written by some of the finest comtemporary philosophers. Those interested in history of philosophy, epistemology, moral psycholog…Read more
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46The Politics of Spinoza’s Vanishing DichotomiesPolitical Theory 38 (1). 2010.Spinoza's project of showing how the mind can be freed from its passive affects and the State from its divisive factions (E IV.Appendix and V.Preface) ultimately coincides with the aims announced in the subtitle of the Tractatus-Theologico-Politicus (TTP) "to demonstrate that [the] freedom to philosophize does not endanger the piety and obedience required for civic peace." Both projects rest on a set of provisional isomorphic distinctions—between adequate and inadequate ideas, between reason and…Read more
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18Naturalism, Paradigms, and IdeologyReview of Metaphysics 24 (4). 1971.A close and sympathetic reading of the tensions between naturalism and non-naturalism in Hume's theory shows us something of the ideological issues involved, issues rooted in the differences between the political and social conditions which make naturalism and non-naturalism seem plausible analyses of normative discourse. If we read Hume as a transitional figure, who documented and analyzed a shift in the paradigms of moral situations and problems, we see that the naturalistic controversy is not…Read more
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526The Identities of Persons (edited book)University of California Press. 1976.In this volume, thirteen philosophers contribute new essays analyzing the criteria for personal identity and their import on ethics and the theory of action: it ...
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166Akratic BelieversAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 20 (2): 175-183. 1983.A person has performed an action akratically when he intentionally, voluntarily acts contrary to what he thinks, all things considered, is best to do. This is very misleadingly called weakness of the will; less misleadingly, akrasia of action. I should like to show that there is intellectual as well as practical akrasia. This might, equally misleadingly, be called weakness of belief; less misleadingly, akrasia of belief.
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11King Solomon and Everyman: A Problem in Coordinating Conflicting Moral IntuitionsAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 28 (3). 1991.
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55The Directions of Aristotle's RhetoricReview of Metaphysics 46 (1). 1992.IN PREPARING A HANDBOOK ON RHETORIC, Aristotle proceeds as he does for a discussion of any craft or practice. After distinguishing it from other closely related arts, he defines its proper aim: that of finding the means that can be used to persuade an audience of any subject whatever. Since the most effective exercise of any craft or faculty is conceptually connected to its fulfilling its norm-defined aims, his counsel is directed to guiding the master craftsman who is responsive to the larger i…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 |