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103Ambivalent emotions and the perceptual account of emotionsAnalysis 65 (3): 229-233. 2005.This paper replies to an argument due to Greenspan (1980) and to Morton (2002) against the view that emotions are perceptions of values. The argument holds that this view cannot make room for ambivalent emotions both of which are appropriate, such as when it is appropriate to feel fear and attraction towards something. This would make for a contradiction, for appropriate emotions are supposed to present things as they are. The problem, I argue, is that this line of thoughts forgets that things c…Read more
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ConstructivismIn David Sander & Klaus Scherer (eds.), The Oxford Companion to Emotion and the Affective Sciences, Oxford University Press. 2009.Encyclopedia entry for Constructivism.
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1027Facts and Values in Emotional PlasticityIn Louis C. Charland & Peter Zachar (eds.), Fact and Value in Emotion, John Benjamins. pp. 101--137. 2008.How much can we shape the emotions we experience? Or to put it another way, how plastic are our emotions? It is clear that the exercise of identifying the degree of plasticity of emotion is futile without a prior specification of what can be plastic, so we first propose an analysis of the components of emotions. We will then turn to empirical data that might be used to assess the degree of plasticity of emotions.
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916The Philosophy of Normativity, or How to Try Clearing Things Up a LittleDialogue 50 (2): 233-238. 2011.This introduction to a collection of papers on normativity provides a framework modelled on the division in ethics to approach normative issues. It suggests that is is useful to divide questions about normativity into five groups: normative ontology, normative semantics, normative epistemology, normative psychology, and substantial normative theory.
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ValueIn David Sander & Klaus Scherer (eds.), The Oxford Companion to Emotion and the Affective Sciences, Oxford University Press. 2009.This entry specifies the possible relations between values and emotions.
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326Mixed inferences: A problem for pluralism about truth predicatesAnalysis 57 (3). 1997.In reply to Geach's objection against expressivism, some have claimed that there is a plurality of truth predicates. I raise a difficulty for this claim: valid inferences can involve sentences assessable by any truth predicate, corresponding to 'lightweight' truth as well as to 'heavyweight' truth. To account for this, some unique truth predicate must apply to all sentences that can appear in inferences. Mixed inferences remind us of a central platitude about truth: truth is what is preserved in…Read more
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46Long-term emotions and emotional experiences in the explanation of actionsEuropean Review of Philosophy 5 151-161. 2002.This paper consists in a critical review of Peter Goldie's book, The Emotion. A Philosophical Exploration (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Goldie is right to distinguish between long-term emotions and emotional experiences. And he is also right to reject the view that emotions are reducible to 'feelingless' states plus some extra feelings. However, Goldie's own account in terms of "feeling towards" is problematic. Goldie would have been better advised to claim that emotional experiences …Read more
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26Response-DependenceEuropean Review of Philosophy 3 227. 1998.Some concepts, such as colour concepts or value concepts, seem to bear traces of the mind's own make-up. For instance, the character of perceptually-determined colour concepts seems in some sense derivative from the character of the visual system. Thus, it has seemed plausible to claim that the corresponding colour properties are dispositions to elicit certain visual experiences in normal observers under suitable conditions. Much the same has been suggested for value concepts. An extreme positio…Read more
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2Emotions and Motivation: The Case of FearIn Peter Goldie (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotion, Oxford University Press. 2009.