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2172A Nietzschean Theory of Emotional Experience: Affect as Feeling Towards ValueInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. 2020.This paper offers a Nietzschean theory of emotion as expressed by following thesis: paradigmatic emotional experiences exhibit a distinctive kind of affective intentionality, specified in terms of felt valenced attitudes towards the (apparent) evaluative properties of their objects. Emotional experiences, on this Nietzschean view, are therefore fundamentally feelings towards value. This interpretation explains how Nietzschean affects can have evaluative intentional content without being constitu…Read more
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759The bodily-attitudinal theory of emotionPhilosophical Studies 178 (8): 2635-2663. 2020.This paper provides an assessment of the bodily-attitudinal theory of emotions, according to which emotions are felt bodily attitudes of action readiness. After providing a reconstruction of the view and clarifying its central commitments two objections are considered. An alternative object side interpretation of felt action readiness is then provided, which undermines the motivation for the bodily-attitudinal theory and creates problems for its claims concerning the content of emotional experie…Read more
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685Emotional Experience and Propositional ContentDialectica 73 (4): 535-561. 2019.Those arguing for the existence of non-propositional content appeal to emotions for support, although there has been little engagement in those debates with developments in contemporary theory of emotion, specifically in connection with the kind of mental states that emotional experiences are. Relatedly, within emotion theory, one finds claims that emotional experiences per se have non-propositional content without detailed argument. This paper argues that the content of emotional experience is …Read more
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646The Attitudinal Opacity of Emotional ExperiencePhilosophical Quarterly 70 (280): 524-546. 2020.According to some philosophers, when introspectively attending to experience, we seem to see right through it to the objects outside, including their properties. This is called the transparency of experience. This paper examines whether, and in what sense, emotions are transparent. It argues that emotional experiences are opaque in a distinctive way: introspective attention to them does not principally reveal non-intentional somatic qualia but rather felt valenced intentional attitudes. As such,…Read more
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625The Irreducibility of Emotional PhenomenologyErkenntnis 85. 2020.Emotion theory includes attempts to reduce or assimilate emotions to states such as bodily feelings, beliefs-desire combinations, and evaluative judgements. Resistance to such approaches is motivated by the claim that emotions possess a sui generis phenomenology. Uriah Kriegel defends a new form of emotion reductivism which avoids positing irreducible emotional phenomenology by specifying emotions’ phenomenal character in terms of a combination of other phenomenologies. This article argues Krieg…Read more
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618Affective Representation and Affective AttitudesSynthese (4): 1-28. 2019.Many philosophers have understood the representational dimension of affective states along the model of sense-perceptual experiences, even claiming the relevant affective experiences are perceptual experiences. This paper argues affective experiences involve a kind of personal level affective representation disanalogous from the representational character of perceptual experiences. The positive thesis is that affective representation is a non-transparent, non-sensory form of evaluative represent…Read more
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612The intentionality and intelligibility of moodsEuropean Journal of Philosophy 27 (1): 118-135. 2019.This article offers an account of moods as distinctive kinds of personal level affective-evaluative states, which are both intentional and rationally intelligible in specific ways. The account contrasts with those who claim moods are non-intentional, and so also arational. Section 1 provides a conception of intentionality and distinguishes moods, as occurrent experiential states, from other states in the affective domain. Section 2 argues moods target the subject’s total environment presented in…Read more
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607Understanding Meta-Emotions: Prospects for a Perceptualist AccountCanadian Journal of Philosophy 50 (4): 505-523. 2020.This article clarifies the nature of meta-emotions, and it surveys the prospects of applying a version of the perceptualist model of emotions to them. It first considers central aspects of their intentionality and phenomenal character. It then applies the perceptualist model to meta-emotions, addressing issues of evaluative content and the normative dimension of meta-emotional experience. Finally, in considering challenges and objections, it assesses the perceptualist model, concluding that its …Read more
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534The Epistemology of Emotional ExperienceDialectica 71 (1): 57-84. 2017.This article responds to two arguments against ‘Epistemic Perceptualism’, the view that emotional experiences, as involving a perception of value, can constitute reasons for evaluative belief. It first provides a basic account of emotional experience, and then introduces concepts relevant to the epistemology of emotional experience, such as the nature of a reason for belief, non-inferentiality, and prima facie vs. conclusive reasons, which allow for the clarification of Epistemic Perceptualism i…Read more
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520The Mind’s Presence to Itself: In Search of Non‐intentional AwarenessPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 104 (3): 659-675. 2021.According to some philosophers, the mind enjoys a form of presence to itself. That is to say, in addition to being aware of whatever objects it is aware of, it is also (co-presently) aware of itself. This paper explores the proposal that we should think about this kind of experiential-presence in terms of a form of non-intentional awareness. Various candidates for the relevant form of awareness, as constituting supposed non-intentional experiential-presence, are considered and are shown to encou…Read more
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517On the non-conceptual content of affective-evaluative experienceSynthese 1-25. 2018.Arguments for attributing non-conceptual content to experience have predominantly been motivated by aspects of the visual perception of empirical properties. In this article, I pursue a different strategy, arguing that a specific class of affective-evaluative experiences have non-conceptual content. The examples drawn on are affective-evaluative experiences of first exposure, in which the subject has a felt valenced intentional attitude towards evaluative properties of the object of their experi…Read more
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506Affective Shifts: Mood, Emotion and Well-BeingSynthese (5-6): 1-28. 2021.It is a familiar feature of our affective psychology that our moods ‘crystalize’ into emotions, and that our emotions ‘diffuse’ into moods. Providing a detailed philosophical account of these affective shifts, as I will call them, is the central aim of this paper. Drawing on contemporary philosophy of emotion and mood, alongside distinctive ideas from the phenomenologically-inspired writer Robert Musil, a broadly ‘intentional’ and ‘evaluativist’ account will be defended. I argue that we do best …Read more
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504Self-Locating Content in Visual Experience and the "Here-Replacement" AccountJournal of Philosophy 118 (4): 188-213. 2021.According to the Self-Location Thesis, certain types of visual experiences have self-locating and so first-person, spatial contents. Such self-locating contents are typically specified in relational egocentric terms. So understood, visual experiences provide support for the claim that there is a kind of self-consciousness found in experiential states. This paper critically examines the Self-Location Thesis with respect to dynamic-reflexive visual experiences, which involve the movement of an obj…Read more
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499Can Evaluativism about Unpleasant Pains meet the Normative Condition?Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 62 (7). 2019.This paper assesses whether Evaluativism, as a view about the nature of unpleasant pains, can meet a specific normative condition. The normative condition says whatever candidate state is offered as an analysis of unpleasant pain should be intrinsically phenomenally bad for its subject to be in. I first articulate a method reflecting this condition, called the normative contrast method, and then frame Evaluativism in detail. The view is then tested through this method. I show that Evaluativism c…Read more
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492Two irreducible classes of emotional experiences: Affective imaginings and affective perceptionsEuropean Journal of Philosophy 30 (1): 307-325. 2021.European Journal of Philosophy, Volume 30, Issue 1, Page 307-325, March 2022.
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454Another Look at Mode IntentionalismErkenntnis 87 (6): 2519-2546. 2020.A central claim in contemporary philosophy of mind is that the phenomenal character of experience is entirely determined by its content. This paper considers an alternative called Mode Intentionalism. According to this view, phenomenal character outruns content because the intentional mode contributes to the phenomenal character of the experience. I assess a phenomenal contrast argument in support of this view, arguing that the cases appealed to allow for interpretations which do not require pos…Read more
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387A Nietzschean Critique of Metaphysical PhilosophyJournal of Nietzsche Studies 48 (3): 347-374. 2017.This article provides a new account of Nietzsche’s critique of metaphysical philosophy. After framing Nietzsche’s anti-metaphysical project (Section 1), I suggest that to understand the logic of his critique we should reconstruct a taxonomy which distinguishes between ‘rich metaphysics’ and ‘thin metaphysics’ (Section 2). I then consider Nietzsche’s methodological critique of ‘rich metaphysics’, arguing that his position, which alleges motivational bias against ‘rich metaphysics’, is not compell…Read more
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378Nietzschean Self-OvercomingJournal of Nietzsche Studies 47 (3): 323-350. 2016.Nietzsche often writes in praise of self-overcoming. He tells us that his humanity consists in “constant self-overcoming” 1 and that if someone wanted to give a name to his lifelong self-discipline against “Wagnerianism,” Schopenhauer, and “the whole modern ‘humaneness,’” then one might call it self-overcoming. He says that his writings “speak only” of his overcomings, later claiming that “the development of states that are increasingly high, rare, distant, tautly drawn and comprehensive … are d…Read more
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374Nietzsche on taste: epistemic privilege and anti-realismInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 60 (1-2): 31-65. 2017.The central aim of this article is to argue that Nietzsche takes his own taste, and those in the relevant sense similar to it, to enjoy a kind of epistemic privilege over their rivals. Section 2 will examine the textual evidence for an anti-realist reading of Nietzsche on taste. Section 3 will then provide an account of taste as an ‘affective evaluative sensibility’, asking whether taste so understood supports an anti-realist reading. I will argue that it does not and that we should resist const…Read more
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361Review of Thomas Stern (ed.), The New Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche, Cambridge (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. forthcoming.
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353Affective Persistence and the Normative Phenomenology of EmotionIn Christine Tappolet, Julien Deonna & Fabrice Teroni (eds.), A Tribute to Ronald de Sousa, . 2022.This paper presents a detailed analysis of affective persistence and its significance – that is the persistence of affect in the face of countervailing or contradictory evaluative information. More specifically, it appeals to the phenomena of affective persistence to support the claim that a significant portion of the emotional experiences of adult humans involve a kind of normative phenomenology. Its central claim is that by appealing to a distinctive kind of normative phenomenology that emotio…Read more
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350Emotion and AttentionPhilosophical Studies (1): 1-27. 2022.This paper first demonstrates that recognition of the diversity of ways that emotional responses modulate ongoing attention generates what I call the puzzle of emotional attention, which turns on recognising that distinct emotions (e.g., fear, happiness, disgust, admiration etc.) have different attentional profiles. The puzzle concerns why this is the case, such that a solution consists in explaining why distinct emotions have the distinct attentional profiles they do. It then provides an accoun…Read more
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347The Phenomenal Contribution of AttentionInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. 2022.Strong or Pure Intentionalism is the view that the phenomenal character of a conscious experience is exhaustively determined by its intentional content. Contrastingly, impure intentionalism holds that there are also non content-based aspects or features which contribute to phenomenal character. Conscious attention is one such feature: arguably its contribution to the phenomenal character of a given conscious experience are not exhaustively captured in terms of what that experience represents, th…Read more
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268Review of Jean Moritz Müller, The World-Directedness of Emotional Feeling. (review)Philosophical Quarterly. forthcoming.Review of Jean Moritz Müller, The World-Directedness of Emotional Feeling.
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126Emotional Intentionality and the Attitude‐Content DistinctionPacific Philosophical Quarterly 100 (2): 359-386. 2019.Typical emotions share important features with paradigmatic intentional states, and therefore might admit of distinctions made in theory of intentionality. One such distinction is between attitude and content, where we can specify the content of an intentional state separately from its attitude, and therefore the same content can be taken up by different intentional attitudes. According to some philosophers, emotions do not admit of this distinction, although there has been no sustained argument…Read more
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123The Horizonality of Visual ExperienceAustralasian Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.Abstract: How is it that we can visually experience complete three-dimensional objects despite being limited, in any given perceptual moment, to perceiving the sides facing us from a specific spatial perspective? To make sense of this, such visual experiences must refer to occluded or presently unseen back-sides which are not sense-perceptually given, and which cannot be sense- perceptually given while the subject is occupying the spatial perspective on the object that they currently are – I cal…Read more
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100Review Ken Gemes and John Richardson, eds.,The Oxford Handbook of Nietzsche. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2013. 783 pp. ISBN 978-0-19-953464-7. Cloth, $140 (review)Journal of Nietzsche Studies 46 (2): 270-275. 2015.
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81Pre-emotional Awareness and the Content-Priority ViewPhilosophical Quarterly 69 (277): 771-794. 2019.Much contemporary philosophy of emotion has been in broad agreement about the claim that emotional experiences have evaluative content. This paper assesses a relatively neglected alternative, which I call the content-priority view, according to which emotions are responses to a form of pre-emotional value awareness, as what we are aware of in having certain non-emotional evaluative states which are temporally prior to emotion. I argue that the central motivations of the view require a personal l…Read more
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80Emotion as Feeling Towards Value: A Theory of Emotional ExperienceOxford University Press. 2021.This book proposes and defends a new theory of emotional experience. Drawing on recent developments in the philosophy of emotion, with links to contemporary philosophy of mind, it argues that emotional experiences are sui generis states, not to be modelled after other mental states – such as perceptions, judgements, or bodily feelings – but given their own analysis and place within our mental economy. More specifically, emotional experiences are claimed to be feelings-towards-values.
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