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27Two Sources of Normativity in Enthusiastic Accounts of KindsBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science. forthcoming.
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25Is statistical learning a mechanism?Philosophical Psychology 29 (6): 826-843. 2016.Philosophers of science have offered several definitions of mechanism, most of which have biological or neuroscientific roots. In this paper, I consider whether these definitions apply equally well to cognitive science. I examine this question by looking at the case of statistical learning, which has been called a domain-general learning mechanism in the cognitive scientific literature. I argue that statistical learning does not constitute a mechanism in the philosophical sense of the term. This…Read more
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25Empathy: epistemic problems and cultural-historical perspectives of a cross-disciplinary conceptPhilosophical Psychology 32 (3): 428-432. 2019.
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18Finding Empathy: How Neuroscientific Measures, Evidence and Conceptualizations InteractInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 27 (2): 224-243. 2019.ABSTRACTQuestions about how empathy should be conceptualized have long been a preoccupation of the field of empathy research. There are numerous definitions of empathy that have been proposed and that often overlap with other concepts such as sympathy and compassion. This makes communication between research groups or across disciplines difficult. Many researchers seem to see the diversity of definitions as a problem rather than a form of benign pluralism. Within this debate about conceptualizat…Read more
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17How to clarify the aims of empathy in medicineMedicine, Health Care and Philosophy 21 (4): 569-582. 2018.This paper argues that enthusiasm for empathy has grown to the point at which empathy has taken on the status of an “ideal” in modern medicine. We need to pause and scrutinize this ideal before moving forward with empathy training programs for medical students. Taking empathy as an ideal obscures the distinction between the multiple aims that calls for empathy seek to achieve. While these aims may work together, they also come apart and yield different recommendations about the sort of behavior …Read more
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12Review: Hagop Sarkissian and Jennifer Cole Wright, eds., Advances in Experimental Moral Psychology (review)Ethics 126 (2): 531-536. 2016.
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8Grant Bollmer, The Affect Lab: The History and Limits of Measuring Emotion Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2023. Pp. 290. ISBN 978-1-5179-1546-9. $28.00 (paperback) (review)British Journal for the History of Science 1-2. forthcoming.
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5How the case against empathy overreachesPhilosophical Psychology. forthcoming.Many people think of empathy as a powerful force for good within society and as a crucial component of moral cognition. Recently, prominent theorists in psychology and philosophy have challenged this viewpoint and mounted a case against empathy. The most compelling versions of this case rely heavily on empirical evidence from psychology and neuroscience. They contend that the inherent partiality and parochialism of empathy undermines its potential to serve moral ends. This paper argues that the …Read more
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