•  4562
    The Virtues of Authenticity
    International Philosophical Quarterly 43 (4): 423-438. 2003.
    Discussions of the concept of authenticity often fail to define the conditions of an appropriate emotional orientation toward the world. With a more solid philosophical understanding of emotion, it should be possible to define more precisely the necessary conditions of emotional authenticity. Against this background, I interpret Kierkegaard’s Either/Or as a narrative text that suggests a moral psychology of emotion that points toward the development of a better way of thinking about the ethics o…Read more
  •  2403
    Emotion, the bodily, and the cognitive
    Philosophical Explorations 13 (1). 2010.
    In both psychology and philosophy, cognitive theories of emotion have met with increasing opposition in recent years. However, this apparent controversy is not so much a gridlock between antithetical stances as a critical debate in which each side is being forced to qualify its position in order to accommodate the other side of the story. Here, I attempt to sort out some of the disagreements between cognitivism and its rivals, adjudicating some disputes while showing that others are merely super…Read more
  •  1177
    Skepticism and perceptual faith: Henry David Thoreau and Stanley Cavell on seeing and believing
    Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 43 (3). 2007.
    : Thoreau's journal contains a number of passages which explore the nature of perception, developing a response to skeptical doubt. The world outside the human mind is real, and there is nothing illusory about its perceived beauty and meaning. In this essay, I draw upon the work of Stanley Cavell (among others) in order to frame Thoreau's reflections within the context of the skeptical questions he seeks to address. Value is not a subjective projection, but it also cannot be perceived without th…Read more
  •  973
    Martha C. Nussbaum’s "Political Emotions"
    Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 13 (4): 643-650. 2014.
    Martha Nussbaum’s new book Political Emotions is a contribution to political philosophy and, simultaneously, a moral-psychological study of the emotions. In it, she revisits some of the most prominent themes in her 2004 book Hiding from Humanity and her 2001 treatise, Upheavals of Thought. As Nussbaum points out in the opening pages of Political Emotions, one of her goals in this work is to answer a call issued by John Rawls for a “reasonable moral psychology” that would be conceptually refined …Read more
  •  895
    A cure for worry? Kierkegaardian faith and the insecurity of human existence
    International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 72 (3): 157-175. 2012.
    Abstract   In his discourses on ‘the lily of the field and the bird of the air,’ Kierkegaard presents faith as the best possible response to our precarious and uncertain condition, and as the ideal way to cope with the insecurities and concerns that his readers will recognize as common features of human existence. Reading these discourses together, we are introduced to the portrait of a potential believer who, like the ‘divinely appointed teachers’—the lily and the bird—succeeds in leading a lif…Read more
  •  763
    Kierkegaard and Greek philosophy
    In John Lippitt & George Pattison (eds.), The Oxford handbook of Kierkegaard, Oxford University Press. pp. 129-149. 2013.
    This chapter analyses Soren Kierkegaard's thoughts and opinions about ancient Greek philosophy. It examines the significance of Kierkegaard's references to Greek philosophy in his writings and suggests that his use of classical thought was part of his effort to define his own intellectual project. The chapter investigates how Greek philosophy influenced Kierkegaard's works and views about ethics, existential thought, Socratic faith, love, and virtue, and also considers what Kierkegaard believed …Read more
  •  664
    Love as a Relation to Truth: Envisioning the Person in "Works of Love"
    Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 2013 (1): 217-242. 2013.
    Name der Zeitschrift: Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook Jahrgang: 2013 Heft: 1 Seiten: 217-242.
  •  543
  •  519
  •  357
    Poetics of Sentimentality
    Philosophy and Literature 26 (1): 207-215. 2002.
    In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 26.1 (2002) 207-215 [Access article in PDF] Notes and Fragments Poetics of Sentimentality Rick Anthony Furtak IN HIS MAJOR WORK, The Passions, Robert Solomon argues that emotions are judgments. 1 Through a series of persuasive examples, he shows that emotions are best understood as mental states which involve certain beliefs about the world. This means that every emotion has an object: if I am angry at John …Read more
  •  325
    Thoreau's emotional stoicism
    Journal of Speculative Philosophy 17 (2): 122-132. 2003.
  •  244
    A review of two recent books on Kierkegaard's thought, with attention to his relevance for ethics, phenomenology, and metaphysics.
  •  183
    Review of George Pattison's The Philosophy of Kierkegaard (review)
    International Journal of Philosophical Studies 14. 2006.
  •  102
    Loneliness, Love, and the Limits of Language
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 59 (3): 435-459. 2021.
    In this article, we illuminate the affective phenomenon of loneliness by exploring the question of how it relates to love and other forms of friendship. We reflect in particular on the question of how different forms of loneliness are relevant to human existence. Distinguishing three forms of loneliness, we first introduce two border cases of loneliness: unfelt loneliness in which one’s individuality is denied and one therefore cannot feel lonely; and existential loneliness in which the possibil…Read more
  •  69
    Kierkegaard's 'Concluding Unscientific Postscript': A Critical Guide (edited book)
    Cambridge University Press. 2010.
    Søren Kierkegaard's Concluding Unscientific Postscript has provoked a lively variety of divergent interpretations for a century and a half. It has been both celebrated and condemned as the chief inspiration for twentieth-century existential thought, as a subversive parody of philosophical argument, as a critique of mass society, as a forerunner of phenomenology and of postmodern relativism, and as an appeal for a renewal of religious commitment. These 2010 essays written by international Kierkeg…Read more
  •  62
    Thoreau's importance for philosophy (edited book)
    with Jonathan Ellsworth and James D. Reid
    Fordham University Press. 2012.
    The purpose of this volume is to remedy this neglect, to explain Thoreau's philosophical significance, and to argue that we can still learn from his polemical conception of philosophy.
  •  55
    The emotions play a crucial role in our apprehension of meaning, value, or significance — and their felt quality is intimately related to the sort of awareness they provide. This is exemplified most clearly by cases in which dispassionate cognition is cognitively insufficient, because we need to be emotionally agitated in order to grasp that something is true. In this type of affective experience, it is through a feeling of being moved that we recognize or apprehend that something is the case. A…Read more
  •  50
    Estrangement and Moral Agency
    Philosophy in the Contemporary World 11 (2): 37-44. 2004.
    By taking seriously the state of moral estrangement, we may learn something about the conditions of moral participation. Yet analytic discussions of this topic (for instance, by Hare and Nagel) have frequently been handicapped by an inadequate understanding of the intentionality of emotion. In the work of Albert Camus, we find a superior appreciation of the sense in which the individual’s revolt against prevailing values could be a justified response to objective conditions. Although a sense of …Read more
  •  37
    Three Faces of Desire (review)
    Review of Metaphysics 59 (3): 680-682. 2006.
    Drawing upon neuroscientific research, Schroeder argues that there is biological evidence in favor of his philosophical conclusions. Specifically, the brain areas that show activity correlated with feelings of pleasure are distinguishable from those that seem to be associated with the consciousness of possible reward; and, in theory, these latter areas “could exist” in an organic being that lacked the capacity for behavior. At this point, the partly theoretical basis of Schroeder’s scientific cl…Read more
  •  22
    Review of Robert C. Solomon, In Defense of Sentimentality (review)
    Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2005 (10). 2005.
  •  21
    A Review of Stephen Evans' (2009) Kierkegaard (review)
    with Shahrzad Safavi
    Southwest Philosophy Review 26 (2): 119-123. 2010.
  •  20
    Wilderness in America: Philosophical Writings by Henry Bugbee
    Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 55 (3): 347-350. 2019.
    Those who are already familiar with Henry Bugbee's written work will almost invariably have encountered it first through his 1958 text The Inward Morning, subtitled A Philosophical Exploration in Journal Form. This book, which originally appeared with an introduction by the French existential philosopher Gabriel Marcel, was reissued in a 1999 edition thanks to Edward F. Mooney, who served as editor and added a new introduction of his own. In the volume under review, David W. Rodick brings more o…Read more
  •  20
    Emotion, Action, and Passivity: A Commentary on Müller
    Emotion Review 14 (4): 261-264. 2022.
    Emotion Review, Volume 14, Issue 4, Page 261-264, October 2022. According to Jean Moritz Müller's The world-directedness of emotional feeling, the reason why emotions do not apprehend or disclose value is that one cannot apprehend what one has already apprehended: the value in question, he claims, is apprehended prior to the emotional feeling. Emotions, then, should not be conceived as apprehending value since they already presuppose awareness of it. I can be acquainted with a fact without feeli…Read more
  •  19
    Believing in Time
    Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 2004 (1): 100-116. 2004.
  •  18
    Review of C. Stephen Evans, Kierkegaard: An Introduction (review)
    Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2009 (11). 2009.