•  4
    Editorial
    International Journal of Philosophical Studies 1-2. forthcoming.
    .
  •  1
    By focusing on the idea that agency involves causal sensitivity to reasons, Rowland Stout shows how agency is one of the most useful ways into the philosophy of mind: if one can understand what it is to be a free and rational agent, then one can understand what it is to be a conscious subject of experience. Some of the questions considered include: Is all action intentional action? Is intentional action characterized by its relation with possible justification? Do beliefs motivate actions or do …Read more
  •  2
    Can There be Virtue in Violence?
    Revue Internationale de Philosophie 235 (1): 323-336. 2006.
    Fighting is a norm-governed practice within which fighting back can be justified in certain circumstances. This is a possible non-instrumental justification of violence, but only if one is justified in engaging in the practice of fighting in the first place. The disposition to engage in fights in the right circumstances – for example when this is the only way to protect your status as a person to be reckoned with – can be justified as an aspect of Aristotelian virtue.
  •  13
    Deviant Causal Chains
    In Timothy O'Connor & Constantine Sandis (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Action, Wiley‐blackwell. 2010.
    This chapter contains sections titled: References Further reading.
  •  10
    Betrayal, Trust and Loyalty
    International Journal of Philosophical Studies 30 (3): 339-356. 2022.
    I argue that while every betrayal is a breach of trust, not every breach of trust is a betrayal. I defend a conception of trust as primarily a feature of behaviour (i.e. trusting behaviour) and only secondarily a feature of a mental attitude. So it is possible to have the attitude of distrust towards someone while still trusting them in the way you behave. This makes sense of the possibility of Judas Iscariot breaching Jesus’ trust, and so betraying him, even though Jesus presumably knew that Ju…Read more
  •  188
    Betrayal, Trust and Loyalty
    International Journal of Philosophical Studies 30 (3): 339-356. 2022.
    I argue that while every betrayal is a breach of trust, not every breach of trust is a betrayal. I defend a conception of trust as primarily a feature of behaviour (i.e. trusting behaviour) and only secondarily a feature of a mental attitude. So it is possible to have the attitude of distrust towards someone while still trusting them in the way you behave. This makes sense of the possibility of Judas Iscariot breaching Jesus’ trust, and so betraying him, even though Jesus presumably knew that Ju…Read more
  •  10
  •  38
    Dormant and active emotional states
    Synthese 200 (2). 2022.
    The paper is concerned with the metaphysics of emotion. It defends the claim that all emotional states, whether dormant or active, are dispositional, arguing against the prevailing view that dispositional emotional states are dispositions to go into actual emotional states. A clear distinction may be made between first-order and second-order emotional dispositions, where second-order emotional dispositions are dispositions of emotional sensitivity and first-order emotional dispositions are the e…Read more
  •  208
    I argue against the claim that the fundamental form of trust is a 2-place relation of A trusting B and in favour of the fundamental form being a 4-place relation of A, by ψ-ing, trusting B to φ. I characterize trusting behaviour as behaviour that knowingly makes one reliant on someone doing what they are supposed to do in the collaborative enterprise that the trusting behaviour belongs to. I explain how trust is involved in the following collaborative enterprises: knowledge transfer – i.e. tel…Read more
  •  34
    Vulnerability and Trust: An Introduction
    International Journal of Philosophical Studies 28 (5): 575-582. 2020.
  •  57
    Bodily feelings and felt inclinations
    Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 21 (2): 277-292. 2021.
    The paper defends a version of the perceptual account of bodily feelings, according to which having a feeling is feeling something about one’s body. But it rejects the idea, familiar in the work of William James, that what one feels when one has a feeling is something biological about one’s body. Instead it argues that to have a bodily feeling is to feel an apparent bodily indication of something – a bodily appearance. Being aware of what one’s body is apparently indicating to one is being aware…Read more
  •  43
    Empathy, Vulnerability and Anxiety
    International Journal of Philosophical Studies 27 (2): 347-357. 2019.
    ABSTRACTA concept of empathy as openness to the emotional perspective of another is developed in opposition to a concept of sympathy as agreement with the emotional perspective of another. Empathy involves knowledge of how things are emotionally for the other person, which is not the same thing as knowledge of the other person’s emotions. Being open to another perspective requires the capacity to hold two perspectives in mind simultaneously – one that is one’s own perspective and at the same tim…Read more
  •  112
    Practical reasoning and practical knowledge
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 49 (4): 564-579. 2019.
    The judgement that provides the content of intention and coincides with the conclusion of practical reasoning is a normative judgement about what to do, and not, as Anscombe and McDowell argue, a factual judgement about what one is doing. Treating the conclusion of practical reasoning as expressing a recommendation rather than a verdict undermines McDowell’s argument; the special nature of practical reasoning does not preclude its conclusions being normative. Anscombe’s and McDowell’s claim that…Read more
  •  332
    in O’Rourke, F. (ed.), Human Destinies (Notre Dame Press, forthcoming).
  •  252
    Behaviourism
    Think 2 (5): 37-44. 2003.
    The central claim of philosophical behaviourism is this: what it is to be in a certain state of mind is to be disposed to behave in a certain way. Most philosophers think that this claim is obviously false. They also think it is offensive. They think it is offensive because it appears to reduce or eliminate what is most valuable to us – our minds. It puts the notion of behaviour in the place of mind, and so removes what distinguishes us from automata. B. F. Skinner, one of the most famous (notor…Read more
  •  73
    Rowland Stout presents a new philosophical account of human action which is radically and controversially different from all rival theories. He argues that intentional actions are unique among natural phenomena in that they happen because they should happen, and that they are to be explained in terms of objective facts rather than beliefs and intentions.
  •  49
    Ryle's behaviourism
    Revue Internationale de Philosophie 1 37-49. 2003.
  •  6
    Editorial
    Humana Mente 22 (1): 1-2. 2014.
  •  68
    Anti-externalism – Joseph Mendola
    Philosophical Quarterly 60 (240): 656-658. 2010.
    No Abstract
  •  372
    A significant argument for the claim that knowing-wh is knowing-that, implicit in much of the literature, including Stanley and Williamson (2001), is spelt out and challenged. The argument includes the assumption that a subject's state of knowing-wh is constituted by their involvement in a relation with an answer to a question. And it involves the assumption that answers to questions are propositions or facts. One of Lawrence Powers' counterexamples to the conjunction of these two assumptions is…Read more
  •  276
    On Shame – In Response to Dan Zahavi, Self and Other
    International Journal of Philosophical Studies 23 (5): 634-638. 2015.
    In chapter 14 of Zahavi’s recent book, Self and Other, the notion of shame is discussed. In feeling shame one experiences oneself as experienced by others. For Sartre, that experience in itself is sufficient for shame, as one experiences oneself as determined in the experience of others and hence as shamefully not self-determining. But Zahavi introduces an extra condition for shame, which is a ‘global decrease in self-esteem’. This paper questions the need for this condition and argues that seei…Read more
  •  232
    Processes
    Philosophy 72 (279): 19-27. 1997.
    A natural picture to have of events and processes is of entities which extend through time and which have temporal parts, just as physical objects extend through space and have spatial parts. While accepting this picture of events, in this paper I want to present an alternative conception of processes as entities which, like physical objects, do not extend in time and do not have temporal parts, but rather persist in time. Processes and events belong to metaphysically distinct categories. Moreov…Read more
  •  578
    What someone’s behaviour must be like if we are to be aware of their emotions in it
    Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 11 (2): 135-148. 2012.
    What someone’s behaviour must be like if we are to be aware of their emotions in it Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-14 DOI 10.1007/s11097-011-9224-0 Authors Rowland Stout, School of Philosophy, UCD Dublin, Dublin 4, Republic of Ireland Journal Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences Online ISSN 1572-8676 Print ISSN 1568-7759
  •  392
    Seeing the anger in someone's face
    Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 84 (1): 29-43. 2010.
    Starting from the assumption that one can literally perceive someone's anger in their face, I argue that this would not be possible if what is perceived is a static facial signature of their anger. There is a product–process distinction in talk of facial expression, and I argue that one can see anger in someone's facial expression only if this is understood to be a process rather than a product
  •  136
    Internalising practical reasons
    Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 104 (3). 2004.
    Practical reasons figure in both the justification and the causal explanation of action. It is usually assumed that the agent’s state of believing rather than what they believe must figure in the causal explanation of action. But, that the agent believes something is not a reason in the sense of being part of the justification of what they do. So it is often concluded that the justifying reason is a different sort of thing from the causally motivating reason. But this means that in a causal proc…Read more
  •  300
    Adopting roles: Generosity and Presumptuousness
    Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 77 141-161. 2015.
    Generosity is not the same thing as kindness or self-sacrifice. Presumptuousness is incompatible with generosity, but not with kindness or self-sacrifice. I consider a kind but interfering neighbour who inappropriately takes over the role of mother to my daughter; her behaviour is not generous. Presumptuousness is the improper exercise of a disposition to adopt a role that one does not have. With this in mind I explore the idea that generosity is the proper exercise of the disposition to ado…Read more
  •  85
    Process, Action, and Experience (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 2018.
    Process, Action, and Experience offers a radical new approach to the philosophy of mind and action, taking processes to be the central subject matter. An international team of contributors consider what kinds of things processes are, and explore the progressive nature of action and conscious experience.