In this article, I attempt to resuscitate the perennially unfashionable distinctive feeling theory of pleasure (and pain), according to which for an experience to be pleasant (or unpleasant) is just for it to involve or contain a distinctive kind of feeling. I do this in two ways. First, by offering powerful new arguments against its two chief rivals: attitude theories, on the one hand, and the phenomenological theories of Roger Crisp, Shelly Kagan, and Aaron Smuts, on (...) the other. Second, by showing how it can answer two important objections that have been made to it. First, the famous worry that there is no felt similarity to all pleasant (or unpleasant) experiences (sometimes called ‘the heterogeneity objection’). Second, what I call ‘Findlay’s objection’, the claim that it cannot explain the nature of our attraction to pleasure and aversion to pain. (shrink)

Feeling like doing something is not the same as deciding to do it. When you feel like doing something, you are still free to decide to do it or not. You are having an inclination to do it, but you are not thereby determined to do it. I call this the moment of drama. This book is about what you are faced with, in this moment. How should you relate to the inclinations you “have,” given that you are free (...) to “act on” them or not? To answer this question, we need an account of what sort of thing we are relating to, in this moment. But here we find a genuine philosophical problem. Our inclinations are forms of motivation, with respect to which we are distinctively passive. To be motivated is to be self-moved. But how can we be passive in relation to our own self-movement? Is our relation to our inclinations like that of rider to horse? Or is it like our relation to our own, spontaneous judgments or perceptions? I lay out three constraints on any theory of inclination, and I argue that familiar theories fail to meet them, because they make being inclined to φ‎ too similar or dissimilar to φ‎-ing. I then put forward the “inner animal” view, which holds that when you are merely inclined to act, the instinctive part of yourself is already active, while the rest of you is not. In this moment, your will is “at a crossroads.” You can humanize your inclination, or dehumanize yourself. (shrink)

A dominant view in contemporary cognitive neuroscience is that low-level, comparator-based mechanisms of motor control produce a distinctive experience often called the feeling of agency . An opposing view is that comparator-based motor control is largely non-conscious and not associated with any particular type of distinctive phenomenology . In this paper, I critically evaluate the nature of the empirical evidence researchers commonly take to support FoA-hypothesis. The aim of this paper is not only to scrutinize (...) the FoA-hypothesis and data supposed to support it; it is equally to argue that experimentalists supporting the FoA-hypothesis fail to establish that the experimental outcomes are more probable given the FoA-hypothesis than given the simpler hypothesis. (shrink)

On my interpretation of Kant, feeling plays a central role in the mind: it has the distinct function of tracking and evaluating our activity in relation to ourselves and the world so as to orient us. In this article, I set out to defend this view against a number of objections raised by Melissa Merritt and Uri Eran. I conclude with some reflections on the fact that, despite being very different, Merritt and Eran’s respective views of Kantian feelings (...) turn out to have something potentially problematic in common: they blur the boundary between feelings and other kinds of mental states. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose a solution to a notorious puzzle that lies at the heart of Kant’s Critique of Judgment. The puzzle arises because Kant asserts two apparently conflicting claims: (1) F→J: A judgment of beauty is aesthetic, i.e., grounded in feeling. (2) J→F: A judgment of beauty could not be based on and must ground the feeling of pleasure in the beautiful. I argue that (1) and (2) are consistent. Kant’s text indicates that he distinguishes two (...) feelings: the feeling of the harmony of the cognitive faculties that is the ground of judgments of beauty (F1 → J), and the feeling of pleasure that is its consequence (J → F2). I develop and defend a view of Kant’s account of the structure of judgments of beauty that incorporates this crucial distinction. Next, I argue that my view resolves another long-standing problem for Kant’s “Deduction” of judgments of beauty: it allows him to claim that the harmony of the faculties is a condition of judgment in general without implying, absurdly, that all judgments are pleasurable. (shrink)

A. Koriat distinguishes between feeling-based and inferentially based feeling-of-knowing judgments. The former are attributable to partial information that is activated in implicit memory but not fully articulated. They are not, however, attributable to direct access to the target-an hypothesis that Koriat specifically repudiates. While there is considerable merit in the distinction that Koriat draws, and his emphasis on the possibility that people base at least some of their metacognitive judgments on implicit information seems well founded, it is argued (...) that his rejection of the direct access view is premature. There may be a state-a true noetic state-in which people actually know the answer before they are able to express it. A case is made for further consideration of the scientific merits of the direct-access view of the noetic feelings people experience in imminent tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) states. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to provide an initial defense of a neglected epistemology of value according to which a fundamental mode of access to evaluative facts and properties is constituted by a distinctive kind of feeling, sometimes called ‘value feeling’. The paper defends the appeal to value feelings against some objections that have been leveled against it, objections intended to show that it is a nonstarter. The paper argues that these objections can be met and (...) that the view that there are such value feelings constitutes a reasonable hypothesis. (shrink)

Unusual among Western philosophers, Schopenhauer explicitly drew on Hindu and especially Buddhist traditions inhis moral philosophy. He saw plurality, especially the plurality of human persons, as a kind of illusion; in reality all is one, and compassionate acts express an implicit recognition of this oneness. Max Scheler retains the transcendence of self aspect of compassion but emphasizes that the subject must have a clear, lived sense of herself as a distinct individual in order for that transcendence to take place properly. (...) This feature is absent in the Buddhist tradition. Feminist philosophers of the early second wave built on this insight (only occasionally drawing it from Scheler) to recognize ways women are often not socialized to develop this distinctive sense of self, therefore harming their ability to engage in compassion and other forms of care for others. Iris Murdoch adds a Freudian-inspired (though Freud influenced Scheler also) pessimism about the ability of humans to keep their identities sufficiently distinct from the other to allow a clear view of the other, and thus real care and help to the other to take place. But in her later work, Murdoch explicitly recognizes and draws on the Buddhist tradition of oneness and transcendence of the self. Group solidarities can partake of aspects of Buddhist oneness and self-transcendence, for example the sense of fellowship in a social justice movement in which Blacks draw on a shared identity to experience connection, compassion, empathy, and solidarity with one another. But social justice movements also allow for a solidarity across racial lines, grounded in the shared commitment to justice, including justice for one of the groups in the solidarity community. (All these issues are powerfully portrayed in the 2014 film, Selma.) None of these solidarities, however, express the universalistic dimension of Buddhist oneness. (shrink)

This paper examines the model of the emotions put forward by Reinach and Scheler at the beginning of the 20th century and presents it as a plausible alternative to the contemporary “perceptual model.” According to the Reinach-Scheler view, emotions are not perceptions of value, but possible responses to values given to us in value-feelings. The paper is divided into two parts. The first is an historical investigation of the origins of the model in Reinach’s and Scheler’s works within the (...) broader context of early phenomenology. The second part presents systematic arguments for the distinction between value-feeling and emotional response. (shrink)

Several important discussions of Bradley’s ethical theory have recently appeared, among which is Professor Don MacNiven’s interesting paper on Bradley’s critical analyses of Utilitarian and Kantian ethics. In addition to directing us to central features in, and problems with, Bradley’s understanding of these doctrines, MacNiven correctly emphasizes the role of psychological discussions in Ethical Studies and remarks the distinction Bradley made between the moralist and the moral philosopher. Bradley is trying to understand moral experience, “the world of the thinking, (...) class='Hi'>feeling moral agent, living his or her life out in the concrete context of family, society, and state,” and theories or systems of ethics are being judged according to their ability to illuminate that experience. MacNiven’s main concern is with Bradley’s arguments that neither utilitarianism and the empirical psychology on which it is grounded nor the Kantian ethics and the rational psychology that grounds it can satisfactorily explain moral experience. I do not wish to discuss these here. Rather, I want to offer some remarks about a topic that is introduced in MacNiven’s article but not discussed there because it is outside the scope of that paper. The topic arises when MacNiven mentions consistency and contradiction. He notes Bradley’s rejection of pure formalism in ethics, a purely formal theory being characterized as advocating the practical maxim, “realize non-contradiction”. One would be surprised to discover that Bradley thought such a view totally wrongheaded, and MacNiven rightly remarks that it “would be odd for Bradley to deny consistency a role in moral thought. After all, the principle of noncontradiction is fundamental for Bradley’s metaphysics and his coherence theory of truth.” However, as MacNiven would recognize, we need not be directed forward to Appearance and Reality to be assured of this, for noncontradiction has a central place in Ethical Studies. What is perhaps surprising is that there we are presented with the notion of a felt contradiction. In fact, there is considerable mention of feelings in Ethical Studies, and the notions of harmony and felt unity as well as that of a felt contradiction appear to be especially important. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between empirical psychology, transcendental critique, and phenomenology in Kant’s discussion of respect for the moral law, particularly as that is found in the Critique of Practical Reason. I first offer an empirical-psychological reading of moral respect, in the context of which I distinguish transcendental and empirical perspectives on moral action and defend H. J. Paton’s claim that moral motivation can be seen from two points of view, where “from one point of view, [respect] (...) is the cause of our action, but from another point of view the moral law is its ground.” Then, after a discussion of a distinction between first- and second-order transcendental/practical perspectives where reasons for action are first-order practical judgments while the conditions of possibility for those reasons’ authority are expressed in second-order judgments, I turn to a third kind of perspective: the properly phenomenological one. I explain the general notion of Kantian phenomenology with an example of the experience of time from Kant’s Anthropology before applying this to a phenomenological reading of the discussion of respect in the Critique of Practical Reason. I end by noting that on my account, in contrast to that of Jeanine Grenberg, the distinctive phenomenology of respect is not systematically important for grounding claims in moral philosophy. (shrink)

Hughes argues that in the Analytic of the Beautiful Kant introduces an account of feeling that operates as a non-cognitive and yet reflective form of awareness. The range of modes of awareness – which hitherto comprised sensible intuitions, concepts of understanding and conceptually determining judgments, but also ideas and principles of reason – is extended to include a new distinctively aesthetic type of judgments that have feeling as their ground. Crucially, Kant views this development as the condition of (...) the integrity of his critical system. (shrink)

The aim of the present paper is to evaluate the notion of collective guilt feeling both in the light of research in affectivity and in collective intentionality. The paper is divided into an introduction and three main sections. Section 1) highlights relevant features of guilt‐family emotions such as the relation between feeling guilt and objective guilt, the relation between feeling guilt and its content, and the relation between feeling guilt and the ‘self’. Moreover, the distinction between (...) feeling guilt and feeling regret is given due attention. Section 2) examines Margaret Gilbert's arguments in favor of a collectivist view of collective guilt feeling , according to which groups do genuinely feel guilt. Against the collectivist position I argue for an individualist ‘membership account’ of collective guilt feeling in terms of individual members' we‐feeling of guilt. The membership account of collective guilt feeling is vindicated on grounds of a naturalist and non‐judgmentalist understanding of emotions, as well as on the logic of personal pronouns. It combines individualism regarding the subject of the feeling with collectivism regarding the irreducibility of we‐feelings and provides, as I further argue, the required moral force attributed to collective guilt feeling. The concern of section 3) is the question of the appropriate emotional response to collective wrongdoing. I argue against the view that group members are categorically ‘committed to feel guilt as a body’ for wrongdoings committed by the group. Given that individual members often do not participate in their groups' wrongdoings, it seems unjust to impose a requirement for feeling guilt upon them. I suggest that in a general account of the appropriate assessment of collective wrongdoing, feeling regret is the better candidate than feeling guilt for the role of the minimally required emotional response.For us collectively to feel guilt over our action A is for us to be jointly committed to feeling guilt as a body over our action A. [. . .] The parties [. . .] constitute, as far as possible, a single subject of guilt feelings .[A] collective cannot respond affectively [. . .], only its constitutive members can. The lack of an affective counter‐response is troubling, because the efficacy of responses of accountability partially depends upon affect. The response of shame, guilt, and regret help to register the significance of the harm. (shrink)

Human subjects seem to have a type of introspective access to their mental states that allows them to immediately judge the types and intensities of their occurrent emotions, as well as what those emotions are about or “directed at”. Such judgments manifest what I call “emotion-direction beliefs”, which, if reliably produced, may constitute emotion-direction knowledge. Many psychologists have argued that the “directed emotions” such beliefs represent have a componential structure, one that includes feelings of emotional responses and related but independent (...) representations of what those feelings are about. I argue that such componentiality may help to explain how emotion-direction knowledge is achievable. I begin by developing a hybrid view of introspection that combines David Chalmers’ phenomenal realism with Alvin Goldman’s “partial redeployment” account of meta-belief content. I then provide a process-reliabilist account of introspectively gained emotion-direction knowledge that outlines the minimum conditions of reliably forming emotion-direction beliefs, and specifies several ways in which the warrant of such beliefs could be defeated by relevant counterfactual alternatives. The overall account suggests how distinct introspective processes might be epistemically synergistic. (shrink)

Jesse Prinz (2004) argues that emotional feelings (“state emotions”) can by themselves perceptually represent significant organism-environment relations. I object to this view mainly on the grounds that (1) it does not rule out the at least equally plausible view that emotional feelings are non-representational sensory registrations rather than perceptions, as Tyler Burge (2010) draws the distinction, and (2) perception of a relation requires perception of at least one of the relation’s relata, but an emotional feeling by itself (...) perceives neither the subject’s environment, nor in many cases the relevant subject itself. I then explore two ways in which emotional feelings as non-perceptual sensory registrations might still contribute to significant relation representation when associated with representations of the subject and/or its environment. After briefly discussing some difficulties presented by a multimodal, sensory-perceptual view of such representation, I argue in favor of a “cognitive recognition theory” that holds that significant relation instances are represented during emotion occurrences via applications of emotion-type concepts to "incoming" emotional feelings and their associated mental states. (shrink)

This monograph is a systematic defence of the views of key figures in the 18th-century sentimentalist tradition. It aims to explain, to borrow Thomas Nagel's phrase, the very possibility of altruism in a way that engages with contemporary meta-ethics. The details of the account are primarily taken from the work of Francis Hutcheson, although the work of Shaftesbury also receives extended consideration. The author argues that the basis of our admiration for disinterested altruism is simply an innate human instinct, an (...) ‘affective sensitivity’ that is distinct from our capacity to reason. We instinctively seek our own happiness and instinctively approve of the disinterested altruism displayed by others. This affective sensitivity is distinctively valuable, essential for motivation and a crucial element in the justification of altruism. Filonowicz's defence of his central thesis is interleaved with his readings of the historical works that constitute, in his words, the ‘short and rather melancholic’ history of the sentimentalist school .The key philosophical question is what a Hutchesonian moral sense is supposed to be. The Hutchesonian conception seems an unhappy hybrid …. (shrink)

The general context of this writing is that of finding exits both from dualism and from reductive physicalism. Dualism—the attitude of seeing and taking things according to a fixed absolute distinction, with mind as invisible, conscious ‘containing’ the thought, feeling and sensation ‘hidden’ by body. Reductive physicalism—the attempt to grasp and be satisfied with body as left over by dualism's rape of its mentality, dualism's refusal to recognize the distinctiveness of point of view, as requiring a bodily mentality. (...) Physicalism finally supplants an ‘inner life’ within the bodily vacancy after all, as in traditional dualist image, but now understands that ‘inner’, ‘conscious’ life in the terms pertaining to processes in the brain, rather than as deeds, passions, thoughts, reasoning as within the general ‘imaginary’ of our several minds. (shrink)

In the past 60 years or so, the philosophical subject of artistic expression has generally been handled as an inquiry into the artistic expression of emotion. In my view this has led to a distortion of the relevant territory, to the artistic expression of feeling’s too often being overlooked. I explicate the emotion-feeling distinction in modern terms, and urge that the expression of feeling is too central to be waived off as outside the proper philosophical subject (...) of artistic expression. Restricting the discussion to the art of painting, I sketch a partial psychological model for the exrtistic expression of feelipression of feeling. Although the feeling-emotion contrast is seldom made clear in their writings, I stress that many, or even most of the eminent pre-1960’s voices in aesthetics and art criticism—Croce, Dewey, Langer, Bosanquet, Berenson and others—would more or less agree that feeling is no less important for expression than emotion, and indeed can be interpreted as anticipating many points that I set forth. (shrink)

The intuitive view that memories are characterized by a feeling of pastness, perceptions by a feeling of presence, while imagination lacks either faces challenges from two sides. Some researchers complain that the “feeling of pastness” is either unclear, irrelevant or isn’t a real feature. Others point out that there are cases of memory without the feeling of pastness, perception without presence, and other cross-cutting cases. Here we argue that the feeling of pastness is indeed (...) a real, useful feature, and although this feeling does not define memory ontologically, it is a characteristic marker which helps us easily categorise a mental state first-personally. We outline several cognitive features that underlie this experience, including the feeling of past accessibility, ergonomic significance, immersion, objectivity and mental strength. Our account is distinctly phenomenal, rather than doxastic, although our web of beliefs may contribute to this experience. (shrink)

It is not necessarily the case that we ever have experiences of self, but human beings do regularly report instances for which self is experienced as absent. That is there are times when body parts, mental states, or actions are felt to be alien. Here I sketch an explanatory framework for explaining these alienation experiences, a framework that also attempts to explain the “mental glue” whereby self is bound to body, mind, or action. The framework is a multi-dimensional model that (...) integrates personal and sub-personal components, psychological and neural processes. I then proceed to show how this model can be applied to explain the action-related passivity experiences of persons suffering from schizophrenia. I argue that a distinctive phenomenological mark of these experiences is that they are vividly felt, unlike ordinary actions (those taken to belong to self), and I seek to explain these heightened sensory experiences from within the proposed framework. I also propose hypotheses concerning such phenomena as thought insertion and anarchic hand syndrome that are motivated by this framework. Finally, I argue that the proposed model and view of self-experiences is consistent with several aspects of and theories of consciousness, especially theories which indicate that consciousness is more likely to be engaged when we are dealing with novelty or error—e.g. when self seems to have gone missing. I conclude by recommending that if we wish to learn about self, we would be well advised to attend closely to those times when it seems absent. (shrink)

Emotion theorists in contemporary discussion have divided into two camps. The one claims that emotions are reducible to bodily feelings; the other holds that emotions are reducible to belief, desire or evaluative judgement. In an effort to avoid such reductionist view, Goldie suggests that emotions involve two kinds of feelings: bodily feel­ings and feeling towards. In spite of Goldie’s efforts, I argue that ex­plaining our emotional disposition in terms of ‘feeling toward’ re­mains distinctly unsatisfactory. Furthermore, though sympathetic (...) to his project, I give reasons for doubting that there are two such distinct kinds of feeling, one of which has only borrowed intentionality, while the other has intentionality intrinsically. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Aristotle on Thought and Feeling by Paula GottliebCorinne GartnerPaula Gottlieb. Aristotle on Thought and Feeling. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. Pp. 173. Hardback, $99.99.Paula Gottlieb's recent book is an illuminating, synoptic study of Aristotle's theory of human motivation, according to which his innovative notion of prohairesis (choice)—specifically, the virtuous agent's prohairesis—is the cornerstone. She argues against both Kantian-flavored readings, which prioritize reason's role in motivating ethical (...) action, and Humean-flavored readings, which emphasize the virtuous agent's well-habituated feelings. Gottlieb's account explains how the virtuous agent's prohairesis incorporates his or her feelings, desires, and thoughts, building in the motivational contributions of both the rational and nonrational parts of the psyche. The resulting treatment does justice to Aristotle's prima facie incongruous characterizations of prohairesis: on the one hand, it is the conclusion of deliberation, an explicitly rational process; on the other, it is an expression of character virtue.Although prohairesis is the unifying focus of the book, Gottlieb's project touches on a number of related controversies concerning Aristotle's ethics, including the process of moral habituation, the thorny phenomenon of akrasia, the relationship between contemplation and practically virtuous activity, and how to conceive of the connection between the aesthetic and ethical sides of to kalon (the fine). And it does so in a way that is attuned to ongoing scholarly debates without getting bogged down in them. Similarly, while she primarily concerns herself with the Nicomachean Ethics, Gottlieb helpfully draws upon material from other parts of the corpus—for example, she invokes, with appropriate caveats, Aristotle's discussion of feelings in the Rhetoric as well as De Anima. Lastly, some interesting subsidiary motifs animate the book, perhaps the most novel and provocative of which is the through line that connects her insightful understanding of eleos—which she translates, with helpful qualifications, as "sympathy" rather than "pity" (31)—with learning to be virtuous, as her fresh reading of Aristotle's Neoptolemus case exemplifies (98–102, 134–35). According to Gottlieb's hybridized picture of the good person's motivation, in the rational part of the soul the agent's wish is channeled via deliberation, which itself involves situation-specific information from the feelings, into the agent's prohairesis. In the nonrational part of the soul, the agent experiences a feeling that, strictly speaking, includes (a) a physiological component; (b) an impression of the circumstances, itself partly shaped by the agent's thought; and (c) a specific desire (chapter 2). The virtuous agent's nonrational desire will always correspond to—indeed, it, too, is channeled into—his or her prohairesis (79), the unified desiderative thought or thoughtful desire (NE VI.2, 1139b4–5), from which he or she then acts (chapter 4). The virtuous agent never experiences even mild psychic conflict, having a fully integrated soul whose two parts are in perfect harmony.At some points of Gottlieb's discussion, it seems as if all of these psychic components involved in the production of an action actually constitute the agent's prohairesis, while in other places it seems as though prohairesis is the discrete desiderative product. If one adopts the former conception, it is difficult to make sense of Aristotle's claim that the choice of the akratic agent, who acts on his or her errant nonrational desire, is correct. It turns out that the akratic agent's choice is correct because he or she has rightly judged what he or she should do, but it is distinct in composition from the good person's choice, since it does not [End Page 703] include his or her nonrational desire. One consequence of Gottlieb's view is thus that, as she indicates, the good person's prohairesis is sui generis. Another consequence is that, within the nonrational part of the soul, there may be physiological responses plus accompanying impressions (phantasiai) that, it seems, contain "motivational oomph" (40) but do not get channeled into desires. While her view avoids conflating the virtuous agent and the enkratic agent (who, despite acting correctly, experiences an occurrent nonrational desire to the contrary), there may be cases in which the virtuous... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.3 (2002) 285-286 [Access article in PDF] Depersonalization and Feelings of Unreality:Significant Symptoms With a Variety of Meanings Kjell Modigh Evaluations and diagnostic procedures in clinical psychiatry depend mainly on how the patient communicates his or her subjective experiences and on the psychiatrist's ability to understand that message. This is critical not only for understanding and offering proper treatment, but also for developing diagnostic classifications. (...) Hence the paper by Radovic and Radovic deals with an important topic, aiming to clarify the variety of meanings of the closely related terms unreality and depersonalization. The latter occurs as a symptom in connection to some psychiatric disorder and also constitutes a separate syndromeI agree with the authors that the rather intense renewing of the diagnostic criteria is seldom balanced by corresponding ambitions to analyze and improve the distinctness of the words for the experiences and symptoms which define the diagnoses.It is indeed a difficult task to demarcate what should be included in the concepts feelings of unreality and depersonalization and even to decide whether they are synonyms or distinguishable. There is at least one clear agreement in the different diagnostic systems: psychotic, delusional experiences are excluded. The border between unreality feelings with largely intact reality-testing ability and psychotic disorders with grossly disturbed reality-testing is, however, not absolute and patients with psychotic disorders may of course experience feelings of unreality or depersonalizationThe authors present a useful scheme by which different meanings of derealization are separated and that also points out the differences between depersonalization and derealization, although they are mutually dependant. Category (a), which come closest to depersonalization, includes experiences related to the self, whereas category (c) refers to impressions that the external world is unreal. Category (b), in their scheme, refers to altered bodily sensations: "the body part of the self" (Are there any body parts of the self? Perhaps all psychoanalysts would not agree).In my view, this scheme is useful and corresponds to clinical realities. Symptoms belonging to category (a) can, for instance, occur in affective disorders of almost psychotic depth, due to a [End Page 285] pathologically changed self-esteem. Symptoms belonging to category (b)—experiences of having moved outside one's own body—mainly belong to the diagnostic category dissociative disorders and can be understood as defense reactions to earlier traumatic experiences. The self escaped from the body during repeated experiences of sexual abuse. The diagnosis of depersonalization disorder consequentlybelongs to the group of dissociative disorders. Conditions where the outer world seems unreal (category [c]) can occur when the amount of internal stimuli is increased beyond what is possible to handle and therefore the capacity to recognize the environment is limited. So is the case in severe panic anxiety. Feelings of unreality as part of grief reactions may also belong, at least partly, to category (c): when dramatic and emotionally unacceptable events occur in the environment. As the authors point out, expressions of unreality feelings during grief more often can be understood as metaphors or existential reflections. In conclusion, categories -(a) and (c) can serve to separate depersonalization experiences with different psychopathologic origin, although they are closely related.As a second step, the authors examine how the terms unreal and feels unreal can be understood. Two interpretations of unreal, "nonexistent" and "artificial," have high psychiatric relevance; a third meaning, relating to "quality," mainly has linguistic connections to the experiences on unreality and depersonalization. The word feels communicates the experience of something that appears unreal although the subject has an intact ability of reality testing.The authors propose an additional interpretation, which they describe as a quasisensory experience. They give the example that dreams with unrealistic contents in some meaning, probably related to their intensity, appear "real." A further connection to dreams is that a situation, when awake, may have dreamlike qualities because of intensity or similarities to fragments of dreams. Events that occur in an unusual sequences, for example, corresponding to ones aims and wishes ("to good to be true") perhaps have similarities to dreamlike experiences. One may... (shrink)

In §3 of the Critique of Judgement Kant argues that if the feeling of pleasure were a sensation distinct from whatever representation gives rise to the feeling, then we would be – in the terminology of the Metaphysics of Morals – rational beings but not moral beings ; we would inescapably be hedonists. I reconstruct this at first glance strange argument and suggest, first, that Kant’s actual view of pleasure is an attitudinal theory that avoids the problem (...) of hedonism. Second, the argument of §3 is to be understood in the context of Kant’s emphasis on moral feeling and its cultivation in his writings since the Critique of Practical Reason. (shrink)

This monograph is a systematic defence of the views of key figures in the 18th-century sentimentalist tradition. It aims to explain, to borrow Thomas Nagel's phrase, the very possibility of altruism in a way that engages with contemporary meta-ethics. The details of the account are primarily taken from the work of Francis Hutcheson, although the work of Shaftesbury also receives extended consideration. The author argues that the basis of our admiration for disinterested altruism is simply an innate human instinct, an (...) ‘affective sensitivity’ that is distinct from our capacity to reason. We instinctively seek our own happiness and instinctively approve of the disinterested altruism displayed by others. This affective sensitivity is distinctively valuable, essential for motivation and a crucial element in the justification of altruism. Filonowicz's defence of his central thesis is interleaved with his readings of the historical works that constitute, in his words, the ‘short and rather melancholic’ history of the sentimentalist school.The key philosophical question is what a Hutchesonian moral sense is supposed to be. The Hutchesonian conception seems an unhappy hybrid …. (shrink)

Adam Morton, Stephen de Wijze, Hillel Steiner, and Eve Garrard have defended the view that evil action is qualitatively distinct from ordinary wrongdoing. By this, they do not that mean that evil actions feel different to ordinary wrongs, but that they have motives or effects that are not possessed to any degree by ordinary wrongs. Despite their professed intentions, Morton and de Wijze both offer accounts of evil action that fail to identify a clear qualitative difference between evil and (...) ordinary wrongdoing. In contrast, both Steiner's and Garrard's accounts of evil do point to qualitative distinctions between kinds of action, but it is implausible that either account correctly characterizes evil. The most plausible accounts maintain that evil actions have a necessary connection to extreme harms, and this suggests that evil is not qualitatively distinct from ordinary wrongdoing. (shrink)

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 constituted by cognitive states, as these feelings towards value are neither reducible to, nor to be (...) thought along the lines of, judgements, perceptions, or other mental states. (shrink)

Feeling bad is one thing, judging something to be bad another. This hot/cold distinction helps resolve the debate between bipolar and bivariate accounts of affect. A typical affective reaction includes both core affect and judgments of the affective qualities of various aspects of the stimulus situation. Core affect is described by a bipolar valence dimension in which feeling good precludes simultaneously feeling bad and vice versa. Judgments of affective quality of opposite valence can occur simultaneously because the (...) stimulus situation has many aspects. Affective reaction can also include an emotional meta-experience, which can, but rarely does, embrace simultaneous emotion categories of opposite valence. (shrink)

This paper evaluates Mangan’s (1993) analysis of the way feelings at the fringes of consciousness provide global evaluations of what is happening at the focus of attention in ways that allow the human mind to direct its activities in an effective, adaptive way—elaborating on a distinction between fringe consciousness and focal-attentive consciousness originally developed by William James. The paper argues that, while Mangan’s analysis is a plausible account of mental operations, viewed from a first-person perspective, it is inconsistent with a (...) detailed account of human information processing viewed from a third-person perspective, which largely operates in an unconscious fashion. It also ignores classical problems relating to consciousness-brain causal interaction in philosophy of mind, and the subtlety different ways in which information processing can be said to be “conscious”. The paper then offers an alternative interpretation of the evidence (following Velmans, 1991) in which first- and third-person accounts of mental processing are complementary and mutually irreducible. (shrink)

The feeling of being alive still constitutes a major blind spot of contemporary affective sciences research. The mainstream view accepts it as an ‘umbrella notion’ comprising different states, such as M. Ratcliffe’s «feelings of being», T. Fuchs’s «feeling of being alive», E.M. Engelen’s «Gefühl des Lebendigseins», etc. In contrast, I argue for an account of the feeling of being alive as a unique feeling that can be described in several ways. Empirical support for this (...) class='Hi'>view comes mainly from Carvalho and Damasio’s hypothesis of the distinctiveness of the interoceptive system as the physiological underpinning of this feeling. This account is also in line with many other approaches recognizing the role of interoception proper in mind and subjectivity grounding, collected by Tsakiris and De Presteer. Over recent decades, Damasio’s organic descriptions have been widely acknowledged as neurophysiological counterparts of philosophical/psychological concepts. However, in my view they have been often misinterpreted, especially due to the mainstream Ratcliffian interpretation mediating his ideas amongst philosophers. Throughout the paper, a critical inquiry into Damasio’s conceptualization is provided, by means of conceptual analysis and an overall taxonomy of the several affective states he has proposed over the past few decades. Ultimately, a critical discussion of his own account of the feeling of being alive is offered from a philosophical viewpoint. (shrink)

The work of Sara Ahmed and Judith Butler exemplifies a recent concern with the politics of affect. Their distinctive contributions are informed by phenomenological accounts of passivity and agency. They view affect as critical to the articulation of social and political space, as well as to the individuation of embodied agents; for each, affect is key to an account of critical engagement. Their at-tention to affective economies also reflects their concern with the dynamics of exclusion, concealment, and marginalization, (...) and thus their powerful insights into the politics of affect contribute to our understanding of the role that affect plays in both the formation of normative orientations over time, and also to their potential disruption and transformation.Le travail de Sara Ahmed et Judith Butler illustre une préoccupation récente pour la politique de l’affect. Leurs contributions distinctives sont éclairées par des récits phénoménologiques de passivité et d’agentivité. Elles considèrent l’affect comme essentiel à l’articulation de l’espace social et politique, ainsi qu’à l’individuation des agents incarnés; pour chacune, l’affect est la clé d’engagement critique. Leur attention aux économies affectives reflète également leur préoccupation pour les dynamiques d’exclusion, de dissimulation et de marginalisation, et ainsi leur puissante connaissance de la politique de l’affect contribue à notre compréhension du rôle que joue l’affect dans le modelage des orientations normatives au fil du temps et leur perturbation et trans-formation potentielles. (shrink)

An important part of Hume's philosophy is grounded in a fundamental distinction between two kinds of perceptions: impressions and ideas. Existing views of the distinction are that the former are livelier than the latter, that the former are causally prior to the latter, that the latter are copies of the former, that the former but not the latter are perceptions of an objective realm, and that the former are feelings whereas the latter are thoughts. I argue that all of these (...) views of the distinction are problematic and should be replaced by the Reflection view, according to which (simple) ideas are, while impressions are not, the direct products of reflection on other perceptions. (shrink)

Matthew Ratcliffe has argued that existential feelings form a distinct class of bodily and non-conceptual feelings that pre-intentionally structure our intentional experience of others, the world, and ourselves. In this article, I will identify and discuss three interrelated areas of concern for Ratcliffe’s theory of existential feelings. First, the distinct senses in which existential feelings are felt as background bodily feelings and as spaces of possibility calls for further clarification. Second, the nature of the suggested bi-directional relationship between existential feelings (...) and intentional experience remains ambiguous. Third, viewed in light of existential guilt, the categorically non-conceptual nature of existential feelings may not be as definite as presumed. The aim of the article is to draw critical attention to aspects of the theory that would benefit from further development, and therefore, to advance the ongoing discussion about existential feelings. (shrink)

This paper explores Landmann-Kalischer’s analogy between the sensing of secondary qualities and the feeling of values in her work “Philosophie der Werte” (Philosophy of Values) (1910). Attention is paid to the epistemic motivation of the analogy, the distinction between pure feelings and affects, and the relation of pure feelings to value judgments. Her account is contrasted with two other accounts of the Brentanian tradition: Scheler’s approach within early phenomenology and Meinong’s account within the Graz School. I demonstrate that Landmann-Kalischer’s (...) pioneering work helped to forge a new view of affectivity which became dominant among Brentano’s followers. According to this new view, there is a type of affective experience which is both intentional and cognitive. More precisely, she argued that the affective experience in question is a feeling. The paper also argues that her account can enrich today’s meta-ethical research. It is argued that her account of pure feelings provides arguments against the view that makes emotions responsible for the apprehension of value. Furthermore, it is shown that we need an analysis of how objective knowledge of value can be obtained from our affective intuitions. -/- . (shrink)

Kupperman (1995) advances an anti-essentialist view of emotions in which he suggests that there can be emotion without feeling or affect, emotion without corresponding motivation, and emotion without an intentional relation to an object such that the emotion is about that object in some way. In this reply to Kupperman's essay, I suggest a number of problems with his rejection of the essentialist position. I argue that in his discussion of feelings Kupperman is crucially not clear about the (...) distinction between the ascription of emotions by others versus the experience of emotions by an individual. Furthermore, I also question his analysis of the role of linguistic empiricism in philosophy and psychology. With respect to Kupperman's analysis of intentionality, I argue that he confuses the ability to readily identify intentional objects with the issue of their actual existence. Finally, I suggest that Kupperman confuses the concepts of action and motivation in his discussion of motivation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume XXIV, Number 2, November 1998, pp. 295-311 Hume's Wide View of the Virtues: An Analysis of his Early Critics JAMES FIESER Hume discusses about 70 different virtues in his moral theory. Many of these are traditional virtues and have clear moral significance, such as benevolence, charity, honesty, wisdom, and honor. However, Hume also includes in his list of virtues some character traits whose moral significance (...) is not immediately obvious, such as wit, good manners, and dialogue. Mid-eighteenth century critics of Hume's moral theory almost unanimously felt that his notion of virtue was too broad and that Hume should have distinguished between genuine moral virtues, on the one hand, and mere intellectual abilities on the other. According to the critics, grouping the two together devalues the true virtues. Hume was aware that his broad understanding of the virtues was controversial and we know from his letters that he read at least some of these critiques. He nevertheless vigorously defended his position. Although Hume sees this as an issue worthy of defending, contemporary Hume scholarship has neither discussed the nature of the eighteenth century criticisms nor given adequate attention to the success or failure of Hume's position. I address these issues here. I begin by presenting Hume's defense of his wide view of the virtues as it appears in both the Treatise and the Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals.1 Then I chronologically present early criticisms of Hume's view, including those by Francis Hutcheson, James Balfour, John Leland, and James Beattie. From these early discussions I suggest that we find three criteria to distinguish between genuine moral virtues, such as justice, and James Fieser is at the Department of Philosophy, University of Tennessee at Martin, Martin TN 38238 USA. email: [email protected] 296 James Fieser less morally urgent intellectual abilities, such as industriousness. The three criteria are: (1) moral virtues are a matter of choice and intellectual abilities are not; (2) moral virtues by themsleves aim at a good end and intellectual abilities by themselves do not necessarily do so; and (3) moral virtues are such that the failure to obtain them incites blame, whereas the failure to obtain intellectual abilities does not incite blame. Although I believe that the first criterion fails, I argue that the second and third criteria provide reasonable ways of distinguishing moral virtues from intellectual abilities. Hume's Argument Hume's first account of the wide scope of the virtues appears in Book III, Part iii, of the Treatise, published in 1740. His main criterion in determining the virtue of an agent's character trait is whether the action it produces has consequences that trigger symapthetic feelings of moral pleasure2 in the minds of spectators (T 574-575). In Section 4, entitled "Of Natural Abilities," he argues that the distinction between natural abilities and moral virtues is unfounded since both groups of mental qualities bring forth the same sympathetic moral feelings in the spectator (T 606-614). Anticipating objections, Hume considers several possible points of distinction between natural abilities and moral virtues, but then rejects them all. First, he considers that the precise feelings elicited in the spectator designate two separate classes. Hume's reply is that the precise feelings elicited by each virtue (for example, benevolence, charity, justice) are also distinct in minute ways. Nevertheless, we still classify all such elicited responses as feelings of moral approval. Second, he considers that natural abilities are involuntary whereas moral virtues are the result of free will. Hume's reply is that many involuntary abilities, such as fortitude, have classically been catalogued as virtues. He adds that there is no conceivable reason why any involuntary quality of an agent mazy not produce sympathetic pleasure in the spectator. Third, Hume considers that habits relevant to moral virtues can be altered through reward and punishment, whereas habits relevant to natural abilities are more fixed and cannot be altered by these means. Hume's reply is that if we are not biased by such moral systems, then this distinction would not even arise. In An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals (1751), published eleven years later, Hume presents the broad... (shrink)

Drawing on 45 interviews, this article addresses how heterosexual men and women respond to and discuss opposite and same-sex nude images in distinctive ways. Viewing both female and male nudes provides an opportunity to observe the sexual and gender identity work men and women perform when confronted with this cultural object. Both men and women have access to shared, readily available cultural scripts for interpreting and responding to female nude images. Neither men nor women are culturally adept at the (...) interpretation and use of nude male images, particularly the man in the soft porn frame. Men respond to this male nude with overt rejection and stated disinterest. Women are more likely to reject the seductive advance or welcome it with attached feelings of guilt. (shrink)

This paper tackles the issue of the diversity of déjà experiences. According to the standard view in the neuropsychological literature, they should all be defined by means of a psychological criterion, by which they are experiences triggered by a perceived item and consist of a conscious clash between a first-order feeling of familiarity about the item and a second-order evaluation that assesses the first-order feeling as erroneous. This paper dismisses the standard view and contends there are (...) two types of déjà experiences, labeled déjà vu and déjà vécu respectively. But it also takes issue with the rare proponents of a distinct déjà vécu type. Contrary to their achievement view, it argues that recollection is not involved in déjà vécu experiences as an actual mental state or a component thereof. In our ability view, déjà vécu involves the feeling that one could recollect past occurrences of a currently lived episode of experience. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 12.1 (2004) 60-63 [Access article in PDF] Response to Bennett Reimer, "Once More with Feeling: Reconciling Discrepant Accounts of Musical Affect" Constantijn Koopman University of Nijmegen and Royal Conservatory of the Hague, The Netherlands Bennett Reimer has pointed out the crucial distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic meaning or, in his terminology, between inherent and delineated meaning. He has eloquently described how feeling (...) in music can be both of the inherent type and of the delineated type and has argued that both types of meaning can coexist. There is no point in denying the validity of either of them; rather the challenge is to develop a view which allows us to combine both perspectives of musical meaning into a unified musical practice.As far as I am concerned, Reimer has succeeded in his reconciliatory approach. Therefore, rather than providing criticism, I would like further to elaborate on the subject. First, I shall examine the difference between the two types of meaning Reimer has illustrated in his examples: feeling as a part of inherent meaning and feeling as portrayed or represented. Then, I shall briefly discuss the problem of articulating these two types of meaning and its educational implications.When reflecting on inherent and delineated meaning, I find that the dichotomy [End Page 60] goes beyond the opposition between intrinsic and extrinsic. We are also dealing with different versions of the concept of meaning; different meanings of 'meaning' so to speak. In the case of feelings, actions, or objects portrayed in music we have a rather unproblematic use of the meaning concept-meaning as reference. Music functions as a meaning bearer that directs our attention to something beyond itself. Musical structure is used to represent something that exists independently of music. With Charles S. Peirce, we might say that it serves the function of an "icon." The iconic sign has a form which is similar to the thing it denotes.1 Similarity may have the form of direct resemblance but it may also may be based on analogy. I guess that both kinds of portrayal were present in the Chinese swamp battle piece. Battle sounds can easily be imitated by musical instruments and violent movement and feelings can be represented by analogous tonal movement.With inherent meaning, things are different. Feelings are not pointed to and represented by musical structure; instead they are experienced by the person who engages in music. This is in line, I suppose, with Reimer's exposition; not only does he say that feeling is contained and expressed in sounds but also that feeling is undergone by the performer and the listener. What precisely is the place of inherent feeling in music? Feelings are not contained in the sense that they require an act of decoding so that by interpreting the musical structure we can decipher its affective contents. Nor is it appropriate simply to declare that musical feelings are caused by musical perception. Such an explanation suggests that feelings are a secondary phenomenon in music, a sort of byproduct of musical cognition; first the music is conceived in a cognitive act, then feelings are released. But in fact feeling is much more directly and actively involved in musical experience; it is vital to the constitution of the musical object. For example, to appreciate the specific character and import of themes and motifs we have to sense their affective value. We realize the power of rhythms by feeling them in our body. Chords and chord progressions are perceived as subtle qualities of tension and release. Only by feeling the curve of tension and release can we appreciate how the work progresses-whether the music is moving forward or coming to closure, whether a climax is prepared or there is consolidation, whether a case of closure is partial or final. Likewise, the perception of contrasting musical episodes-like soft versus rough, supple versus stubborn, warm versus frigid-involves the participation of feeling. In short, the function of feeling contributes a major part to the constitution of the musical... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 12.1 (2004) 55-59 [Access article in PDF] Response to Bennett Reimer, "Once More with Feeling: Reconciling Discrepant Accounts of Musical Affect" Charlene Morton University of British Columbia, Canada In A Philosophy of Music Education, Bennett Reimer reminds us that "the starting point is always an examination of values linked to the question, 'Why and for what purpose should we educate?'"1 But because, as (...) he puts it, the nature of pluralism in multicultural societies makes consensus about the purpose of education impossible, he suggests looking for the answer within the subject itself. For this reason, he returns to the debate about the relationship between inherent and delineative meaning in music. One of his objectives is to caution music educators against constructing "artificial" lessons that define musical feeling as exclusively manifest in either inherent or delineative meaning. I believe that this caution is warranted: contrived or superficial lessons can be miseducative and disappointing. I am less inclined to go the step further to investigate Reimer's position that "it is the complex middle-where both dimensions of music's power help shape and reshape musical reception-that poses the provocative dilemmas" because, although I acknowledge that sound stimulates psycho-physiological reactions, I am more sympathetic with Tia DeNora's observation that we need to think more [End Page 55] about "an interactionist conception of musical affect that moves beyond conundrums concerning whether music's affect is 'immanent' or 'attributed.'"2DeNora explains an interactionist conception of musical affect as an "appropriation of aesthetic materials" by consumers to construct meaning and identity in the context of their everyday lives.3 Her observation and research affirms John Shepherd's claim that music has not simply musical and extra-musical meaning but also ideological significance, "form[ing] an integral part of the social process."4 All to say that I am not going to involve myself in a conundrum revolving around inherent and delineated meaning, appreciated best by musicologists and psychologists. Instead, I want to return to "the starting point" Reimer identifies above, to a discussion about the purpose of public schooling.Beginning with the premise that people appropriate music to construct their realities and, subsequently, music has socio-political significance in how it is produced, presented, and received, I argue that, in addition to the more familiar raisons d'etre of developing subject-specific outcomes such as musicianship, musical intelligence, and, of course, musical enjoyment, music education should be better and explicitly fashioned as a path toward the broad goals of public education. Thus, the thesis of this response advocates a philosophical understanding of what music education can offer that is less about "involving all students in the very same matters to which [many of us] are devoted"-that is, musicianship, musical intelligence, and related philosophical and pedagogical conundrums-and more about realizing the purpose of education through the musical lives of students. To explore this line of thought, I will first review familiar and exceptional mission statements about the purpose of education. I will then revisit Reimer's second story which will serve as an autobiographical episode illustrating what might be educative about an interactionist understanding of musical affect. My conclusion will emphasize that although music, like "each subject studied in schools affords the student a distinctive window or frame through which the world can be viewed,"5 music educators, like all educators, should attend to teaching outside the subject itself if public schooling is to succeed in its distinctive and important mission. The Purpose of Education When anyone asked him where he came from, he said, "I am a citizen of the world."6As a starting point for her study of cosmopolitan citizenship and its importance in educational reform in the United States, Martha Nussbaum cites the words of Diogenes. Her concerns about the force and consequences of American [End Page 56] nationalism and ethnocentrism motivate her argument "for making world citizenship, rather than democratic/national citizenship, as education's central focus." She is clear that her position does not... (shrink)

In several texts, Kant announces that there are three distinct mental faculties: cognition, desire, and feeling. This trinitarian commitment should give us pause, for many people operate instead with a dualist model of reason and emotion, where desire and feeling are usually squished together under emotion. Here, as elsewhere, the Kantian model is more complicated. On Kant's view, each of the three faculties has its own specific work to do and generates its own kinds of representations. We (...) do not simply have emotions that... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 12.1 (2004) 60-63 [Access article in PDF] Response to Bennett Reimer, "Once More with Feeling: Reconciling Discrepant Accounts of Musical Affect" Constantijn Koopman University of Nijmegen and Royal Conservatory of the Hague, The Netherlands Bennett Reimer has pointed out the crucial distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic meaning or, in his terminology, between inherent and delineated meaning. He has eloquently described how feeling (...) in music can be both of the inherent type and of the delineated type and has argued that both types of meaning can coexist. There is no point in denying the validity of either of them; rather the challenge is to develop a view which allows us to combine both perspectives of musical meaning into a unified musical practice.As far as I am concerned, Reimer has succeeded in his reconciliatory approach. Therefore, rather than providing criticism, I would like further to elaborate on the subject. First, I shall examine the difference between the two types of meaning Reimer has illustrated in his examples: feeling as a part of inherent meaning and feeling as portrayed or represented. Then, I shall briefly discuss the problem of articulating these two types of meaning and its educational implications.When reflecting on inherent and delineated meaning, I find that the dichotomy [End Page 60] goes beyond the opposition between intrinsic and extrinsic. We are also dealing with different versions of the concept of meaning; different meanings of 'meaning' so to speak. In the case of feelings, actions, or objects portrayed in music we have a rather unproblematic use of the meaning concept-meaning as reference. Music functions as a meaning bearer that directs our attention to something beyond itself. Musical structure is used to represent something that exists independently of music. With Charles S. Peirce, we might say that it serves the function of an "icon." The iconic sign has a form which is similar to the thing it denotes.1 Similarity may have the form of direct resemblance but it may also may be based on analogy. I guess that both kinds of portrayal were present in the Chinese swamp battle piece. Battle sounds can easily be imitated by musical instruments and violent movement and feelings can be represented by analogous tonal movement.With inherent meaning, things are different. Feelings are not pointed to and represented by musical structure; instead they are experienced by the person who engages in music. This is in line, I suppose, with Reimer's exposition; not only does he say that feeling is contained and expressed in sounds but also that feeling is undergone by the performer and the listener. What precisely is the place of inherent feeling in music? Feelings are not contained in the sense that they require an act of decoding so that by interpreting the musical structure we can decipher its affective contents. Nor is it appropriate simply to declare that musical feelings are caused by musical perception. Such an explanation suggests that feelings are a secondary phenomenon in music, a sort of byproduct of musical cognition; first the music is conceived in a cognitive act, then feelings are released. But in fact feeling is much more directly and actively involved in musical experience; it is vital to the constitution of the musical object. For example, to appreciate the specific character and import of themes and motifs we have to sense their affective value. We realize the power of rhythms by feeling them in our body. Chords and chord progressions are perceived as subtle qualities of tension and release. Only by feeling the curve of tension and release can we appreciate how the work progresses-whether the music is moving forward or coming to closure, whether a climax is prepared or there is consolidation, whether a case of closure is partial or final. Likewise, the perception of contrasting musical episodes-like soft versus rough, supple versus stubborn, warm versus frigid-involves the participation of feeling. In short, the function of feeling contributes a major part to the constitution of the musical... (shrink)

The point of departure of Berger and Mohr’s Another Way of Telling is what they call the discovery that ‘photographs did not work as we had been taught’. Since their book was written, the same feeling of ‘discovery’ has been expressed in other writings on photography. Often, these ‘discoveries’ have been linked with the way ‘ordinary’ people have been using photography. This paper addresses this recurrence and asks what are the discursive conditions under which this understanding of photography has (...) been perceived as a ‘discovery’ whenever it has surfaced in the last 30 years. The paper analyzes the conceptual grid within the hegemonic discourse on photography that has contributed enormously to the marginalization of this new understanding of photography — the common opposition between the ‘aesthetic’ and the ‘political’, and accordingly between two seemingly contradictory judgments: ‘this is too political’; ‘this is too aesthetic’. These judgments, applied frequently to photographs taken in zones of ‘regime-made disaster’, usually differ and sometimes completely prevent the possible encounter with the photographed people who, through the photograph, are co-present with the spectators in the event of viewing the photograph. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 12.1 (2004) 55-59 [Access article in PDF] Response to Bennett Reimer, "Once More with Feeling: Reconciling Discrepant Accounts of Musical Affect" Charlene Morton University of British Columbia, Canada In A Philosophy of Music Education, Bennett Reimer reminds us that "the starting point is always an examination of values linked to the question, 'Why and for what purpose should we educate?'"1 But because, as (...) he puts it, the nature of pluralism in multicultural societies makes consensus about the purpose of education impossible, he suggests looking for the answer within the subject itself. For this reason, he returns to the debate about the relationship between inherent and delineative meaning in music. One of his objectives is to caution music educators against constructing "artificial" lessons that define musical feeling as exclusively manifest in either inherent or delineative meaning. I believe that this caution is warranted: contrived or superficial lessons can be miseducative and disappointing. I am less inclined to go the step further to investigate Reimer's position that "it is the complex middle-where both dimensions of music's power help shape and reshape musical reception-that poses the provocative dilemmas" because, although I acknowledge that sound stimulates psycho-physiological reactions, I am more sympathetic with Tia DeNora's observation that we need to think more [End Page 55] about "an interactionist conception of musical affect that moves beyond conundrums concerning whether music's affect is 'immanent' or 'attributed.'"2DeNora explains an interactionist conception of musical affect as an "appropriation of aesthetic materials" by consumers to construct meaning and identity in the context of their everyday lives.3 Her observation and research affirms John Shepherd's claim that music has not simply musical and extra-musical meaning but also ideological significance, "form[ing] an integral part of the social process."4 All to say that I am not going to involve myself in a conundrum revolving around inherent and delineated meaning, appreciated best by musicologists and psychologists. Instead, I want to return to "the starting point" Reimer identifies above, to a discussion about the purpose of public schooling.Beginning with the premise that people appropriate music to construct their realities and, subsequently, music has socio-political significance in how it is produced, presented, and received, I argue that, in addition to the more familiar raisons d'etre of developing subject-specific outcomes such as musicianship, musical intelligence, and, of course, musical enjoyment, music education should be better and explicitly fashioned as a path toward the broad goals of public education. Thus, the thesis of this response advocates a philosophical understanding of what music education can offer that is less about "involving all students in the very same matters to which [many of us] are devoted"-that is, musicianship, musical intelligence, and related philosophical and pedagogical conundrums-and more about realizing the purpose of education through the musical lives of students. To explore this line of thought, I will first review familiar and exceptional mission statements about the purpose of education. I will then revisit Reimer's second story which will serve as an autobiographical episode illustrating what might be educative about an interactionist understanding of musical affect. My conclusion will emphasize that although music, like "each subject studied in schools affords the student a distinctive window or frame through which the world can be viewed,"5 music educators, like all educators, should attend to teaching outside the subject itself if public schooling is to succeed in its distinctive and important mission. The Purpose of Education When anyone asked him where he came from, he said, "I am a citizen of the world."6As a starting point for her study of cosmopolitan citizenship and its importance in educational reform in the United States, Martha Nussbaum cites the words of Diogenes. Her concerns about the force and consequences of American [End Page 56] nationalism and ethnocentrism motivate her argument "for making world citizenship, rather than democratic/national citizenship, as education's central focus." She is clear that her position does not... (shrink)

Starting from Proust’s distinction between the self-attributive and self-evaluative views on metacognition, this paper presents a third view: self-mindshaping. Based on the notion of mindshaping as the core of social cognition, the self-mindshaping view contends that mindshaping abilities can be turned on one’s own mind. Against the self-attributive view, metacognition is not a matter of accessing representations to metarepresent them but of giving shape to those representations themselves. Against the self-evaluative view, metacognition is not blind to (...) content but relies heavily on it. We characterize our view in terms of four issues that, according to Proust, distinguish the previous approaches, namely, whether metacognitive mechanisms are the same as those employed to access other minds, whether metacognitive control requires conceptual representation, whether metacognition is propositional, and whether metacognitive access is linked to mental action. After describing some of the mechanisms for self-mindshaping, we show how this view regards metacognition as grounded on social interaction mechanisms, conceptually driven, possibly, but not necessarily, propositional, and engaged in the practical regulation of mental states. Finally, we examine the prospects for the primacy of self-mindshaping as the primary metacognitive function. We argue that self-attributive processes typically subserve the practical goals emphasized by the mindshaping view, and that the evaluative role played by procedural metacognition can be grounded on social cues rather than on experiential feelings. Even if this is not enough to claim the primacy of self-mindshaping, it still appears as a third kind of metacognition, not reducible to the other two. (shrink)

In the Aristotelian tradition, the psychological difference between virtue and continence is commonly understood in terms of inner harmony versus inner conflict. Virtuous agents experience inner harmony between feeling and action because they do not care to do other than what their circumstances call for, whereas continent agents feel conflicted about doing what is called for because of competing concerns. Critics of this view argue, however, that when the circumstances require sacrificing something of genuine value, virtuous agents can (...) indeed feel conflicted about acting well. But if this is so, what differentiates virtuous from merely continent agency? This essay argues that the traditional distinction conflates two aspects of virtue as well as two species of continence. And distinguishing between them provides resources for making sense of the complex relationship between inner conflict and good moral agency. (shrink)

In the Aristotelian tradition, the psychological difference between virtue and continence is commonly understood in terms of inner harmony versus inner conflict. Virtuous agents experience inner harmony between feeling and action because they do not care to do other than what their circumstances call for, whereas continent agents feel conflicted about doing what is called for because of competing concerns. Critics of this view argue, however, that when the circumstances require sacrificing something of genuine value, virtuous agents can (...) indeed feel conflicted about acting well. But if this is so, what differentiates virtuous from merely continent agency? This essay argues that the traditional distinction conflates two aspects of virtue as well as two species of continence. And distinguishing between them provides resources for making sense of the complex relationship between inner conflict and good moral agency. (shrink)

This article describes and refines an experiential distinction which has been highlighted by neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), perceptual positions. When you are imagining a past or future scene, you may perceive it (usually pre-reflectively) from three different viewpoints or perceptual positions. If you are looking at the world from your own point of view, through your own eyes, you are in the first perceptual position. If you are looking at the scene through another person's eyes, appreciating the other person's point (...) of view, you are in the second position. If you are seeing the world from an outside point of view, as an independent observer, you are in the third position. NLP highlighted the fact that our feelings change dramatically according to the perceptual position we adopt. Through a concrete example, Connirae Andreas shows that this distinction does not only concern visual perceptions, but also auditory and kinaesthetic perceptions. She also shows that our visual, auditory and kinaesthetic perceptions may be split in different perceptual positions at the same time, and that this misalignment may cause difficulties. Learning to 'align' our perceptual positions brings us greater wholeness, enables us to become more integrated. (shrink)

That Hume 's theory can be interpreted in two widely divergent ways-as a version of sentimentalism and as an ideal observer theory-is symptomatic of a puzzle ensconced in Hume 's theory. How can the ground of morality be internal and motivating when an inference to the feelings of a spectator in "the general point of view" is typically necessary to get to genuine moral distinctions? This paper considers and rejects the suggestion that in moral education, for Hume, the inculcation (...) of morality internalizes the sentiments of the ideal observer. It ultimately offers a different resolution of the conflicting strains. (shrink)