Imperfect Cognitions

This post is by Anja Berninger (University of Göttingen) and Íngrid Vendrell Ferran (University of Marburg). Today their post is on the edited volume Philosophical Perspectives on Memory and Imagination (Routledge 2022 ). Íngrid Vendrell Ferran Having been neglected for many years, the subjects of memory and imagination have started to gain more attention in recent philosophical debates. While there has been some interaction between philosophers working in these different fields (for publications that make significant headway towards establishing a more integrative perspective, see, for instance, Perrin and Michaelian 2017 ; MacPherson and Dorsch 2018 ; Michaelian, Debus, and Perrin 2018 , and Michaelian, Perrin, and Sant’Anna 2020 ), we still lack a properly integrative approach to these issues.  With this volume our aim is to fill this lacuna. Our objective is to both broaden and deepen current debates on memory and imagination within the philosophy of mind. This volume explores t

This post is by Elliot Porter. Elliot is a lecturer in bioethics at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, and is finishing his PhD at the University of Kent. His research focuses on personal autonomy and mental disorder.  His research involves themes in metaethics, moral epistemology, and epistemic justice. Elliot Porter We have largely, but not entirely, moved past the intuition that significant mental disorder constitutes, ipso facto , an injury to an agent’s autonomy. Part of this shift stems from increasingly multidimensional approaches to autonomy that allow us to track, in finer detail, where injuries to autonomy do and do not lie. We can identify autonomy-threatening influences at a higher resolution than simple ‘mental disorder’ language offers. The movement has also been pushed by the significant and growing literature that articulates the substantive normative and identity claims made by the neurodiversity movement. The status of minority minds as test cases, to sharpen the

Emotions Brain Forum BrainCircle Italia and BrainCircle Lugano organised a series of events where women scientists presented their work on emotions in various cities from October 2021 to November 2022 (see full itinerary ). The initiative, conceived by Viviana Kasam, was inspired by the work of Nobel Prize winner Rita Levi Montalcini who promoted the work of scientists worldwide and was interested in supporting research on the brain.  Campus Biotech The last stop of the itinerary was Geneva, where on 25th November 2022 the Emotions Forum featured an interdisciplinary programme of talks on the relationship between emotions and cognition, and emotions and behaviour. The event was hosted by the Centre for the Study of Affective Sciences in the stunning Campus Biotech . Eva Illouz , Professor of Sociology in Paris and Jerusalem, discussed the role of emotions in democracy. Eva started from Adorno's idea that fascism is not alien to democracy but is like a worm in the apple: we don&#

In this post, Laura D'Olimpio (University of Birmingham) asks whether we can educate for good character by drawing upon the arts, presenting a new book co-edited with Panos Paris and Aidan Thompson and entitled Educating Character Through the Arts (Routledge 2022). Laura D'Olimpio Can we learn, morally, from artworks? Is it possible that the various multiple arts may shed light on what it means to be human and help us come to better understand what we mean by ‘good character’? How might one distinguish morally insightful from morally dubious art? And might we be able to cultivate virtuous character habits through engagement with non-narrative or non-traditional art (such as music, video games or gardening)?  The publication of a new edited collection, Educating Character through the Arts (Routledge, 2022) seeks to probe such questions and stimulate a dialogue on the intersection between the arts, ethics, and education. Our guiding question asks how might the arts be taught i

Today's post is by Elmar Unnsteinsson  (University College Dublin). Here Unnsteinsson asks why we talk to ourselves. The other day I saw someone enjoying a walk while deeply engaged in conversation but I couldn’t see the other person. The ledge between us was too high. When I turned the corner I saw that the person was alone and actually talking to no one. Well, no one else I should say. It’s unremarkable that I had assumed that there was a pair of people, dancing conversational tango, but, it does raise the question why we think of conversation as, essentially, a multi-player game? As a matter of fact, many of us thoroughly enjoy having conversations. We seek them out to achieve catharsis, form strong social bonds of trust and friendship, learn surprising new things, and obviously the list could be endless. So, it never even occurs to us to ask why we would spend our time talking to others. We couldn’t even list half of the good reasons to do so. Why is it then so surprising to

A group of researchers from the University of Ferrara, Bologna, New York, and Stockholm have developed a tool to predict the risk of developing depression in people over 55. Anyone can calculate their risk through a website . Here  Martino Belvederi Murri  (Ferrara) reports on the study that could mark a turning point in terms of early identification and prevention of this condition. The prophetess Manto According to the World Health Organization, depression is the leading cause of disability in the world. About 15% of people suffer from depression at least once in their life: the consequences can range from temporary suffering to the loss of work and social relationships, to suicide. The impact of the pandemic, isolation, the economic crisis and the population aging make depression a widespread economic and social problem, especially in late life. Unfortunately, depression often goes unrecognized or does not receive prompt treatment. This is due to several factors, such as scarcity of

This post is by Alison Fernandes (University of Dublin). Alison works in the metaphysics and philosophy of science, with a focus on temporal asymmetries, foundations of physics and agency. Today Alison presents the edited volume Temporal Asymmetries in Philosophy and Psychology (OUP 2022). Alison Fernandes We have very different attitudes towards past and future events. Events looming in our futures are those we might worry about, plan for, or look forward to. Events that are already in our pasts, on the other hand, are those we might regret, contemplate, or remember fondly—but not plan for in the same way. Why is this?   There are, in fact, many temporal asymmetries in how we engage with the world. Most people prefer bad events to be in the past and good events to be in the future, all else being equal ( Lee et al 2020 ). Strikingly, people assign work more compensation when it is described as taking pace in the future, compared to the past ( Caruso et al 2008 ). There are also asy

Today's post is by Paul Rehren  at Utrecht University on his recent paper (co-authored with  Walter Sinnott-Armstrong  at Duke University) " How Stable are Moral Judgments ?" ( Review of Philosophy and Psychology 2022). Paul Rehren Psychologists and philosophers often work hand in hand to investigate many aspects of moral cognition. One issue has, however, been relatively neglected: the stability of moral judgments over time [but see, Helzer et al. 2017 ]. In our paper, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and I argue that there are four main reasons for philosophers and psychologists to consider the stability of moral judgments. First, the stability of moral judgments can shed light on the role of moral values in moral judgments. Second, lay people seem to expect moral judgments to be stable in a way that contrasts with tastes. Third, philosophers also assume that  their  moral judgments do and should not c

Today's post is by Rosa Ritunnano (University of Birmingham). Rosa is a consultant psychiatrist and PhD candidate at the Institute for Mental Health. Here she talks about a recent paper she co-authored with an interdisciplinary group of international researchers at the Universities of York, Melbourne, Warwick and Ohio State. The paper entitled “Subjective experience and meaning of delusions in psychosis: systematic review and qualitative evidence synthesis” has been published in The Lancet Psychiatry and is available Open Access . Rosa Ritunnano This paper is the result of a big team effort, and my hope is that it will encourage delusion and psychosis researchers across disciplines to go beyond commonplace assumptions (deeply ingrained especially within clinical psychiatry) about the nature and meaning of delusional phenomena. The aim of this research was to gain a deeper and more nuanced understanding of delusional phenomena based on the experiential knowledge of those with live

 In this post, Kathleen reports on the public philosophy event, ' Values and Virtues for a Challenging World '. This was organised by Cardiff University in association with the Royal Institute of Philosophy . Academic philosophers had the chance to bring their work to the attention of public policy and education professionals and discuss the ideas. These ideas can now be read here in the latest issue of Royal Institute of Philosophy supplements (edited by Anneli Jefferson, Orestis Palermos, Panos Paris, and Jonathan Webber). First up, was a panel with Sophie Grace Chappell and Panos Paris, chaired by Laura D'Olimpio. The topic was "Good Taste and the Experience of Value". Sophie Grace discussed the positive value found within the natural world, and that the appropriate response to this value is a sense of awe and beauty. We would do well to inculcate this virtue and continue to appreciate the beauty of nature, and this has a place in guiding policy on, for examp

This post is by Elly Vintiadis (The American College of Greece Deree College) on her recent paper " Mental Disorders as Processes: A More Suited Metaphysics for Psychiatry " (2022, Philosophical Psychology ). (This is an updated version of her previous post  in 2019.)  Elly Vintiadis In most discussions about the mind and mental disorders, the metaphysical framework within which they take place is rarely questioned. It is however, important to check our metaphysical beliefs – including our beliefs about what the world is made up of - because whether they are held consciously or not, they affect the way we understand the world and how we approach it scientifically.  For this reason, in my recent work I explore what a metaphysical framework that puts at its center the notion of a process can add to our understanding of the mind and its disorders. I contend that seeing the world as fundamentally ‘processual’ in nature rather than in terms of substances and things, provides the

This post is by Juliette Vazard who recently published a paper entitled " The Doxastic Profile of the Compulsive Re-checker " in Philosophical Explorations, open access. Juliette Vazard What exactly is epistemically wrong with checking again (and again)? Checking is one of the most common compulsive actions performed by patients with Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)( APA, 2013 ; Abramowitz, McKay, Taylor, 2008 ). And while incessant checking is undeniably problematic from a practical point of view, it is hard to pinpoint what exactly makes it inadequate from an epistemological standpoint. My suggestion is that, in order to understand exactly what goes epistemically wrong with rechecking, we first need to take a step back from the behaviors themselves, and consider the mental state that the re-checker is in as she goes through the moves. What is she looking for, as she goes back for another check? A first intuitive answer is: although she already has sufficient evidenc

Today’s post is by Richard Gipps, clinical psychologist and philosopher. Richard’s psychotherapy practice is in Oxford, UK, where he also teaches some philosophy. Along with Michael Lacewing he edited The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychoanalysis (2019).  Gipps' philosophical interests concern the nature of psychotherapeutic action, psychotic thought, and the significance of love and moral virtue for mental health. Today he writes about his new book On Madness: Understanding the Psychotic Mind   (Bloomsbury 2022). How is madness to be met with? What kind of recognition can we show, and justice can we do, to its sufferer? On hearing his fragmented and delusional discourse we’re troubled by it - not so much because we fear what he'll say or do, but because now, trying to empathically relate to them, our minds judder and the ground slips out from under our feet. On the one hand: here’s a deeply troubled human being; on the other, our mustering of ordinary humane sense-maki