Imperfect Cognitions

 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...

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-mak...