Imperfect Cognitions

Perri Sriwannawit recently defended her PhD thesis in Philosophy at the University of Birmingham. This blog post is an adapted version of the discussion on romantic love in her PhD thesis. Perri Sriwannawit Harry Frankfurt (2004, p. 80) argues that love happens outside of our immediate control; we cannot control who we love or stop loving them on a whim. However, Frankfurt still suggests that love is free in an important sense. In this article, I will propose that love is only somewhat involuntary in the sense that he suggests, and that his notion of freedom is not the only way to explain freedom in love. In Frankfurt’s (1971) earlier work , he argues that freedom of the will is grounded in the alignment of first-order desire (the desire that motivates us to act) and second-order volition (what we truly endorse as our desire). Frankfurt’s conception of freedom is not to do with whether we have voluntary control, but more to do with whether our volitional structure is aligned as such. ...

The first ever academic event in Chile completely devoted to the philosophy of psychiatry took place on the 16th April in Valparaíso. The I Workshop in Philosophy of Psychiatry was led by Professor Pablo López-Silva and organized by the Universidad de Valparaíso School of Psychology and the Valparaíso Institute of Complex Systems.  Poster of the event The event gathered an interdisciplinary audience of 60 people around the work of 8 local and international researchers in the field. The Keynote Speech was given by Dr Renato Matoso, Director of the Department of Philosophy at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In his talk, "Psychotic, Psychedelic, and Religious Experiences: What Can We Learn from Their Joint Study?", Matoso discussed a number of phenomenological and mechanistic similarities found in psychotic, psychedelic, and religious experiences. Matoso proposed to understand these three types of experiences as a continuum where differences can be ...

This post is by Lina Lissia. Lina's research focuses on formal epistemology, philosophy of action, clinical psychology, and psychoanalysis. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cagliari within the PRIN PNRR project Metaphor and Epistemic Injustice in Mental Illness: The Case of Schizophrenia . In addition to her academic work, she practices as a psychoanalyst in Paris. Lina Lissia Miranda Fricker introduced the concept of hermeneutical injustice , a type of epistemic injustice in which individuals or groups lack the conceptual tools to articulate their experiences. This absence of language prevents recognition and understanding, leaving certain realities invisible. In recent years, this phenomenon has become especially evident in the world of dating, where a surge of neologisms— ghosting , breadcrumbing , orbiting , zombieing , and many more—has emerged as an attempt to give shape to experiences that were previously unrecognized. The rising of dating neol...

In this post, Joe Pierre, professor of psychology at UC San Francisco, discusses his recently published book, False: How Mistrust, Disinformation, and Motivated Reasoning Make Us Believe Things That Aren’t True (OUP, 2025) False As a psychiatrist, my clinical work as a psychiatrist through the years has focused on the treatment of people with psychotic disorders. But in my academic work, I’ve been drawn to the grey area between psychopathology and normality and especially the continuum of delusion-like beliefs and full-blown delusions that includes religious, ideological, and conspiracy theory beliefs. In psychiatry, false beliefs like cognitive distortions or delusions are typically chalked up to psychopathology. People have cognitive distortions because they have major depressive disorderand people are delusional because they have schizophrenia. And although research might tell us that delusional thinking can be attributed to anomalous subjective experiences or a “jumping to conclus...

Today's post is by Simon Barker (University of Tartu) on his recent paper, "Epistemic health, epistemic self-trust, and bipolar disorder: a case study " ( Synthese 2025). Simon Barker Four years ago, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder (and later, ADHD). My mind soon after returned to the point when my PhD studies were violently derailed by what I now see as a mix of depression and mania. Then, it took an extended break and inordinate support from my partner, supervisors, and other staff in the Sheffield philosophy department to get me over the line. Now, from my post-diagnosis vantage, I saw that those struggles fit a pattern. My bipolar disorder (and ADHD) and intellectual life have always fluctuated together – as if the same thing. My depressions comes with intellectual disinterest, crashing confidence, and an inability to think; my manias with an urgent flame of intellectual grandiosity yet thoughts racing too fast to make sense of. This entangled mental health an...

On the occasion of  #PhiloFortnight2025 , a period of two weeks in the UK dedicated to promoting philosophy, a webinar took place to demostrate some methods and resources that can be used to bring philosophical reflection and discussion in the classroom. Poster of the webinar The three panelists are all philosophers from the University of Birmingham and presented methods that they researched and practised and materials they designed: Laura D'Olimpio   (School of Education), author of Philosophy of Education (Palgrave 2025) and The Necessity of Aesthetic Education: the place of the arts on the curriculum (Bloomsbury 2024), and co-founding editor of the open access Journal of Philosophy in Schools . Henry Taylor (Department of Philosophy) works at the interface of philosophy and STEM subjects, with a special interest in consciousness, perception, and attention. Some of his recent research is on cultural robotics (e.g., see " A culture of their own ").   Li...

This week's blogpost is from Stefaan Blancke (Assistant Professor of Philosophy of Science at Tilburg University) on his recent publication Objectify and Commit: How Reasons Bring About Cultural Change and Progress  (Topoi, 2025) Deinze, the town where I live, was destroyed three times in the Middle Ages. Each time, it was attacked by Ghent, a city barely twenty kilometers away. The reason? Deinze consistently sided with Bruges in its conflict with Ghent. When at one point Bruges decided to dig a canal to Deinze, Ghent sent out a militia to kill the diggers. No more diggers, no more canal. Stefaan Blancke Today it is unimaginable that cities in Flanders or elsewhere would settle their conflicts (if any) in such a violent manner. Our planet is far from peaceful, but humans seem to have made some moral progress. The same can be said of our understanding of the world. We have replaced religion, magic, and superstition with a profound scientific understanding of the world and ourselves...

On the occasion of  #PhiloFortnight2025 , a period of two weeks in the UK dedicated to promoting philosophy, a webinar took place to address multiple ways in which philosophy can be brought to the general public. Poster of the event Panelists included: Paul Knights has a background in philosophy where he researched the relationship between philosophy and nature. Currently, he organises guides walks in the Pennine landscape, has interests in photography and environmental education, and participates in community projects. You can learn more about Paul's activities at the Landscape Story website . Bonny Astor has a background in psychology and a long-standing interest in philosophy as a means to connect deeply with people from different backgrounds and with different views. Currently, she leads the initiatives of Thought Experiments in Pubs and you can find more information about the events at the All Together One website . Helen Beebee is professor of philosophy of science at the ...

Today's post is by Paolo Bodini. Paolo is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Genoa, having completed his PhD in Philosophy of Law between Milan and Cologne. His research interests include democratic theory, constitutionalism, separation of powers and political epistemology. He is the author of " Political representation and lay expertise ", recently published in Ethics and Politics . Paolo Bodini The name of this blog prompted me to consider a set of problems I addressed in my recent book Democrazia e conoscenza (Democracy and Knowledge). The debate on democratic legitimacy—that is, on democracy’s capacity to produce decisions worthy of obedience—has indeed intersected with the concept of knowledge, giving rise to a vibrant discourse across political philosophy, legal philosophy and epistemology. As I have argued in my book, democracy’s legitimacy is inextricably linked to a rigorous idea of knowledge, albeit fallible and amenable to correction. We might say,...

On the occasion of #PhiloFortnight2025 , a period of two weeks in the UK dedicated to promoting philosophy, a webinar took place to address the role of philosophy in our understanding of conspiracy theories. Poster of the event Panelists included: U-Wen Low , an Assistant Professor of Public Religion at the University of Birmingham, interested in ways of applying religious studies to daily life in practical, meaningful ways. U-Wen is an expert on the Book of Revelations and on the interplay between postcolonial thinking and Pentecostalism. Joseph Pierre , a Health Sciences Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) with clinical experience working with people diagnosed with psychotic disorders, substance use disorders. His research interests include schizophrenia, delusions and delusion-like beliefs, auditory hallucinations and voice-hearing. Joe recently published a book,  False . Kathleen Murphy...

 This post is by Sally Latham. Fantastic Philosophy Teaching philosophy to children has been shown to have a positive impact not only on critical thinking and creativity, but also on emotional development, such as independence, self-assurance and self-assertion ( Rahar et al 2018 ).  Yet philosophy is not explicitly part of the National Curriculum for England, with the closest reference being that in English: "Pupils] must be assisted in making their thinking clear to themselves as well as to others and teachers should ensure that pupils build secure foundations by using discussion to probe and remedy their misconceptions. Pupils should also be taught to understand and use the conventions for discussion and debate." However, teachers are not always confident in bringing critical thinking into the classroom without formal training.  Labour have also now identified ‘improving communication skills (oracy)’ as one of their  targets in their mission statement  Breaki...

The blog post today is by Joel Krueger (University of Exeter) on his recent paper " Home as Mind: AI Extenders and Affective Ecologies in Dementia Care " ( Synthese 2025).   Joel Krueger AI is everywhere. Admittedly, much of the hype is overblown (AI fatigue is real; I feel it, too). Still, AI can do impressive things—and it’s already impacting our lives in many ways. Discussions in philosophy and beyond often focus on big issues like the looming possibility of artificial consciousness (very unlikely) and artificial general intelligence (also unlikely, despite what Sam Altman and other techbros keep insisting), or more immediate practical and ethical worries about job displacement, bias, privacy, environmental costs, and the potential for misuse. Critical discussions like these are important. They help tamp down relentless hype cycles that get in the way of clear-eyed discussions about how AI-powered technology should fit into our lives. But while scepticism is warranted, i...

The blog post today is by Sophie Keeling on her recent paper " Responding to Second-Order Reasons " ( Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , 2024). She is a 'Ramon y Cajal' fellow in philosophy at UNED, Madrid and a member of the Metis research group.   Sophie Keeling Philosophers love talking about reasons. Often this takes place at the first-order level: reasons for attending a party include the fact that it would be fun or that it would make your friends happy if you went. Reasons for believing that it will rain tomorrow include the weather forecast or the fact that it’s rainy season where you are. But arguably, some reasons are second-order . These are reasons to respond to a particular reason or not to respond to it.  For example, I might promise my therapist not to do things simply because it will please others and to only think about myself. And in the epistemic case, however good your reasoning in fact was, the fact that you carried it out under a shortne...