Download or read book Motivated Irrationality written by David Pears and published by Burns & Oates. This book was released on 1998 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Rationality written by Alfred R. Mele and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2004-01-08 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rationality has long been a central topic in philosophy, crossing standard divisions and categories. It continues to attract much attention in published research and teaching by philosophers as well as scholars in other disciplines, including economics, psychology, and law. The Oxford Handbook of Rationality is an indispensable reference to the current state of play in this vital and interdisciplinary area of study. Twenty-two newly commissioned chapters by a roster of distinguished philosophers provide an overview of the prominent views on rationality, with each author also developing a unique and distinctive argument.

Download or read book Motivated Irrationality written by David Francis Pears and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Sigmund Freud written by Richard Wollheim and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1981-03-23 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This intellectual biography of Freud presents a fresh and thorough analysis of the whole body of his writings. Each of these is studied in its context, and their chronology is shown to be of great importance. The author demonstrates how Freud's exploratory and sometimes hesitant efforts to explain all that he discovered of mental abnormality are to be properly understood only in light of his quest for a general theory of the mind. This reissue contains a new Preface by Professor Wollheim that takes account of recent critical work on Freud.

Download or read book Bias written by Thomas Kelly and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022-11-06 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bias seems to be everywhere. Biased media outlets decisively influence the political opinions and votes of millions of people. Discriminatory policies favor some racial groups over others. We tend to judge ourselves more favorably than our peers, and more favorably than the evidence warrants.But what is it, exactly, for a person or thing to be biased?In Bias: A Philosophical Study, Thomas Kelly explores a number of foundational questions about the nature of bias and our practices of attributing it. He develops a general framework for thinking about bias, the norm theoretic account, and shows how that framework illuminates much that we say andthink about bias in both everyday life and the sciences. He argues provocatively that both morality and rationality sometimes require us to be biased; that groups of people can be biased even if none of their members are; that we are often rationally required to believe that those who disagree withus are biased, even if we know absolutely nothing about why they believe as they do or about their psychologies; and that whether someone counts as biased is often a relative matter. He defends the possibility of what he calls 'biased knowing' and argues that the phenomenon has significantimplications for both philosophical methodology and scepticism.A central aim of the book is to expand the range of issues that have thus far been considered under the heading 'the philosophy of bias' by putting new theoretical questions on the table and proposing bold answers that can serve as starting points for future inquiry.

Download or read book Projection and Realism in Hume s Philosophy written by P. J. E. Kail and published by Clarendon Press. This book was released on 2010-04-22 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his writings, Hume talks of our 'gilding and staining' natural objects, and of the mind's propensity to 'spread itself' on the world. This has led commentators to use the metaphor of 'projection' in connection with his philosophy: Hume is held to have taught that causal power and self are projections, that God is a projection of our fear, and that value is a projection of sentiment. By considering what it is about Hume's writing that occasions this metaphor, P. J. E. Kail spells out its meaning, the role it plays in Hume's work, and examines how, if at all, what sounds 'projective' in Hume can be reconciled with what sounds 'realist'. In addition to offering some highly original readings of Hume's central ideas, Projection and Realism in Hume's Philosophy offers a detailed examination of the notion of projection and the problems it faces.

Download or read book Irrationality written by Alfred R. Mele and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1992-09-24 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although much human action serves as proof that irrational behavior is remarkably common, certain forms of irrationality--most notably, incontinent action and self-deception--pose such difficult theoretical problems that philosophers have rejected them as logically or psychologically impossible. Here, Mele shows that, and how, incontinent action and self-deception are indeed possible. Drawing upon recent experimental work in the psychology of action and inference, he advances naturalized explanations of akratic action and self-deception while resolving the paradoxes around which the philosophical literature revolves. In addition, he defends an account of self-control, argues that "strict" akratic action is an insurmountable obstacle for traditional belief-desire models of action-explanation, and explains how a considerably modified model accommodates action of this sort.

Download or read book Open Minded written by Jonathan Lear and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1999-09-01 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Freud is discredited, so we don’t have to think about the darker strains of unconscious motivation anymore. We know what moves our political leaders, so we don’t have to look too closely at their thinking either. In fact, everywhere we look in contemporary culture, knowingness has taken the place of thought. This book is a spirited assault on that deadening trend, especially as it affects our deepest attempts to understand the human psyche—in philosophy and psychoanalysis. It explodes the widespread notion that we already know the problems and proper methods in these fields and so no longer need to ask crucial questions about the structure of human subjectivity.“What is psychology?” Open Minded is not so much an answer to this question as an attempt to understand what is being asked. The inquiry leads Jonathan Lear, a philosopher and psychoanalyst, back to Plato and Aristotle, to Freud and psychoanalysis, and to Wittgenstein. Lear argues that Freud and, more generally, psychoanalysis are the worthy inheritors of the Greek attempt to put our mindedness on display. There are also, he contends, deep affinities running through the works of Freud and Wittgenstein, despite their obvious differences. Both are concerned with how fantasy shapes our self-understanding; both reveal how life’s activities show more than we are able to say.The philosophical tradition has portrayed the mind as more rational than it is, even when trying to account for irrationality. Psychoanalysis shows us the mind as inherently restless, tending to disrupt its own functioning. And empirical psychology, for its part, ignores those aspects of human subjectivity that elude objective description. By triangulating between the Greeks, Freud, and Wittgenstein, Lear helps us recover a sense of what it is to be open-minded in our inquiries into the human soul.

Download or read book Perspectives on Self Deception written by Brian P. McLaughlin and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1988-09 with total page 572 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Students of philosophy, psychology, sociology, and literature will welcome this collection of original essays on self-deception and related phenomena such as wishful thinking, bad faith, and false consciousness. The book has six sections, each exploring self-deception and related phenomena from a different perspective.

Download or read book Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Action written by Paul Henne and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-04-20 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is self-control? Does a person need to be conscious to act? Are delusions always irrational? Questions such as these are fundamental for investigations into action and rationality, as well as how we assign responsibility for wrongdoing and assess clinical symptoms. Bridging the gap between philosophy and psychology, this interdisciplinary collection showcases how empirical research informs and enriches core questions in the philosophy of action. Exploring issues such as truth, moral judgement, agency, consciousness and cognitive control, chapters offer an overview of the current state of research, present new empirical findings and identify where future experimental work can further advance the frontier between philosophy and psychology. This is an essential resource for anyone looking to better understand how science and philosophy can meaningfully inform our knowledge of human agency.

Download or read book David Hume and the Problem of Other Minds written by Anik Waldow and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2011-10-20 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The problem of other minds has widely been considered as a special problem within the debate about scepticism. If one cannot be sure that there is a world existing independent ly of one's mind, how can we be sure that there are minds - minds which we cannot even experience the way we experience material objects? This book shows, through a detailed examination of David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature, that these concerns are unfounded. By focusing on Hume's discussion of sympathy - the ability to connect with the mental contents of other persons - Anik Waldow demonstrates that belief in other minds can be justified by the same means as belief in material objects. The book thus not only provides the first large-scale treatment of the function of the belief in other minds within the Treatise, thereby adding a new dimension to Hume's realism, but also serves as an invaluable guide to the complexity of the problem of other minds and its various responses in contemporary debate.

Download or read book The Epistemic Innocence of Irrational Beliefs written by Lisa Bortolotti and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020-06-25 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In an ideal world, our beliefs would satisfy norms of truth and rationality, as well as foster the acquisition, retention, and use of other relevant information. In reality, we have limited cognitive capacities and are subject to motivational biases on an everyday basis. We may also experience impairments in perception, memory, learning, and reasoning in the course of our lives. Such limitations and impairments give rise to distorted memory beliefs, confabulated explanations, and beliefs that are elaborated delusional, motivated delusional, or optimistically biased. In this book, Lisa Bortolotti argues that some irrational beliefs qualify as epistemically innocent, where, in some contexts, the adoption, maintenance, or reporting of the beliefs delivers significant epistemic benefits that could not be easily attained otherwise. Epistemic innocence does not imply that the epistemic benefits of the irrational belief outweigh its epistemic costs, yet it clarifies the relationship between the epistemic and psychological effects of irrational beliefs on agency. It is misleading to assume that epistemic rationality and psychological adaptiveness always go hand-in-hand, but also that there is a straight-forward trade-off between them. Rather, epistemic irrationality can lead to psychological adaptiveness, which in turn can support the attainment of epistemic goals. Recognising the circumstances in which irrational beliefs enhance or restore epistemic performance informs our mutual interactions and enables us to take measures to reduce their irrationality without undermining the conditions for epistemic success.

Download or read book Weakness of Will and Practical Irrationality written by Sarah Stroud and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2003-09-04 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Among the many practical failures that threaten us, weakness of will or akrasia is often considered to be a paradigm of irrationality. The eleven new essays in this collection, written by an excellent international team of philosophers, some well-established, some younger scholars, give a rich overview of the current debate over weakness of will and practical irrationality more generally.Issues covered include classical questions such as the distinction between weakness and compulsion, the connection between evaluative judgement and motivation, the role of emotions in akrasia, rational agency, and the existence of the will. The also include new topics, such as group akrasia, strength of will, the nature of correct choice, the structure of decision theory, the temporality of prudential reasons, and emotional rationality. Because these questions cut across philosophy of mind andethics, the collection will be essential reading for scholars, postgraduates, and upper-level undergraduates in both these fields.

Download or read book Agency in Mental Disorder written by Matt King and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022-01-07 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mental illness is an issue of great practical importance. Yet, despite sustained inquiry from scientists and philosophers alike, relatively little attention has been paid to the significance of mental disorder to agency and responsibility. While there is some work that touches on the topic, and a few extended treatments of particular disorders, these only scratch the surface. Agency in Mental Disorder seeks to provide a starting point for deeper and broader philosophical analyses. The 8 new essays in this book address various questions about the relationship between agency and mental disorder. What is the nature of that relationship? In what ways do mental disorders affect capacities for control? How should we understand the mitigations of blame that mental disorders seem to provide, and can we generalize from specific disorders to any interesting claims about disorders as a class? And what makes for a mental disorder in the first place?

Download or read book Speech Is My Hammer written by Max A. Hunter and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2022-09-30 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With Speech Is My Hammer, Max Hunter draws on memoir and his own biography to call his readers to reimagine the meaning and power in literacy. Defining literacy as a “spectrum of skills, abilities, attainments, and performances,” Hunter focuses on dispelling “literacy myths” and discussing how Black male artists, entertainers, professors, and writers have described their own “literacy narratives” in self-conscious, ambivalent terms. Beginning with Frederick Douglass’s My Bondage My Freedom, W. E. B. Dubois’s Soul of Black Folks, and Langston Hughes’s Harlem Renaissance–memoir The Big Sea, Hunter conducts a literary inquiry that unearths their double-consciousness and literacy ambivalence. He moves on to reveal that for many contemporary Black men the arc of ambivalence rises even higher and becomes more complex, following the civil rights and the Black Power movements, and then sweeping sharply upward once again during the War on Drugs. Hunter provides rich illustrations and probing theses that complicate our commonsense reflections on their concealed angst regarding Black authenticity, respectability politics, and masculinity. Speech Is My Hammer moves the reader beyond considering literacy in normative terms to perceive its potential to facilitate transformative conversations among Black males.

Download or read book The Global Financial Crisis and Its Aftermath written by A.G. Malliaris and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-06 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Global Financial Crisis, contributors argue that the complexity of the Global Financial Crisis challenges researchers to offer more comprehensive explanations by extending the scope and range of their traditional investigations. To achieve this, the volume views the financial crisis simultaneously through three different lenses---economic, psychological, and social values. Contributors offer a constructive methodology suitable for exploring financial crises. They recognize how current economic analysis did not prepare academic economists, business economists, traders, and regulators to anticipate economic and financial crises. So, they search more extensively within the broader discipline of economics for ideas related to crises but neglected perhaps because they were not mathematically rigorous. They affirm that the complexity of financial crises necessitates complementary research. Thus, to put the focal purpose of this book differently, they explore the Global Financial Crisis from three interconnected frameworks: the standards of orthodox economic analysis, Minskyan economics, and the role of ideas and values in economics. Values are the subject of both philosophy and psychology and can contribute to a better understanding of the Global Financial Crisis. Values, in general, have been relatively neglected by economists. This is not because there is doubt about their significance, but rather because welfare economics and collective choice still operate within the neoclassical paradigm. This volume argues that analyzing the value implications requires moving from the neoclassical framework to something that is broader and multidisciplinary.

Download or read book The Nietzschean Mind written by Paul Katsafanas and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-02-19 with total page 595 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest thinkers of the nineteenth century. His work continues to have a significant influence on philosophy, cultural criticism and modern intellectual history. The Nietzschean Mind seeks to provide a comprehensive survey of his work, not only placing it in its historical context but also exploring its contemporary significance. Comprising twenty-eight chapters by a team of international contributors, the volume is divided into seven parts: • Major works • Philosophical psychology and agency • The self • Value • Culture, society and politics • Metaphysics and epistemology • The affirmation of life This handbook includes coverage of all major aspects of Nietzsche’s thought, including his discussions of value, culture, society, the self, agency, action, philosophical psychology, epistemology and metaphysics; explorations of the philosophical and scientific influences upon Nietzsche’s thought; and discussion of Nietzsche’s major works. Essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy, Nietzsche’s work is central to ethics, moral psychology and political philosophy.