Author: Malley, Mary

Alumna Keya Maitra: “Feminist Philosophy of Mind”

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Check out alumna Keya Maitra's (Ph.D. 2000) co-edited book, Feminist Philosophy of Mind, out September 27, 2022 with Oxford University Press.

This is the first collection of essays to focus on feminist philosophy of mind. It brings the theoretical insights from feminist philosophy to issues in philosophy of mind and vice versa. Feminist Philosophy of Mind thus promises to challenge and inform dominant theories in both of its parent fields, thereby enlarging their rigor, scope, and implications. In addition to engaging analytic and feminist philosophical traditions, essays draw upon resources in phenomenology, cross-cultural philosophy, philosophy of race, disability studies, embodied cognition theory, neuroscience, and psychology.

The book's methods center on the collective consideration of three questions: What is the mind? Whose mind is the model for the theory? To whom is mind attributed? Topics considered with this lens include mental content, artificial intelligence, the first-person perspective, personal identity, other minds, mental illness, perception, memory, attention, desire, trauma, agency, empathy, grief, love, gender, race, sexual orientation, materialism, panpsychism, enactivism, and others.

Each of the book's twenty chapters are organized according to five core themes: Mind and Gender and Race; Self and Selves; Naturalism and Normativity; Body and Mind; and Memory and Emotion. The introduction traces the development of these themes with reference to the respective literatures in feminist philosophy and philosophy of mind. This context not only helps the reader see how the essays fit into existing disciplinary landscapes, but also facilitates their use in teaching. Feminist Philosophy of Mind is designed to be used as a core text for courses in contemporary disciplines, and as a supplemental text that facilitates the ready integration of diverse perspectives and women's voices.

Lewis Gordon: Eminent Scholar Roundtable

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Congratulations to Professor and Department Head Lewis Gordon, honoree of the Global Development Studies Eminent Scholar Roundtable 2021-2022 organized by the International Studies Association.

The Global Development Section draws together scholars broadly concerned with development and global justice working across a number of fields, for example, postcolonial studies, development studies, critical political economy, critical security studies, social and political theory, history, sociology, gender studies, and public policy. The Section approaches the phenomenon of development in its broadest sense as the study of change, rather than in its narrow hegemonic conceptualization as technical interventions in social worlds. GDS is further concerned with investigating alternative understandings, especially those that excavate the intimate links between development, colonialism, and global capitalism. In this respect, the Section seeks to cultivate an intellectual space or provocation, supporting many ways of seeing and being in the world. And for this purpose, the Section is committed to facilitating diverse modes of inquiry, establishing research networks, and supporting early-career scholars in their professional endeavors.

Professor Len Krimmerman Honored by Alumni

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From left to right: professor and department head Lewis Gordon, emeritus professor Len Krimmerman.From left to right: emeritus professor Don Baxter, emeritus professor Len Krimmerman, Alumna Patricia O'Rourke.

Philosophy Professor Emeritus Leonard I. Krimerman was celebrated on Saturday, August 6th, by alumnae/i from the Inner College project he mentored back in the late 1960s.  The alumnae/i spoke of how his mentorship transformed their lives and contributed to the citizenship work they continue to do in their communities.

Here is a blog piece Professor Krimerman wrote on the Inner College: https://blogs.lib.uconn.edu/archives/2019/08/27/anarchism-at-uconn-believe-it-or-not-the-inner-college-experiment/

The alumnae/i gave the Philosophy Department a plaque in Professor Krimerman's honor to post in the Student Lounge of the Philosophy Department.

Attending the event was former Head, Professor Emeritus Donald Baxter, Board of Trustees Professor Emerita Ruth Millikan, her husband Professor Emeritus Donald Shankweiler, a student, Dr. Patricia O'Rourke, from the Philosophy of Education and Community Engagement course and project Professor Krimerman co-organized, the current Head of the Philosophy Department, Professor Lewis Gordon, who also spoke in honor of Professor Krimerman, and a wonderful community of alumnae/i who have served in state government, community nonprofits, and a variety of grassroots projects. 

Tracy Llanera: “Pragmatism, Language Games, and the Philippine Drug War”

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Check out Professor Tracy Llanera’s recent article in Philosophy and Global Affairs, “Pragmatism, Language Games, and the Philippine Drug War.”

This article explores the claim that how we talk can inspire how we reason and act. Contemporary research suggests that the words militant Christian leaders in the Philippines use shape how they rationalize President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs. Describing drug users as “sinners,” a trope in religious language, is particularly lethal. Using work on pragmatism and philosophy of language by Richard Rorty, Robert Brandom, and Lynne Tirrell, the author examines how the term “sinner” generates pernicious claims in the drug war. It explores how the use of the term inspires hermeneutic uptake, redirects discursive focus, and engenders certain social and political actions in the Philippines

Mitch Green: Editor-in-Chief of “Philosophia”

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We are pleased to announce that Professor Mitch Green will be the new Editor-in-Chief of Philosophia, a general philosophy journal that welcomes broadly accessible submissions on all topics of current philosophical interest. Philosophia will continue to commission Author-Meets-Critics symposia, and starting in 2023 will commission state-of-the art essays accessible to a wide audience. Due to the growing number of high-quality submissions, the journal has moved from publishing four issues per year to five. For more information, please visit Philosophia’s homepage.

Julian Schlöder: Editorial Board for Logique et Analyse

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Please join us in congratulating Julian Schlöder, who has joined the editorial board of Logique et Analyse.

Logique et Analyse is an international, peer-reviewed journal that publishes research in logic, philosophy of logic and/or mathematics, argumentation-theory, and analytical philosophy, broadly conceived.

Its first issue was published in 1958 by the National Center for Research in Logic, the Belgian Society for the promotion of logical research founded by Leo Apostel, Philippe Devaux, Joseph Dopp, Robert Feys, and Chaïm Perelman. The journal has been appearing ever since. Its presents editor are Jan Heylen and Peter Verdée, who have succeeded Jean Paul Van Bendegem.

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Check out graduate student Nimra Asif’s recent article in Synthese, “Minimal theory of mind – a Millikanian Approach.” Synthese is a philosophy journal focusing on contemporary issues in epistemology, philosophy of science, and related fields.

***Abstract***

Minimal theory of mind (ToM) is presented in the theory of mind literature as a middle ground between full-blown ToM and mere behavior-reading. Minimal ToM seems to be a useful construct for studying and understanding the minds of nonhuman animals and infants. However, providing an account of minimal ToM on which minimal mindreading is significantly less demanding than full-blown mindreading yet more than just a behavior-reading process is a challenge. In this paper, I argue that to address this challenge, we need to depart from the traditional framework of mindreading in more radical ways than offered by current minimal theory of mind accounts. First, I explain the traditional view of mindreading on which mental state attribution is treated as essential for mindreading and analyze the general respects in which it makes mindreading demanding for the mindreader, such as requiring the mindreader to have concepts of mental states, engage in inferential reasoning processes involving mental states, and form meta-representations. Then I discuss and critically evaluate two accounts of minimal ToM and argue that these accounts either do not depart sufficiently from the demanding requirements of traditional mindreading or risk becoming re-descriptions of behavior-reading accounts. Finally, I present an alternative Millikanian account of minimal ToM that avoids this risk while departing more radically from the traditional view of mindreading by providing a way for minimal mindreaders to represent the mental states of others and respond to them without engaging in conceptual mental state attribution.

Tracy Llanera: “I Am An American Philosopher”

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Check out Assistant Professor Tracy Llanera's recent interview with the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy (SAAP), "I Am An American Philosopher."

*Excerpt*

The pragmatist tradition has no problem about being level-headed and getting muddy. There’s no bizarre or elitist hang-up in using (and re-forging) concepts from philosophy or other disciplines to make sense of contemporary issues or to promote social amelioration. As an approach, I’ve found pragmatism to be useful and liberating, whether I’m thinking about existential despair, or the words we use, or how hate festers in people.