Although experimental philosophy is now over a decade old, it has only recently been introduced to the domain of philosophical aesthetics. So why is there already a need to defend it? Because, as I argue in this paper, we can anticipate the three main types of objection generally addressed to experimental philosophy and show that none of them concern experimental philosophers in aesthetics. I begin with some general considerations about experimental philosophy and its, sometimes conflicting, characteristics. This framework is designed (...) to help me situate the experimental practice in aesthetics within the general movement. I then present the objections and respond to them in turn. Their failure should convince aestheticians to embrace the practice early on and opponents of experimental philosophy to revise their usual objections before addressing them to experimental philosophers in aesthetics. (shrink)

Experimental Philosophy (X-Phi) is now a fully-fledged methodological project with applications in almost all areas of analytic philosophy, including, as of recently, aesthetics. Another methodological project which has been attracting attention in the last few years is conceptual engineering (CE). Its areas of implementation are now diverse, but as was the case initially with experimental philosophy, aesthetics has unfortunately been left out (or perhaps aestheticians have failed to pay attention to CE) until now. In this paper, I argue that if (...) conceptual engineers are interested in expanding their project to the field of aesthetics, which would greatly benefit the field, then they should rely on the existing experimental work of aestheticians. Experimental philosophers have only recently started to join forces with conceptual engineers in various fields, as well as to explore the methodological implications of such an alliance. This paper goes a step further by not only arguing that CE has potential in aesthetics, but that the way to realize this potential is to piggyback, so to speak, on the work of experimental aestheticians. In other words, instead of building a CE project in aesthetics from the ground up, this paper describes the support that CE can and should derive from current experimental aesthetics, thereby making the former’s development more efficiently realizable. Furthermore, I argue that doing so would also be beneficial to experimental aesthetics. Currently, the integration of X-Phi to the wider field of aesthetics is losing ground because certain objections—notably, the objection that X-Phi cannot be of relevance to normative questions—have not been properly refuted. By pairing up with a normative programme like CE, though, experimental aestheticians should finally be able to put these objections to rest. (shrink)

Tip-of-the-tongue experiences have an intriguing and insidious character. Some philosophers have tried to reduce them to more common states, with some considering these experiences to be beliefs about one’s state of knowledge, and still others considering them feelings about one’s state of knowledge. These two latter views are not mutually exclusive; indeed, one might hold a mixed theory, according to which the TOT is a feeling that depends constitutively on a belief. In the paper I first argue against the idea (...) that beliefs are a constitutive feature of TOTs and hence against both the pure and the mixed belief theories; next I address the feeling theory; finally, I defend a pluralist theory. (shrink)

The article deals with Lacan’s notion of “subject” by distinguishing it from any reference to identity. It takes up the question “Who speaks?” posed by Michel Foucault in 1969 and finds an answer with Lacan. In psychoanalysis, it is not a matter of negation of the subject but rather of the subject’s dependence on the signifier. Lacan questioned the “privileges of the self”, but saved the dimension of the subject by conceiving a subject of the unconscious. Identity in psychoanalysis is (...) not determined by social norms. It is an identity at the level of the speaking and suffering subject. Finally, the article shows that the Lacanian subject is both a subject marked by the signifier and one articulated to the drive. The experience of psychoanalysis leads us to question identifications, thereby making it possible to comprehend the traumatic mark at the level of the Real. (shrink)

It is an important issue for economic and finance applications to determine whether individuals exhibit a behavioral bias toward pessimism in their beliefs, in a lottery or more generally in an investment opportunities framework. In this paper, we analyze the answers of a sample of 1,540 individuals to the following question: Imagine that a coin will be flipped 10 times. Each time, if heads, you win 10 Euros. How many times do you think that you will win? The average answer (...) is surprisingly about 3.9 which is below the average 5, and we interpret this as a pessimistic bias. We find that women are more 'pessimistic' than men, as are old people relative to young. We also analyze how our notion of pessimism is related to more general notions of pessimism previously introduced in psychology. (shrink)

Reasons motivate our intentions and thus our actions, justify our beliefs, ground our hopes and connect our feelings of shame and pride to our thoughts. Given that intentions, beliefs and emotions are intentional states, intentionality is strongly connected with normativity. Yet what is more precisely their relationship? Some philosophers, notably Brandom and McDowell, contend at places that intentionality is intrinsically normative. In this paper, we discuss Brandom and McDowell’s thesis and the arguments they provide for its defence. In contrast to (...) what they hold, we argue that neither reference intentionality nor content intentionality are intrinsically normative, although at least content intentionality has normative implications. More precisely, we argue that neither species of intentionality are normative from a semantical viewpoint, because being in an intentional state is not being in a state that is semantically correct or incorrect. Nevertheless, being in a state endowed with content may be a reason for believing or acting. Thus, we argue that content intentionality has normative implications. More precisely, we argue that any content is such that, if it is the content of a state that is sensitive to reasons - as judging paradigmatically is – then it entitles the subject of that state to have further states or to act in certain ways. (shrink)

Although current debates in epistemology and philosophy of mind show a renewed interest in perceptual illusions, there is no systematic work in the philosophy of perception and in the psychology of perception with respect to the concept of illusion and the relation between illusion and error. This book aims to fill that gap.

Comment comprendre la thèse selon laquelle la liberté d’expression constitue l’un des fondements d’une société démocratique, comme cela a pu être invoqué dans de nombreuses décisions constitutionnelles, en particulier en Allemagne? L’article se propose d’éclairer la nature du lien entre liberté d’expression et démocratie en s’inscrivant dans une réflexion sur les concepts de liberté que nous mobilisons lorsque nous cherchons à penser la liberté d’expression. En s’appuyant sur les contributions de Habermas et de Honneth à ce débat, il s’attache à (...) en décliner les différentes facettes : liberté privée, communicationnelle, droit de participation politique ou liberté sociale. Sur la base d’une compréhension de la liberté d’expression comme un droit et une pratique sociale constitutifs d’un espace public démocratique, il s’agit de poser la question de sa régulation à nouveaux frais. (shrink)

‟Small or Large Coffee?”: A Few Aspects Related to the Analysis of a Language Act Captured in a Broader Temporality in the Context of an Exolingual Professional Training. We are interested in the form of the interaction that takes place between a chef and an allophone apprentice in a French restaurant, through the comparative analysis of one language act, a coffee proposal, captured by a camera on four occasions, from the first day of training to the fourth month of the (...) apprentice's employment. This data set allows us to observe the evolving character of the “interactional bricolage” and its inscription in two temporalities which are combined, that of production-reception and that of language acquisition, at the same time as it underlines the implications of the exolinguistic character of the situation for the role of the apprentice master. (shrink)

Medium specificity is a theory, or rather a cluster of arguments, in aesthetics that rests on the idea that media are the physical material that makes up artworks, and that this material contains specific and unique features capable of 1) differentiating media from one another, and 2) determining the aesthetic potential and goals of each medium. As such, medium specificity is essential for aestheticians interested in matters of aesthetic ontology and value. However, as Noël Carroll has vehemently and convincingly argued, (...) the theory of medium specificity is inherently flawed and its many applications in art history ill-motivated. Famously, he concluded that we should ‘forget the medium’ entirely. In this thesis, I reject his conclusion and argue that reconstructing a theory of medium specificity, while taking Carroll’s objections into account, is possible. To do so, I offer a reconceptualization of the main theoretical components of medium specificity and ground this new theory in empirical research. I first redefine the medium not as the physical material that makes up artworks but as sets of practices – not the material itself but how one uses the material. I then show that what makes media specific and unique is not certain physical features, but the human responses, which can be empirically investigated, to the combination of practices that constitute media. This relation is one of response-dependence, albeit of a novel kind, which I develop by appealing to social metaphysics. The resulting theory is more complex but also much more flexible and fine-grained than the original and provides insight into a variety of current aesthetic theories. (shrink)

Dans le cadre d'une analyse de la vie mentale selon laquelle, à certains égards, la "vie pratique" constitue le fondement de la "vie théorétique" et dans laquelle les émotions jouent un rôle central.

We present a theoretical model of health beliefs and behaviors that explicitly takes into account the emotional impact of possible bad news, ex-ante in the form of anxiety and ex-post in the form of disappointment. Our model makes it possible to explain a number of anomalies such as ’low’ testing rates, heterogeneous perceptions of risk levels, underestimation of health risk, ostriches and hypochondriacs, over-use and under-use of health services, patient preference for information when relatively certain of not being ill, yet (...) avoiding information when relatively certain of being ill, etc. Our model matches observed patterns both in health beliefs and health behaviors and irrational health beliefs and behaviors can be characterized as the optimal response under a given structure of emotions and preferences. (shrink)

In the last twenty years, beginning with a seminal paper by Dagfinn Follesdal published in 1969,1 analytic philosophy has shown a renewed and increasing interest in Husserl's phenomenology. 2 In Husserl and Inten- tionality, David Woodruff Smith and Ronald Mclntyre give an important contribution to this line of research. The book is written in the analytic tradition, and represents in part an attempt at making phenomenology palatable to those who look suspiciously at 'continental philosophy'. Thus it provides a double service: (...) it introduces phenomenology to an analytic public, and it shows to those raised in the opposite tradition what kind of reception their tradition has overseas. (shrink)

From November 5 to November 22, 2019, the University of Milan hosts an exhibition in which philosophy and its problems are staged in playful and interactive forms. Like any catalog, this volume also intends to document the objects and themes proposed to the visitor. But it also has a more ambitious goal: to imagine and design the spaces of that Museum of Philosophy which, we are sure, will be created here in Milan, starting from the experience of this exhibition--Translated, via (...) Google, from page 2 of cover. (shrink)

El objetivo del estudio se orientó a analizar el desarrollo socioemocional de niños(as) con habilidades diferentes que participaron en actividades de equinoterapia en la ciudad de Lima. La muestra del estudio, realizado con diseño fenomenológico, estuvo constituida por los padres o madres de familia que participaron en la implementación de actividades de equinoterapia y ofrecieron información de sus hijos(as) con autismo, síndrome de Down o trastorno por déficit de atención con y sin hiperactividad. El recojo de datos se utilizó un (...) cuestionario de preguntas abiertas que se enfocaron en las áreas social y emocional del desarrollo de niños(as), el cual fue administrado a 25 informantes, número que se alcanzó por saturación. Se encontró como resultado que los(as) niños(as) que participan en actividades de equinoterapia con enfoque holístico se ve favorecido su desarrollo socioemocional, referente a la relación de apego y control de emociones en el área emocional, y las relaciones. (shrink)

Both aestheticians and social epistemologists are concerned with disagreement. However, in large part, their literature has yet to overlap substantially in terms of discussing whether there are viable conceptions of aesthetic peerhood and what the significance of aesthetic peer disagreement might be as a result. This article aims to address this gap. Taking cues from both the aesthetics and social epistemological literature, it develops several conceptions of aesthetic peerhood that are not only constituted by various forms of cognitive peerhood and (...) affective peerhood, but which are also framed by a specific model of ordinary peer disagreement. For each of these conceptions, it suggests what the significance of ordinary aesthetic peer disagreement might be and how future discussions about it might proceed for both aestheticians and social epistemologists alike. (shrink)

Le droit applicable à l’exercice de l’autorité parentale a été remanié par la loi du 4 mars 2002. Il existe désormais un statut légal du couple parental, applicable quelle que soit la situation familiale des parents, conditionné par l’établissement du lien de filiation de l’enfant. Ce droit commun est gouverné par un principe supérieur : les père et mère exercent en commun l’autorité parentale. La consécration progressive d’un principe d’autorité parentale conjointe (1970,1987,1993, 2002) est certes un progrès en ce qu’elle (...) invite les parents à s’accorder et à se consulter dans l’exercice de l’autorité parentale, mais l’indifférenciation des situations familiales sur laquelle repose désormais la notion de « coparentalité » est excessive en ce qu’elle conduit à détacher le principe du modèle d’un couple uni. Une autre orientation pourrait être prise : celle consistant à rapprocher du mariage le concubinage avec vie maritale, ce qui supposerait de prendre en la matière le contre-pied de la loi de 1999. L’apport le plus apparent de la loi du 4 mars 2002 est de prévoir tout un arsenal de dispositions de nature à assurer l’effectivité du principe de coparentalité, en particulier les conventions et la résidence alternée. Les conventions marquent, sous l’angle de la notion d’ordre public, l’avènement du pluralisme familial, nouveauté encadrée par un corps de règles de plus en plus tentaculaire. Quant à la résidence alternée, cette modalité présente le défaut majeur d’être désormais légale, ce qui implique sa vocation à s’appliquer à tous. Il serait souhaitable pour cette raison de rétablir dans la loi le principe de la résidence habituelle de l’enfant chez l’un de ses parents et de réserver la résidence alternée à la pratique judiciaire, à titre très exceptionnel et expérimental, pour des enfants en âge de l’assumer. (shrink)

In this article, we show that behavioral features can be obtained at a group level even if they do not appear at the individual level. Starting from a standard model of Pareto optimal allocations, with expected utility maximizers but allowing for heterogeneity among individual beliefs, we show in particular that the representative agent has an inverse S-shaped probability distortion function as in Cumulative prospect theory.