The Philosophy And Psychology Of Ambivalence

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The Philosophy and Psychology of Ambivalence

Author : Berit Brogaard
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 0429638590
Total Pages : 281 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (296 download)

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Book Synopsis The Philosophy and Psychology of Ambivalence by : Berit Brogaard

Download or read book The Philosophy and Psychology of Ambivalence written by Berit Brogaard and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-12-22 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book collects original essays by top scholars that address questions about the nature, origins, and effects of ambivalence. While the nature of agency has received an enormous amount of attention, relatively little has been written about ambivalence or how it relates to topics such as agency, rationality, justification, knowledge, autonomy, self-governance, well-being, social cognition, and various other topics. Ambivalence presents unique questions related to many major philosophical debates. For example, it relates to debates about virtues, rationality, and decision-making, agency or authenticity, emotions, and social or political metacognition. It is also relevant to a variety of larger debates in philosophy and psychology, including nature vs. nature, objectivity vs. subjectivity, or nomothetic vs. idiographic. The essays in this book offer novel and wide-ranging perspectives on this emerging philosophical topic. They will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working in ethics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, and social cognition.

Ambivalence

Author : Hili Razinsky
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN 13 : 9781786601537
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (15 download)

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Book Synopsis Ambivalence by : Hili Razinsky

Download or read book Ambivalence written by Hili Razinsky and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2018-07-31 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Combining Analytic and Continental approaches, this book provides a detailed analysis of mental ambivalence and its structures, forms and possibilities, in a philosophical context. The author explores ambivalence alongside issues relating to subjectivity, action and judgement, ..

In Praise of Ambivalence

Author : D. Justin Coates
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0197652395
Total Pages : 217 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (976 download)

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Book Synopsis In Praise of Ambivalence by : D. Justin Coates

Download or read book In Praise of Ambivalence written by D. Justin Coates and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022-12-13 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Ambivalence is a form of inner volitional conflict that we experience as being irresolvable without significant cost. Because of this, very few of us relish feelings of ambivalence. Yet for many in the Western philosophical tradition, ambivalence is not simply an unappealing experience that's hard to manage. According to the Unificationists, ambivalence is a failure of well-functioning agency. The reasons for this, we're told, are threefold. First, ambivalence precludes agents from resolving their wills in a way that is necessary for autonomy. Second, ambivalence precludes agents from fully affirming their lives, and in particular from fully affirming the choices they make. As a result, it robs them of an important source of meaning. Finally, ambivalence causes agents to act in self-defeating ways. In so doing, they act without integrity. Ambivalence is thus seen as a threat to a trio of important agential goods, and as a result, it imperils the best forms of human agency. In In Praise of Ambivalence Coates argues that ambivalence does not preclude volitional resolution or normatively significant forms of affirmation. Nor does it guarantee self-defeat. Consequently, ambivalence as such is no threat to autonomy, meaning, or integrity. In assessing these arguments, ambivalence is also revealed to have an important role in securing the very goods that unificationists contend it undermines. The best forms of human agency are therefore shown to be not only compatible with ambivalence but as regularly requiring it. Ambivalence is thus not a volitional defect, but a crucial constituent of well-functioning agency"--

On Ambivalence

Author : Kenneth Weisbrode
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262301075
Total Pages : 90 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (623 download)

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Book Synopsis On Ambivalence by : Kenneth Weisbrode

Download or read book On Ambivalence written by Kenneth Weisbrode and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2012-02-24 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A concise guide to ambivalence, from Adam and Eve (to eat the apple or not?) to Hamlet (to be or not?) to globalization (e pluribus unum or not?). Why is it so hard to make up our minds? Adam and Eve set the template: Do we or don't we eat the apple? They chose, half-heartedly, and nothing was ever the same again. With this book, Kenneth Weisbrode offers a crisp, literate, and provocative introduction to the age-old struggle with ambivalence. Ambivalence results from a basic desire to have it both ways. This is only natural—although insisting upon it against all reason often results not in "both" but in the disappointing "neither." Ambivalence has insinuated itself into our culture as a kind of obligatory reflex, or default position, before practically every choice we make. It affects not only individuals; organizations, societies, and cultures can also be ambivalent. How often have we asked the scornful question, "Are we the Hamlet of nations"? How often have we demanded that our leaders appear decisive, judicious, and stalwart? And how eager have we been to censure them when they hesitate or waver? Weisbrode traces the concept of ambivalence, from the Garden of Eden to Freud and beyond. The Obama era, he says, may be America's own era of ambivalence: neither red nor blue but a multicolored kaleidoscope. Ambivalence, he argues, need not be destructive. We must learn to distinguish it from its symptoms—selfishness, ambiguity, and indecision—and accept that frustration, guilt, and paralysis felt by individuals need not lead automatically to a collective pathology. Drawing upon examples from philosophy, history, literature, and the social sciences, On Ambivalence is a pocket-sized portrait of a complex human condition. It should be read by anyone who has ever grappled with making the right choice.

On Second Thought

Author : William R. Miller
Publisher : Guilford Publications
ISBN 13 : 1462547508
Total Pages : 210 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (625 download)

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Book Synopsis On Second Thought by : William R. Miller

Download or read book On Second Thought written by William R. Miller and published by Guilford Publications. This book was released on 2021-12-28 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rich inner world of a human being is far more complex than either/or. You can love and hate, want to go and want to stay, feel both joy and sadness. Psychologist William Miller--one of the world's leading experts on the science of change--offers a fresh perspective on ambivalence and its transformative potential in this revealing book. Rather than trying to overcome indecision by force of will, Dr. Miller explores what happens when people allow opposing arguments from their “inner committee members” to converse freely with each other. Learning to tolerate and even welcome feelings of ambivalence can help you get unstuck from unwanted habits, clarify your desires and values, explore the pros and cons of tough decisions, and open doorways to change. Vivid examples from everyday life, literature, and history illustrate why we are so often "of two minds," and how to work through it.

Ambivalent Childhoods

Author : Jacob Breslow
Publisher : U of Minnesota Press
ISBN 13 : 1452962022
Total Pages : 293 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (529 download)

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Book Synopsis Ambivalent Childhoods by : Jacob Breslow

Download or read book Ambivalent Childhoods written by Jacob Breslow and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2021-07-20 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores childhood in relation to blackness, transfeminism, queerness, and deportability to interrogate what “the child” makes possible The concept of childhood contains many contested and ambivalent meanings that have extraordinary implications, particularly for those staking their claim for belonging and justice on the wish for inclusion within it. In Ambivalent Childhoods, Jacob Breslow examines contemporary U.S. social justice movements (including Black Lives Matter, transfeminism, queer youth activism, and antideportation movements) to discover and reveal how childhood operates within and against them. Ambivalent Childhoods brings together critical race, trans, feminist, queer, critical migration, and psychoanalytic theories to explore the role of childhood in shaping and challenging the disposability of young black life, the steadfastness of the gender binary, the queer life of children’s desires, and the precarious status of migrants. Through an engagement with“the psychic life of the child” that combines theoretical discussions of childhood, blackness, transfeminism, and deportability with critical readings of films, narrative, images, and social justice movements, Breslow demonstrates how childhood requires sustained attention as a complex and ambivalent site for contesting the workings of power, not only for the young. Ambivalent Childhoods is a forward-thinking and intersectional analysis of how childhood affects activism, national belonging, and the violence directed against queer, trans, and racialized people.

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotion

Author : Peter Goldie
Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 0199235015
Total Pages : 737 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (992 download)

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Book Synopsis The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotion by : Peter Goldie

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotion written by Peter Goldie and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2009-12-03 with total page 737 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Handbook presents thirty-one state-of-the-art contributions from the most notable writers on philosophy of emotion today. Anyone working on the nature of emotion, its history, or its relation to reason, self, value, or art, whether at the level of research or advanced study, will find the book an unrivalled resource and a fascinating read.

Autonomy, Enactivism, and Mental Disorder

Author : Michelle Maiese
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1000609626
Total Pages : 207 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (6 download)

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Book Synopsis Autonomy, Enactivism, and Mental Disorder by : Michelle Maiese

Download or read book Autonomy, Enactivism, and Mental Disorder written by Michelle Maiese and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-06-30 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings together insights from the enactivist approach in philosophy of mind and existing work on autonomous agency from both philosophy of action and feminist philosophy. It then utilizes this proposed account of autonomous agency to make sense of the impairments in agency that commonly occur in cases of dissociative identity disorder, mood disorders, and psychopathy. While much of the existing philosophical work on autonomy focuses on threats that come from outside the agent, this book addresses how inner conflict, instability of character, or motivational issues can disrupt agency. In the first half of the book, the author conceptualizes what it means to be self-governing and to exercise autonomous agency. In the second half, she investigates the extent to which agents with various forms of mental disorder are capable of exercising autonomy. In her view, many forms of mental disorder involve disruptions to self-governance, so that agents lack sufficient control over their intentional behavior or are unable to formulate and execute coherent action plans. However, this does not mean that they are utterly incapable of autonomous agency; rather, their ability to exercise this capacity is compromised in important respects. Understanding these agential impairments can help to deepen our understanding of what it means to exercise autonomy, and also devise more effective treatments that restore subjects’ agency. Autonomy, Enactivism, and Mental Disorder will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working in philosophy of mind, philosophy of action, philosophy of psychiatry, and feminist philosophy.

Mad Mothers, Bad Mothers, and What a "Good" Mother Would Do

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Author : Sarah LaChance Adams
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231166753
Total Pages : 268 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (311 download)

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Book Synopsis Mad Mothers, Bad Mothers, and What a "Good" Mother Would Do by : Sarah LaChance Adams

Download or read book Mad Mothers, Bad Mothers, and What a "Good" Mother Would Do written by Sarah LaChance Adams and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2014-05-20 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When a mother kills her child, we call her a bad mother, but, as this book shows, even mothers who intend to do their children harm are not easily categorized as ÒmadÓ or Òbad.Ó Maternal love is a complex emotion rich with contradictory impulses and desires, and motherhood is a conflicted state in which women constantly renegotiate the needs mother and child, the self and the other. Applying care ethics philosophy and the work of Emmanuel Levinas, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Simone de Beauvoir to real-world experiences of motherhood, Sarah LaChance Adams throws the inherent tensions of motherhood into sharp relief, drawing a more nuanced portrait of the mother and child relationship than previously conceived. The maternal example is particularly instructive for ethical theory, highlighting the dynamics of human interdependence while also affirming separate interests. LaChance Adams particularly focuses on maternal ambivalence and its morally productive role in reinforcing the divergence between oneself and others, helping to recognize the particularities of situation, and negotiating the difference between oneÕs own needs and the desires of others. She ultimately argues maternal filicide is a social problem requiring a collective solution that ethical philosophy and philosophies of care can inform.

Moral Uncertainty

Author : William MacAskill
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0198722273
Total Pages : 237 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (987 download)

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Book Synopsis Moral Uncertainty by : William MacAskill

Download or read book Moral Uncertainty written by William MacAskill and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: About the bookToby Ord try to fill this gap. They argue that there are distinctive norms that govern how one ought to make decisions and defend an information-sensitive account of how to make such decisions. They do so by developing an analogy between moral uncertainty and social choice, noting that different moral views provide different amounts of information regarding our reasons for action, and arguing that the correct account of decision-making under moral uncertainty must be sensitive to that. Moral Uncertainty also tackles the problem of how to make intertheoretic comparisons, and addresses the implications of their view for metaethics and practical ethics. Very often we are uncertain about what we ought, morally, to do. We do not know how to weigh the interests of animals against humans, how strong our duties are to improve the lives of distant strangers, or how to think about the ethics of bringing new people into existence. But we still need to act. So how should we make decisions in the face of such uncertainty? Though economists and philosophers have extensively studied the issue of decision-making in the face of uncertainty about matters of fact, the question of decision-making given fundamental moral uncertainty has been neglected. In Moral Uncertainty, philosophers William MacAskill, Krister Bykvist, and Toby Ord try to fill this gap. They argue that there are distinctive norms that govern how one ought to make decisions and defend an information-sensitive account of how to make such decisions. They do so by developing an analogy between moral uncertainty and social choice, noting that different moral views provide different amounts of information regarding our reasons for action, and arguing that the correct account of decision-making under moral uncertainty must be sensitive to that. Moral Uncertainty also tackles the problem of how to make intertheoretic comparisons, and addresses the implications of their view for metaethics and practical ethics.

Emotions in Culture and Everyday Life

Author : Michael Hviid Jacobsen
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1000628469
Total Pages : 251 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (6 download)

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Book Synopsis Emotions in Culture and Everyday Life by : Michael Hviid Jacobsen

Download or read book Emotions in Culture and Everyday Life written by Michael Hviid Jacobsen and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-08-15 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume describes and analyses a series of emotions prevalent in everyday life and culture, with each chapter exploring the main facets of a particular emotion and considering the ways in which it manifests itself in and informs our culture and lives. Considering our expression, conception, management and sanctioning of emotions, and the ways in which these have changed over time, as well as the ways in which we can theorise particular emotional states, authors ask how certain emotions are linked to culture and society and what roles they play in politics and contemporary life. With examples and case studies taken from research into media, culture and social life, Emotions in Culture and Everyday Life will appeal to scholars of sociology, anthropology, psychology, media and cultural studies and philosophy with interests in the emotions.

The Epistemology of Non-Visual Perception

Author : Berit Brogaard
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0190648910
Total Pages : 297 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (96 download)

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Book Synopsis The Epistemology of Non-Visual Perception by : Berit Brogaard

Download or read book The Epistemology of Non-Visual Perception written by Berit Brogaard and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Most of the research on the epistemology of perception has focused on visual perception. This is hardly surprising given that most of our knowledge about the world is largely attributable to our visual experiences. The present volume is the first to instead focus on the epistemology of non-visual perception - hearing, touch, taste, and cross-sensory experiences. Drawing on recent empirical studies of emotion, perception, and decision-making, it breaks new ground on discussions of whether or not perceptual experience can yield justified beliefs and how to characterize those beliefs. The Epistemology of Non-Visual Perception explores questions not only related to traditional sensory perception, but also to proprioceptive, interoceptive, multisensory, and event perception, expanding traditional notions of the influence that conscious non-visual experience has on human behavior and rationality. Contributors investigate the role that emotions play in decision-making and agential perception and what this means for justifications of belief and knowledge. They analyze the notion that some sensory experiences, like touch, have epistemic privilege over others, as well as perception's relationship to introspection, and the relationship between action perception and belief. Other essays engage with topics in aesthetics and the philosophy of art, exploring the role that artworks can play in providing us with perceptional knowledge of emotions. The essays collected here, written by top researchers in their respective fields, offer perspectives from a wide range of philosophical disciplines and will appeal to scholars interested in philosophy of mind, epistemology, philosophical psychology, among others."--Publisher description.

Conscious and Unconscious Mentality

Author : Juraj Hvorecký
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1003827691
Total Pages : 329 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (38 download)

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Book Synopsis Conscious and Unconscious Mentality by : Juraj Hvorecký

Download or read book Conscious and Unconscious Mentality written by Juraj Hvorecký and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-12-11 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this collection of essays, experts in the field of consciousness research shed light on the intricate relationship between conscious and unconscious states of mind. Advancing the debate on consciousness research, this book puts centre stage the topic of commonalities and differences between conscious and unconscious contents of the mind. The collection of cutting-edge chapters offers a breadth of research perspectives, with some arguing that unconscious states have been unjustly overlooked and deserve recognition for their richness and wide scope. Others contend that significant differences between conscious and unconscious states persist, highlighting the importance of their distinct characteristics. Explorations into the nature of the transition from unconscious to conscious mind further complicate the picture, with some authors questioning whether a sharp divide between unconscious and conscious states truly exists. Delving into ontological, epistemological, and methodological issues, this thought-provoking text challenges established paradigms and paves the way for a reimagining of consciousness research. It does so in an understandable and accessible way, making this a perfect companion for both experts and students of philosophy, psychology, and related fields. Chapters 2, 4, 9, 10, 14 and 16 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Attitude Strength

Author : Richard E. Petty
Publisher : Psychology Press
ISBN 13 : 1317782364
Total Pages : 531 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (177 download)

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Book Synopsis Attitude Strength by : Richard E. Petty

Download or read book Attitude Strength written by Richard E. Petty and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2014-01-14 with total page 531 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social psychologists have long recognized the possibility that attitudes might differ from one another in terms of their strength, but only recently had the profound implications of this view been explored. Yet because investigators in the area were pursuing interesting but independent programs of research exploring different aspects of strength, there was little articulation of assumptions underlying the work, and little effort to establish a common research agenda. The goals of this book are to highlight these assumptions, to review the discoveries this work has produced, and to suggest directions for future work in the area. The chapter authors include individuals who have made significant contributions to the published literature and represent a diversity of perspectives on the topic. In addition to providing an overview of the broad area of attitude strength, particular chapters deal in depth with specific features of attitudes related to strength and integrate the diverse bodies of relevant theory and empirical evidence. The book will be of interest to graduate students initiating work on attitudes as well as to longstanding scholars in the field. Because of the many potential directions for application of work on attitude strength to amelioration of social problems, the book will be valuable to scholars in various applied disciplines such as political science, marketing, sociology, public opinion, and others studying attitudinal phenomena.

Explaining Emotions

Author : Amélie Rorty
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520039211
Total Pages : 556 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (2 download)

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Book Synopsis Explaining Emotions by : Amélie Rorty

Download or read book Explaining Emotions written by Amélie Rorty and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1980-05-09 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The challenge of explaining the emotions has engaged the attention of the best minds in philosophy and science throughout history. Part of the fascination has been that the emotions resist classification. As adequate account therefore requires receptivity to knowledge from a variety of sources. The philosopher must inform himself of the relevant empirical investigation to arrive at a definition, and the scientist cannot afford to be naive about the assumptions built into his conceptual apparatus. The contributors to this volume have approached the problem of characterizing and classifying emotions from the perspectives of neurophysiology, psychology, and social psychology as well as that of philosophical psychology. They discuss the difficulties that arise in classifying the emotions, assessing their appropriateness and rationality, and determining their function in motivating moral action.

Disorientation and Moral Life

Author : Ami Harbin
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 019061174X
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (96 download)

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Book Synopsis Disorientation and Moral Life by : Ami Harbin

Download or read book Disorientation and Moral Life written by Ami Harbin and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-04-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a philosophical exploration of disorientation and its significance for action. Disorientations are human experiences of losing one's bearings, such that life is disrupted and it is not clear how to go on. In the face of life experiences like trauma, grief, illness, migration, education, queer identification, and consciousness raising, individuals can be deeply disoriented. These and other disorientations are not rare. Although disorientations can be common and powerful parts of individuals' lives, they remain uncharacterized by Western philosophers, and overlooked by ethicists. Disorientations can paralyze, overwhelm, embitter, and misdirect moral agents, and moral philosophy and motivational psychology have important insights to offer into why this is. More perplexing are the ways disorientations may prompt improved moral action. Ami Harbin draws on first person accounts, philosophical texts, and qualitative and quantitative research to show that in some cases of disorientation, individuals gain new forms of awareness of political complexity and social norms, and new habits of relating to others and an unpredictable moral landscape. She then argues for the moral and political promise of these gains. A major contention of the book is that disorientations have 'non-resolutionary effects': they can help us act without first helping us resolve what to do. In exploring these possibilities, Disorientation and Moral Life contributes to philosophy of emotions, moral philosophy, and political thought from a distinctly feminist perspective. It makes the case for seeing disorientations as having the power to motivate profound and long-term shifts in moral and political action. A feminist re-envisioning of moral psychology provides the framework for understanding how they do so.

The View from Here

Author : R. Jay Wallace
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190918683
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (99 download)

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Book Synopsis The View from Here by : R. Jay Wallace

Download or read book The View from Here written by R. Jay Wallace and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-02-06 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Must we always later regret actions that were wrong for us to perform at the time? Can there ever be good reason to affirm things in the past that we know were unfortunate? In this original work of moral philosophy, R. Jay Wallace shows that the standpoint from which we look back on our lives is shaped by our present attachments-to persons, to the projects that imbue our lives with meaning, and to life itself. Through a distinctive "affirmation dynamic", these attachments commit us to affirming the necessary conditions of their objects. The result is that we are sometimes unable to regret events and circumstances that were originally unjustified or otherwise somehow objectionable. Wallace traces these themes through a range of examples. A teenage girl makes an ill-advised decision to conceive a child - but her love for the child once it has been born makes it impossible for her to regret that earlier decision. The painter Paul Gauguin abandons his family to pursue his true artistic calling (and eventual life project) in Tahiti--which means he cannot truly regret his abdication of familial responsibility. The View from Here offers new interpretations of these classic cases, challenging their treatment by Bernard Williams and others. Another example is the "bourgeois predicament": we are committed to affirming the regrettable social inequalities that make possible the expensive activities that give our lives meaning. Generalizing from such situations, Wallace defends the view that our attachments inevitably commit us to affirming historical conditions that we cannot regard as worthy of being affirmed--a modest form of nihilism.