- Flinders University
Bedford Park
Adelaide, 5042
Australia
- Music, Philosophy, Metaphysics, Ontology, Philosophy of Mind, Aesthetics, and 27 moreNon-Conceptual Content, Metaphysics of properties, Improvisation, Complexity Theory, Structure, Composition (Music), New Interfaces for Musical Expression, Sound and Music Computing, Pattern Recognition, Philosophy of Art, Embodied Mind and Cognition, Philosophy of the Emotions, Pattern Formation, Consciousness, Modality, Chaos Theory, Computer Music, Music Emotion Affect Pyschology Arousal Expression, Emotion, Music Psychology, Embodied Music Cognition, Music and Emotions, Extended Mind, Mental Representation and Content, Embodied Cognition, Philosophy of Psychiatry, and Humoredit
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I argue that while the feeling of bodily responses is not necessary to emotion, these feelings contribute significant meaningful content to everyday emotional experience. Emotional bodily feelings represent a ‘state of self’, analysed as... more
I argue that while the feeling of bodily responses is not necessary to emotion, these feelings contribute significant meaningful content to everyday emotional experience. Emotional bodily feelings represent a ‘state of self’, analysed as a sense of one’s body affording certain patterns of interaction with the environment. Recognizing that there are two sources of intentional content in everyday emotional experience allows us to reconcile the diverging intuitions that people have about emotional states, and to understand better the long-standing debate between bodily-feeling based and appraisal-based theories of emotion.
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This article claims that the capacity of humorous works to influence our attitudes is limited. We can only find something funny if we regard it as norm-violating in a way that doesn't make certain pragmatic demands upon us (e.g. to defend... more
This article claims that the capacity of humorous works to influence our attitudes is limited. We can only find something funny if we regard it as norm-violating in a way that doesn't make certain pragmatic demands upon us (e.g. to defend the norm). It is compatible with these conditions that humour reinforces an attitude about a norm-violation. However it is not compatible with these conditions that we reject some existing attitude. Such a rejection would require that we recognize our attitude as norm-violating in a way that has pragmatic force. Thus if a humorous work reveals the absurdity of something, we can either find it funny and not have our attitudes significantly influenced, or else be significantly influenced but not find it funny.
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Research Interests:
In this article we examine obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). We examine and reject two existing models of this disorder: the Dysfunctional Belief Model and the Inference-Based Approach. Instead, we propose that the main distinctive... more
In this article we examine obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). We examine and reject two existing models of this disorder: the Dysfunctional Belief Model and the Inference-Based Approach. Instead, we propose that the main distinctive characteristic of OCD is a hyperactive sub-personal signal of being in error, experienced by the individual as uncertainty about his or her intentional actions (including mental actions). This signalling interacts with the anxiety sensitivities of the individual to trigger conscious checking processes, including speculations about possible harms. We examine the implications of this model for the individual’s capacity to control his or her thoughts.
Research Interests: Anxiety Disorders, Reasoning about Uncertainty, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Anxiety, Uncertainty, and 11 moreOCD treatment, Intrusive Thoughts, OCD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, adult ADHD, OCD, anxiety spectrum disorders, Compulsion, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders, Conditions of Uncertainty, Controlling Thought, and Epistemic Feelings
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Research Interests:
I defend the claim that fictional narratives provide cognitive benefits to readers in virtue of helping them to understand character. Fictions allow readers to rehearse the skill of selecting and organizing into narratives those episodes... more
I defend the claim that fictional narratives provide cognitive benefits to readers in virtue of helping them to understand character. Fictions allow readers to rehearse the skill of selecting and organizing into narratives those episodes of a life that reflect traits or values. Two further benefits follow; i) fictional narratives provide character models that we can apply to real-life individuals (including ourselves) and ii) fictional narratives help readers to reflect on the value priorities that constitute character. I defend the plausibility of these cognitive benefits against certain worries raised by Gregory Currie and Peter Goldie.
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This paper explores the emotional characteristics of our experiences of the sublime, seeking a plausible way to explain the combination of attraction and fear (or what is ultimately identified as feelings of ‘self-negation’). Several... more
This paper explores the emotional characteristics of our experiences of the sublime, seeking a plausible way to explain the combination of attraction and fear (or what is ultimately identified as feelings of ‘self-negation’). Several possible explanations are introduced and evaluated before a new model is proposed based on imaginative identification. On this model, the observer fluctuates between imagined physical interactions with the sublime object (explaining the feelings of self-negation) and imagined possession of qualities analogous to those possessed by the sublime object (explaining the feelings of attraction).
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This article begins by arguing for the persona theory of musical experience, which claims that when we hear music as expressive of emotions, we have a sense of a persona that is in some way attached to the emotional state. The author... more
This article begins by arguing for the persona theory of musical experience, which claims that when we hear music as expressive of emotions, we have a sense of a persona that is in some way attached to the emotional state. The author argues that the sense of persona underlies a number of different accountsof musical expression and is generally supported by the essential experiential content of emotions. The author then explores the ways in which the listener's sense of a persona may be exploited to allow the expression of complex emotions, focussing on the emotion of jealousy and, to that end, examining two cases where the expression of that emotion has been attempted by Janáček and Piazzolla.
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Research Interests:
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This paper contrasts individual and collective listening to music, with particular regard to the expressive qualities of music. In the first half of the paper a general model of joint attention is introduced. According to this model,... more
This paper contrasts individual and collective listening to music, with particular regard to the expressive qualities of music. In the first half of the paper a general model of joint attention is introduced. According to this model, perceiving together modifies the intrinsic structure of the perceptual task, and encourages a convergence of responses to a greater or lesser degree. The model is then applied to music, looking first at the silent listening situation typical to the classical concert hall, and second the noisy listening situation typical to rock or jazz concerts.