Juliette Vazard | Central European University (original) (raw)
Talks by Juliette Vazard
European Philosophical Society for the Study of Emotions, Annual Conference 10-11 June 2019, Pisa
Apart from radical skeptics, persons suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) probably ... more Apart from radical skeptics, persons suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) probably manifest one of the most extreme forms of unreasonable doubting. What are the cognitive and affective mechanisms responsible for generating the need and motivation to suspend our judgment, reassess our beliefs, and gather further evidence to support or reject them? Given that OCD’s disabling symptoms are thought to result from a dysfunctional tendency towards doubt, uncertainty, and indecision, this disorder certainly holds some answers to these questions.
Handout of a paper presented at the British Society for History of Philosophy annual conference o... more Handout of a paper presented at the British Society for History of Philosophy annual conference on "Habits" on April 14th, 2018
Master's Thesis by Juliette Vazard
An analysis of the different reasons for action involved in compulsions, as they appear in OCD, a... more An analysis of the different reasons for action involved in compulsions, as they appear in OCD, addiction, and impulse control disorders.
Papers by Juliette Vazard
Mind & Language
Is the capacity to experience hope central to our ability to entertain desirable future possibili... more Is the capacity to experience hope central to our ability to entertain desirable future possibilities in thought? The ability to project oneself forward in time, or to entertain vivid positive episodic future thoughts, is impaired in patients with clinical depression. In this article, I consider the causal relation between, on the one hand, the loss of the affective experience of hope in depressed patients, and on the other hand, the reduced ability to generate and entertain positive episodic future thinking. I suggest that findings in the philosophy of emotion may shed light on this causal relation.
Mind & Language, 2023
Is the capacity to experience hope central to our ability to entertain desirable future possibili... more Is the capacity to experience hope central to our ability to entertain desirable future possibilities in thought? The ability to project oneself forward in time, or to entertain vivid positive episodic future thoughts, is impaired in patients with clinical depression. In this article, I consider the causal relation between, on the one hand, the loss of the affective experience of hope in depressed patients, and on the other hand, the reduced ability to generate and entertain positive episodic future thinking. I suggest that findings in the philosophy of emotion may shed light on this causal relation.
Philosophical Explorations
Checking is one of the most common compulsive actions performed by patients with Obsessive- compu... more Checking is one of the most common compulsive actions performed by patients with Obsessive- compulsive disorder (OCD) (APA, 2013; Abramowitz, McKay, Taylor, 2008). Incessant checking is undeniably problematic from a practical point of view. But what is epistemically wrong with checking again (and again)? The starting assumption for this paper is that establishing what goes wrong when individuals check their stove ten times in a row requires understanding the nature of the doxastic attitude that compulsive re-checkers are in, as they go back to perform another check. Does the re-checker know that the stove is off, and is thus looking for more of what she already has? Or is she an inquirer who repeatedly loses her knowledge and finds herself inquiring again and again into the same question? In the paper I expose and discuss three main hypotheses, and suggest a refinement.
Synthese
The aim of this collection is to show how work in the analytic philosophical tradition can shed l... more The aim of this collection is to show how work in the analytic philosophical tradition can shed light on the nature, value, and experience of anxiety. Contrary to widespread assumptions, anxiety is not best understood as a mental disorder, or an intrinsically debilitating state, but rather as an often valuable affective state which heightens our sensitivity to potential threats and challenges. As the contributions in this volume demonstrate, learning about anxiety can be relevant for debates, not only in the philosophy of emotion, but also in epistemology, value theory, and the philosophy of psychopathology. In this introductory article, we also show that there is still much to discover about the relevance that anxiety may have for moral action, self-understanding, and mental health.
Synthese
In this article I examine the role of anxiety in our motivation to reassess our epistemic states,... more In this article I examine the role of anxiety in our motivation to reassess our epistemic states, by taking as a starting point a proposal put forward by Levy (Philosophers' Imprint 16:1–10, 2016), according to which anxiety is responsible for the ruminations and worries about threatening possibilities that we sometimes get caught up into in our everyday life. Levy’s claim is that these irrational persistent thoughts about possible states of affairs are best explained by anxiety, rather than by beliefs, degrees of belief, or other mental states. I will take Levy’s article as a starting point into my study of the role of anxiety in our inclinations to question the epistemic quality of our cognitive states. While I believe that Levy is right in directing our attention to the role of anxiety in these cases, his claim calls for further explanation into the nature of anxiety, and into the mechanisms through which anxiety generates these doubts. Although the relation between anxiety a...
Philosophical Perspectives on Affective Experience and Psychopathology, 2018
We have a great honor to work together with academician Borys Evgenovych Paton, who by his selfle... more We have a great honor to work together with academician Borys Evgenovych Paton, who by his selfless labor made great contributions to the restructuring of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, founded in 1918 by the initiative of Volodymyr Ivanovych Vernadsky, the famous scientist and public figure. During the years of its activity the Academy attained great achievements in many fields of science and technology. Numerous discoveries and inventions were made, many theories and conceptions were put forward, scientific and technical directions were started, the world-known scientific schools were organized, to which the Paton school belongs, which educated and united the scientists in the field of electric welding and related technologies, materials science and metallurgy. All the labor life of Borys Paton is inseparably connected with the Institute of Electric Welding. This is the call of «technical nature», family tradition and son's duty to continue the father's activity. The talent of the famous scientist with a wide sphere of interests was especially pronounced in Borys E. Paton at the post of the Institute director. To define clearly the purpose of investigation, to forecast the most important link in it, to attract interest of a large team of scientists to the new direction are the main tasks of the scientific leader, which were successfully realized by him showing the self ability to work with the team, readiness in supporting of any interesting idea, to assess worthy the fulfilled work. His inexhaustible enthusiasm, unique working ability and respect of each staff member provided the healthy creative atmosphere in the working staff. Over 65 years the work of the Institute under the leadership of Borys E. Paton is the wonderful continuation and implementation of profound and challenging principles of scientific-technical activity of Evgen Oscarovych Paton, the founder of our Institute. The scientific-technical directions, started by Borys Paton, widened greatly the subjects of studies and developments. The purposeful fundamental studies, started at the Institute, became the theoretical bases of welding science, transforming it into powerful means of technical progress, that led to the revolutionary changes in many branches of industry, such as: machine-, ship-and aircraft building, aerospace industry, power engineering, railway transport, mining complexes, metallurgy and chemical production, promoted the creation of pipeline transport, construction industry. Many scientific developments predetermined the world development of welding technologies and went down in history of the science and technology progress. The world authority of B.E. Paton came by comprehensive and fruitful scientific and engineering activity, desire to direct the fundamental research to the solution of actual problems of the scientific-technical progress. By his contributions he made grounds of arc welding, namely the theory of the automatic machines for arc welding, which further was improved by many specialists in the field of the automatic control of welding processes. Under the supervision of Borys Paton the studies were made in the field of welding power sources; the processes of arc, electroslag, resistance, electron beam and many other processes of welding and allied technologies were developed; a large complex of fundamental and applied studies in the field of static and cyclic strength of welded joints, their resistance to brittle and fatigue fracture, serviceability under conditions
Passions sociales, 2019
Les termes que nous utilisons pour décrire notre vie affective ont changé au fil des siècles. ... more Les termes que nous utilisons pour décrire notre vie affective ont changé au fil des siècles. Un changement notoire est celui qui a mené d’une conception de l’affectivité centrée autour des “passions” à un discours basé sur l' “émotion” comme catégorie psychologique centrale (Dixon 2003, Rorty 1982). Ainsi, alors que la référence à des désordres émotionnels est omniprésente dans les manuels de psychopathologie, le concept de passion a largement disparu du glossaire psychiatrique. Certains auteurs défendent pourtant l’idée selon laquelle ces deux concepts au- raient chacun une place à part entière dans la psychopathologie contemporaine.
In recent years, there has been a trend in psychiatry to try and explain disorders of action in t... more In recent years, there has been a trend in psychiatry to try and explain disorders of action in terms of an over-reliance on the habitual mode of action. In particular, it has been hypothesized that compulsions in obsessive-compulsive disorder are driven by maladaptive habits. In this paper, I argue that this view of obsessive-compulsive disorder does not fit the phenomenology of the disorder in many patients, and that a more refined conceptualization of habit is likely to be helpful in clarifying the distinctions between disorders of action. There are thus two aims to this paper. The first is to highlight the issues pertaining to the view that compulsions are the result of an over-reliance on the habitual mode of action, leading to a loss of agentive control. The second aim is to examine the view of agentive control implicit in those accounts, and see how other conceptions of agentive control might do a better job at accounting for the distinct ways in which persons suffering from ...
Detection of chemical stimuli is crucial for living systems and also contributes to quality of li... more Detection of chemical stimuli is crucial for living systems and also contributes to quality of life in humans. Since loss of olfaction becomes more prevalent with aging, longer life expectancies have fueled interest in understanding the molecular mechanisms behind the development and maintenance of chemical sensing. Planarian flatworms possess an unsurpassed ability for stem cell-driven regeneration that allows them to restore any damaged or removed part of their bodies. This includes anteriorly-positioned lateral flaps known as auricles, which have long been thought to play a central role in chemotaxis. The contribution of auricles to the detection of positive chemical stimuli was tested in this study using Girardia dorotocephala, a North American planarian species known for its morphologically prominent auricles. Behavioral experiments staged under laboratory conditions revealed that removal of auricles by amputation leads to a significant decrease in the ability of planarians to find food. However, full chemotactic capacity is observed as early as 2 days post-amputation, which is days prior from restoration of auricle morphology, but correlative with accumulation of ciliated cells in the position of auricle regeneration. Planarians subjected to x-ray irradiation prior to auricle amputation were unable to restore auricle morphology, but were still able to restore chemotactic capacity. These results indicate that although regeneration of auricle morphology requires stem cells, some restoration of chemotactic ability can still be achieved in the absence of normal auricle morphology, corroborating with the initial observation that chemotactic success is reestablished 2-days post-amputation in our assays. Transcriptome profiles of excised auricles were obtained to facilitate molecular characterization of these structures, as well as the identification of genes that contribute to chemotaxis and auricle development. A significant overlap was found between genes with preferential expression in auricles of G. dorotocephala and genes with reduced expression upon SoxB1 knockdown in Schmidtea mediterranea, suggesting that SoxB1 has a conserved role in regulating auricle development and function. Models that distinguish between possible contributions to chemotactic behavior obtained from cellular composition, as compared to anatomical morphology of the auricles, are discussed.
Philosophical Explorations (forthcoming)
Checking is one of the most common compulsive actions performed by patients with Obsessive- compu... more Checking is one of the most common compulsive actions performed by patients with Obsessive- compulsive disorder (OCD) (APA, 2013; Abramowitz, McKay, Taylor, 2008). Incessant checking is undeniably problematic from a practical point of view. But what is epistemically wrong with checking again (and again)? The starting assumption for this paper is that establishing what goes wrong when individuals check their stove ten times in a row requires understanding the nature of the doxastic attitude that compulsive re-checkers are in, as they go back to perform another check. Does the re-checker know that the stove is off, and is thus looking for more of what she already has? Or is she an inquirer who repeatedly loses her knowledge and finds herself inquiring again and again into the same question? In the paper I expose and discuss three main hypotheses, and suggest a refinement.
Philosophical Psychology, 2021
Feeling confused can sometimes lead us to give up on a task, frustrated. What is less emphasized ... more Feeling confused can sometimes lead us to give up on a task, frustrated. What is less emphasized is that confusion may also promote happy (epistemic) endings to our inquiries. It has recently been argued that confusion motivates effortful investigative behaviors which can help us acquire hard-to-get epistemic goods. While the motivational power of confusion and its benefits for learning has been uncovered in recent years, the exact nature of the phenomenon remains obscure. In this paper we attempt to shed light on the nature and epistemic value of an experience we are all familiar with: the experience of being confused at an object, a statement, etc. We first review the psychological literature on confusion, where it is most often considered to be an epistemic emotion. We then propose a refined account of confusion, by drawing on the literature on metacognitive or noetic feelings, both in psychology and in the philosophy of mind. Finally we show how our account may explain findings about the role of the experience of confusion in motivating deeper inquiry into complex problems and bringing about epistemic success in these cases.
Les ateliers de l'éthique, 2021
Dans cet essai, nous nous attaquons à l’idée reçue selon laquelle la panique consiste simplement ... more Dans cet essai, nous nous attaquons à l’idée reçue selon laquelle la panique consiste simplement en un état où l’on se laisse « dépasser par sa peur ». La panique, selon nous, n’est pas une peur extrême qui pousse nécessairement la personne à des comportements dysfonctionnels, contre-productifs et irrationnels. Au contraire, comme nous allons tenter de le montrer ici, il s’agit d’une émotion à part entière qui a ses propres fonctions cognitives et motivationnelles. Nous analyserons ici la panique comme une réaction face à un danger perçu comme majeur, imminent et sans issue claire, dans le sens où le sujet n’a pas de plan d’action déterminé pour réagir face au danger. La panique implique ainsi un accès particulier à certaines informations ou certains faits – une perception ou appréhension d’un danger et de ses propriétés précises – et c’est en cela qu’elle a une fonction cognitive. Sur le plan motivationnel, nous défendrons l’idée selon laquelle la panique implique des tendances à l...
Synthese (forthcoming)
In this article I examine the role of anxiety in our motivation to reassess our epistemic states,... more In this article I examine the role of anxiety in our motivation to reassess our epistemic states, by taking as a starting point a proposal put forward by Neil Levy (2016), according to which anxiety is responsible for the ruminations and worries about threatening possibilities that we sometimes get caught up into in our everyday life. Levy’s claim is that these irrational persistent thoughts about possible states of affairs are best explained by anxiety, rather than by beliefs, degrees of belief, or other mental states. I will take Levy’s article as a starting point into my study of the role of anxiety in our inclinations to question the epistemic quality of our cognitive states. While I believe that Levy is right in directing our attention to the role of anxiety in these cases, his claim calls for further explanation into the nature of anxiety, and into the mechanisms through which anxiety generates these doubts. Although the relation between anxiety and doubt has already been highlighted (Hookway, 1998, 2008), there has been little effort to elaborate on the mechanisms through which an affective state like anxiety generates a motivation to reassess our beliefs. This paper is an attempt at providing such an elaboration. Clarifying the role of anxiety in these phenomena will lead me to revise a common assumption about the interactions between anxiety and higher-level cognitive processes, such as the ones involved in representing hypothetical threatening scenarios through mental imagery.
European Philosophical Society for the Study of Emotions, Annual Conference 10-11 June 2019, Pisa
Apart from radical skeptics, persons suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) probably ... more Apart from radical skeptics, persons suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) probably manifest one of the most extreme forms of unreasonable doubting. What are the cognitive and affective mechanisms responsible for generating the need and motivation to suspend our judgment, reassess our beliefs, and gather further evidence to support or reject them? Given that OCD’s disabling symptoms are thought to result from a dysfunctional tendency towards doubt, uncertainty, and indecision, this disorder certainly holds some answers to these questions.
Handout of a paper presented at the British Society for History of Philosophy annual conference o... more Handout of a paper presented at the British Society for History of Philosophy annual conference on "Habits" on April 14th, 2018
An analysis of the different reasons for action involved in compulsions, as they appear in OCD, a... more An analysis of the different reasons for action involved in compulsions, as they appear in OCD, addiction, and impulse control disorders.
Mind & Language
Is the capacity to experience hope central to our ability to entertain desirable future possibili... more Is the capacity to experience hope central to our ability to entertain desirable future possibilities in thought? The ability to project oneself forward in time, or to entertain vivid positive episodic future thoughts, is impaired in patients with clinical depression. In this article, I consider the causal relation between, on the one hand, the loss of the affective experience of hope in depressed patients, and on the other hand, the reduced ability to generate and entertain positive episodic future thinking. I suggest that findings in the philosophy of emotion may shed light on this causal relation.
Mind & Language, 2023
Is the capacity to experience hope central to our ability to entertain desirable future possibili... more Is the capacity to experience hope central to our ability to entertain desirable future possibilities in thought? The ability to project oneself forward in time, or to entertain vivid positive episodic future thoughts, is impaired in patients with clinical depression. In this article, I consider the causal relation between, on the one hand, the loss of the affective experience of hope in depressed patients, and on the other hand, the reduced ability to generate and entertain positive episodic future thinking. I suggest that findings in the philosophy of emotion may shed light on this causal relation.
Philosophical Explorations
Checking is one of the most common compulsive actions performed by patients with Obsessive- compu... more Checking is one of the most common compulsive actions performed by patients with Obsessive- compulsive disorder (OCD) (APA, 2013; Abramowitz, McKay, Taylor, 2008). Incessant checking is undeniably problematic from a practical point of view. But what is epistemically wrong with checking again (and again)? The starting assumption for this paper is that establishing what goes wrong when individuals check their stove ten times in a row requires understanding the nature of the doxastic attitude that compulsive re-checkers are in, as they go back to perform another check. Does the re-checker know that the stove is off, and is thus looking for more of what she already has? Or is she an inquirer who repeatedly loses her knowledge and finds herself inquiring again and again into the same question? In the paper I expose and discuss three main hypotheses, and suggest a refinement.
Synthese
The aim of this collection is to show how work in the analytic philosophical tradition can shed l... more The aim of this collection is to show how work in the analytic philosophical tradition can shed light on the nature, value, and experience of anxiety. Contrary to widespread assumptions, anxiety is not best understood as a mental disorder, or an intrinsically debilitating state, but rather as an often valuable affective state which heightens our sensitivity to potential threats and challenges. As the contributions in this volume demonstrate, learning about anxiety can be relevant for debates, not only in the philosophy of emotion, but also in epistemology, value theory, and the philosophy of psychopathology. In this introductory article, we also show that there is still much to discover about the relevance that anxiety may have for moral action, self-understanding, and mental health.
Synthese
In this article I examine the role of anxiety in our motivation to reassess our epistemic states,... more In this article I examine the role of anxiety in our motivation to reassess our epistemic states, by taking as a starting point a proposal put forward by Levy (Philosophers' Imprint 16:1–10, 2016), according to which anxiety is responsible for the ruminations and worries about threatening possibilities that we sometimes get caught up into in our everyday life. Levy’s claim is that these irrational persistent thoughts about possible states of affairs are best explained by anxiety, rather than by beliefs, degrees of belief, or other mental states. I will take Levy’s article as a starting point into my study of the role of anxiety in our inclinations to question the epistemic quality of our cognitive states. While I believe that Levy is right in directing our attention to the role of anxiety in these cases, his claim calls for further explanation into the nature of anxiety, and into the mechanisms through which anxiety generates these doubts. Although the relation between anxiety a...
Philosophical Perspectives on Affective Experience and Psychopathology, 2018
We have a great honor to work together with academician Borys Evgenovych Paton, who by his selfle... more We have a great honor to work together with academician Borys Evgenovych Paton, who by his selfless labor made great contributions to the restructuring of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, founded in 1918 by the initiative of Volodymyr Ivanovych Vernadsky, the famous scientist and public figure. During the years of its activity the Academy attained great achievements in many fields of science and technology. Numerous discoveries and inventions were made, many theories and conceptions were put forward, scientific and technical directions were started, the world-known scientific schools were organized, to which the Paton school belongs, which educated and united the scientists in the field of electric welding and related technologies, materials science and metallurgy. All the labor life of Borys Paton is inseparably connected with the Institute of Electric Welding. This is the call of «technical nature», family tradition and son's duty to continue the father's activity. The talent of the famous scientist with a wide sphere of interests was especially pronounced in Borys E. Paton at the post of the Institute director. To define clearly the purpose of investigation, to forecast the most important link in it, to attract interest of a large team of scientists to the new direction are the main tasks of the scientific leader, which were successfully realized by him showing the self ability to work with the team, readiness in supporting of any interesting idea, to assess worthy the fulfilled work. His inexhaustible enthusiasm, unique working ability and respect of each staff member provided the healthy creative atmosphere in the working staff. Over 65 years the work of the Institute under the leadership of Borys E. Paton is the wonderful continuation and implementation of profound and challenging principles of scientific-technical activity of Evgen Oscarovych Paton, the founder of our Institute. The scientific-technical directions, started by Borys Paton, widened greatly the subjects of studies and developments. The purposeful fundamental studies, started at the Institute, became the theoretical bases of welding science, transforming it into powerful means of technical progress, that led to the revolutionary changes in many branches of industry, such as: machine-, ship-and aircraft building, aerospace industry, power engineering, railway transport, mining complexes, metallurgy and chemical production, promoted the creation of pipeline transport, construction industry. Many scientific developments predetermined the world development of welding technologies and went down in history of the science and technology progress. The world authority of B.E. Paton came by comprehensive and fruitful scientific and engineering activity, desire to direct the fundamental research to the solution of actual problems of the scientific-technical progress. By his contributions he made grounds of arc welding, namely the theory of the automatic machines for arc welding, which further was improved by many specialists in the field of the automatic control of welding processes. Under the supervision of Borys Paton the studies were made in the field of welding power sources; the processes of arc, electroslag, resistance, electron beam and many other processes of welding and allied technologies were developed; a large complex of fundamental and applied studies in the field of static and cyclic strength of welded joints, their resistance to brittle and fatigue fracture, serviceability under conditions
Passions sociales, 2019
Les termes que nous utilisons pour décrire notre vie affective ont changé au fil des siècles. ... more Les termes que nous utilisons pour décrire notre vie affective ont changé au fil des siècles. Un changement notoire est celui qui a mené d’une conception de l’affectivité centrée autour des “passions” à un discours basé sur l' “émotion” comme catégorie psychologique centrale (Dixon 2003, Rorty 1982). Ainsi, alors que la référence à des désordres émotionnels est omniprésente dans les manuels de psychopathologie, le concept de passion a largement disparu du glossaire psychiatrique. Certains auteurs défendent pourtant l’idée selon laquelle ces deux concepts au- raient chacun une place à part entière dans la psychopathologie contemporaine.
In recent years, there has been a trend in psychiatry to try and explain disorders of action in t... more In recent years, there has been a trend in psychiatry to try and explain disorders of action in terms of an over-reliance on the habitual mode of action. In particular, it has been hypothesized that compulsions in obsessive-compulsive disorder are driven by maladaptive habits. In this paper, I argue that this view of obsessive-compulsive disorder does not fit the phenomenology of the disorder in many patients, and that a more refined conceptualization of habit is likely to be helpful in clarifying the distinctions between disorders of action. There are thus two aims to this paper. The first is to highlight the issues pertaining to the view that compulsions are the result of an over-reliance on the habitual mode of action, leading to a loss of agentive control. The second aim is to examine the view of agentive control implicit in those accounts, and see how other conceptions of agentive control might do a better job at accounting for the distinct ways in which persons suffering from ...
Detection of chemical stimuli is crucial for living systems and also contributes to quality of li... more Detection of chemical stimuli is crucial for living systems and also contributes to quality of life in humans. Since loss of olfaction becomes more prevalent with aging, longer life expectancies have fueled interest in understanding the molecular mechanisms behind the development and maintenance of chemical sensing. Planarian flatworms possess an unsurpassed ability for stem cell-driven regeneration that allows them to restore any damaged or removed part of their bodies. This includes anteriorly-positioned lateral flaps known as auricles, which have long been thought to play a central role in chemotaxis. The contribution of auricles to the detection of positive chemical stimuli was tested in this study using Girardia dorotocephala, a North American planarian species known for its morphologically prominent auricles. Behavioral experiments staged under laboratory conditions revealed that removal of auricles by amputation leads to a significant decrease in the ability of planarians to find food. However, full chemotactic capacity is observed as early as 2 days post-amputation, which is days prior from restoration of auricle morphology, but correlative with accumulation of ciliated cells in the position of auricle regeneration. Planarians subjected to x-ray irradiation prior to auricle amputation were unable to restore auricle morphology, but were still able to restore chemotactic capacity. These results indicate that although regeneration of auricle morphology requires stem cells, some restoration of chemotactic ability can still be achieved in the absence of normal auricle morphology, corroborating with the initial observation that chemotactic success is reestablished 2-days post-amputation in our assays. Transcriptome profiles of excised auricles were obtained to facilitate molecular characterization of these structures, as well as the identification of genes that contribute to chemotaxis and auricle development. A significant overlap was found between genes with preferential expression in auricles of G. dorotocephala and genes with reduced expression upon SoxB1 knockdown in Schmidtea mediterranea, suggesting that SoxB1 has a conserved role in regulating auricle development and function. Models that distinguish between possible contributions to chemotactic behavior obtained from cellular composition, as compared to anatomical morphology of the auricles, are discussed.
Philosophical Explorations (forthcoming)
Checking is one of the most common compulsive actions performed by patients with Obsessive- compu... more Checking is one of the most common compulsive actions performed by patients with Obsessive- compulsive disorder (OCD) (APA, 2013; Abramowitz, McKay, Taylor, 2008). Incessant checking is undeniably problematic from a practical point of view. But what is epistemically wrong with checking again (and again)? The starting assumption for this paper is that establishing what goes wrong when individuals check their stove ten times in a row requires understanding the nature of the doxastic attitude that compulsive re-checkers are in, as they go back to perform another check. Does the re-checker know that the stove is off, and is thus looking for more of what she already has? Or is she an inquirer who repeatedly loses her knowledge and finds herself inquiring again and again into the same question? In the paper I expose and discuss three main hypotheses, and suggest a refinement.
Philosophical Psychology, 2021
Feeling confused can sometimes lead us to give up on a task, frustrated. What is less emphasized ... more Feeling confused can sometimes lead us to give up on a task, frustrated. What is less emphasized is that confusion may also promote happy (epistemic) endings to our inquiries. It has recently been argued that confusion motivates effortful investigative behaviors which can help us acquire hard-to-get epistemic goods. While the motivational power of confusion and its benefits for learning has been uncovered in recent years, the exact nature of the phenomenon remains obscure. In this paper we attempt to shed light on the nature and epistemic value of an experience we are all familiar with: the experience of being confused at an object, a statement, etc. We first review the psychological literature on confusion, where it is most often considered to be an epistemic emotion. We then propose a refined account of confusion, by drawing on the literature on metacognitive or noetic feelings, both in psychology and in the philosophy of mind. Finally we show how our account may explain findings about the role of the experience of confusion in motivating deeper inquiry into complex problems and bringing about epistemic success in these cases.
Les ateliers de l'éthique, 2021
Dans cet essai, nous nous attaquons à l’idée reçue selon laquelle la panique consiste simplement ... more Dans cet essai, nous nous attaquons à l’idée reçue selon laquelle la panique consiste simplement en un état où l’on se laisse « dépasser par sa peur ». La panique, selon nous, n’est pas une peur extrême qui pousse nécessairement la personne à des comportements dysfonctionnels, contre-productifs et irrationnels. Au contraire, comme nous allons tenter de le montrer ici, il s’agit d’une émotion à part entière qui a ses propres fonctions cognitives et motivationnelles. Nous analyserons ici la panique comme une réaction face à un danger perçu comme majeur, imminent et sans issue claire, dans le sens où le sujet n’a pas de plan d’action déterminé pour réagir face au danger. La panique implique ainsi un accès particulier à certaines informations ou certains faits – une perception ou appréhension d’un danger et de ses propriétés précises – et c’est en cela qu’elle a une fonction cognitive. Sur le plan motivationnel, nous défendrons l’idée selon laquelle la panique implique des tendances à l...
Synthese (forthcoming)
In this article I examine the role of anxiety in our motivation to reassess our epistemic states,... more In this article I examine the role of anxiety in our motivation to reassess our epistemic states, by taking as a starting point a proposal put forward by Neil Levy (2016), according to which anxiety is responsible for the ruminations and worries about threatening possibilities that we sometimes get caught up into in our everyday life. Levy’s claim is that these irrational persistent thoughts about possible states of affairs are best explained by anxiety, rather than by beliefs, degrees of belief, or other mental states. I will take Levy’s article as a starting point into my study of the role of anxiety in our inclinations to question the epistemic quality of our cognitive states. While I believe that Levy is right in directing our attention to the role of anxiety in these cases, his claim calls for further explanation into the nature of anxiety, and into the mechanisms through which anxiety generates these doubts. Although the relation between anxiety and doubt has already been highlighted (Hookway, 1998, 2008), there has been little effort to elaborate on the mechanisms through which an affective state like anxiety generates a motivation to reassess our beliefs. This paper is an attempt at providing such an elaboration. Clarifying the role of anxiety in these phenomena will lead me to revise a common assumption about the interactions between anxiety and higher-level cognitive processes, such as the ones involved in representing hypothetical threatening scenarios through mental imagery.
Synthese
How does doubt come about? What are the mechanisms responsible for our inclinations to reassess p... more How does doubt come about? What are the mechanisms responsible for our inclinations to reassess propositions and collect further evidence to support or reject them? In this paper, I approach this question by focusing on what might be considered a distorting mirror of unreasonable doubt, namely the pathological doubt of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Individuals with OCD exhibit a form of persistent doubting, indecisiveness, and over-cautiousness at pathological levels (Rasmussen and Eisen, 1992; Reed, 1985; Tolin et al., 2003). I argue that the failure in OCD is of an affective nature, involving both excessive epistemic anxiety and hyperactive feelings of uncertainty. I further argue that our adaptive disposition to inquire about the right matters - that is, about propositions which are both epistemically risky and imply harmful possibilities - might depend on these affective mechanisms.
Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology , 2021
In recent years, there has been a trend in psychiatry to try and explain disorders of action in t... more In recent years, there has been a trend in psychiatry to try and explain disorders of action in terms of an over-reliance on the habitual mode of action. In particular, it has been hypothesized that compulsions in obsessive-compulsive disorder are driven by maladaptive habits. In this paper, I argue that this view of obsessive-compulsive disorder does not fit the phenomenology of the disorder in many patients, and that a more refined conceptualization of habit is likely to be helpful in clarifying the distinctions between disorders of action. There are thus two aims to this paper. The first is to highlight the issues pertaining to the view that compulsions are the result of an over-reliance on the habitual mode of action, leading to a loss of agentive control. The second aim is to examine the view of agentive control implicit in those accounts, and see how other conceptions of agentive control might do a better job at accounting for the distinct ways in which persons suffering from pathologies of action may be said to lack control.
Les Ateliers de L'Ethique / The Ethics Forum, 2021
In this essay, we tackle the misconception that panic is simply a state of being « overwhelmed by... more In this essay, we tackle the misconception that panic is simply a state of being « overwhelmed
by your fear. » Panic, in our view, is not an extreme fear that necessarily pushes
the person into dysfunctional, counterproductive, and irrational behaviors. On the contrary,
as we will try to show here, it is an emotion in its own right that has its own cognitive and
motivational functions. We will analyze panic here as a reaction to a danger perceived as
major, imminent, and without a clear solution, in the sense that the subject does not have
a determined action plan to react to the danger. Panic thus implies special access to
certain information or certain facts – a perception or apprehension of danger and its
precise properties – and it is in this that it has a cognitive function. On the motivational
level, we will defend the idea that panic involves tendencies to action appropriate to the
situation as it is perceived. Contrary to popular opinion, we will
therefore propose a way of conceiving panic as functional and thus, rational,
insofar as this emotion helps us to reach our goals given the means of which we
dispose. Contrary to what we might think, in some situations it is worth panicking.
Synthese (2019)
How does doubt come about? What are the mechanisms responsible for our inclinations to reassess p... more How does doubt come about? What are the mechanisms responsible for our inclinations to reassess propositions and collect further evidence to support or reject them? In this paper, I approach this question by focusing on what might be considered a distorting mirror of unreasonable doubt, namely the pathological doubt of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Individuals with OCD exhibit a form of persistent doubting, indecisiveness, and over-cautiousness at pathological levels (Rasmussen and Eisen, 1992; Reed, 1985; Tolin et al., 2003). I argue that the failure in OCD is of an affective nature, involving both excessive epistemic anxiety and hyperactive feelings of uncertainty. I further argue that our adaptive disposition to inquire about the right matters - that is, about propositions which are both epistemically risky and imply harmful possibilities - might depend on these affective mechanisms.