Gary Jaeger | Fisk university (original) (raw)
Papers by Gary Jaeger
Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2012
Acknowledgements The Oligarchic Soul Normative Repression Repression and External Reasons The Lim... more Acknowledgements The Oligarchic Soul Normative Repression Repression and External Reasons The Limits of Non-Relative Views The Limits of Relative Internalism Reasons, Rationality and Agency Objections and Rejoinders Conclusion: The Scope of Relative Externalism Notes Bibliography Index
Philosophical Explorations, Aug 20, 2014
Ordinary normative discourse includes talk about the reasons for action we had in the past but on... more Ordinary normative discourse includes talk about the reasons for action we had in the past but only came to discover in hindsight. In some cases, we come to discover these reasons not because new information has come to light, but because our values have changed. Contemporary metaethical views, namely Street's Humean constructivism and Blackburn's and Gibbard's quasi-realism, have some difficulty accounting for these reasons and the claims we make about them. This difficulty hinges on the diachronic complexity of these reasons and claims. It cannot be the case that these reasons were constructed by the perspective we had in the past before our values changed. If there were no extant reasons in the past, then it would seem that our claims about them in the present cannot be true. Quasi-realists can account for the way in which reason claims purport to be true by appealing to a deflationary sense of truth and so can remain agnostic on the actual existence of these reasons. Nevertheless, Street argues that this agnosticism is inconsistent with the quasi-realists' naturalism that should have them reject the existence of such reasons. I argue that Street would suffer from an even more acute form of this inconsistency were she to account for reasons only discovered in hindsight. At best her view does no better than the view of her chosen rivals. At worst, it discounts reasons that are so central to our moral development that it fails to be plausible.
In a recent blog post on the University of Wisconsin writing center’s webpage, Matthew Capdeviell... more In a recent blog post on the University of Wisconsin writing center’s webpage, Matthew Capdevielle asserts that it has become common to describe writing center methods as Socratic. In fact, writing center professionals have embraced the Socratic Method for quite some time. In his classic and agenda-setting article, “The Idea of a Writing Center,” North writes: If writing centers are going to finally be accepted, surely they must be accepted on their own terms as places whose primary responsibility, whose only reason for being, is to talk to writers. That is their heritage, and it stretches… back, in fact, to Athens where in a busy marketplace a tutor called Socrates set up the same kind of shop: open to all comers, no fees charged, offering, on whatever subject a visitor might propose, a continuous dialectic that is, finally, its own end. (North 46) While Capdevielle and North are right to make some connections between writing center practices and the Socratic Method, I nevertheless wonder just how Socratic our methods are or should be.
Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2012
The term repression, as it was defined in Chapter 2 and has been used so far, covers a large rang... more The term repression, as it was defined in Chapter 2 and has been used so far, covers a large range of scenarios. An agent is repressed any time some portion of his motivational structure prevents him from properly deliberating about the reason-giving force of one or more of his desires. An agent has a reason to overcome repression precisely because he ought to be able to properly deliberate about his desires, but cannot do so in his repressed state. Such a reason is relative because it concerns an agent’s own desires, but it is external because the agent lacks deliberative access to it. Even though repression does cover a large range of scenarios — so large in fact that it would seem that most people are at least partially repressed for some period of their lives — it might still seem ontologically indulgent to posit a type of reason, the entire set of which is populated by the reasons agents have to overcome it. In order to dispel the appearance of indulgence, one need only show just how many types of deliberative incapacity there are for which agents have reasons to overcome. One could simply construe the term repression to cover all of these types of deliberative incapacity, but to do so too quickly might lead one to miss the variety and range of incapacities that fall within that construal. This final chapter attempts to expand the set of relative external reasons by looking at a few types of deliberative incapacities that are similar enough to repression to give agents relative external reasons to overcome them, but which are nevertheless different enough to resist an easy classification under the banner of repression.
Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2012
Postgraduate journal of aesthetics, Apr 1, 2004
In his 'Of the Standard of Taste' David Hume seems to make the paradoxical claim that even though... more In his 'Of the Standard of Taste' David Hume seems to make the paradoxical claim that even though the sentiments an agent feels in response to an artwork are subjective and unique, and it cannot be said that such sentiments are either correct or incorrect, there is a standard upon which art can be judged, which is at least partly determined by these sentiments. On first approximation, this claim seems problematic because it appears to assume that sentiments both have and do not have normative weight. What I mean by this is that, if a sentiment has normative weight, then the relationship it shares with an artwork will be one of evaluation or judgment. As Hume has it, good art ought to cause pleasant sentiments. This assumption can be seen in his discussion of the pleasure of poetry, which he attributes to the correct use of the rules of composition. 'If some negligent or irregular writers have pleased, they have not pleased by their transgressions of rule or order, but in spite of these transgressions; They have possessed other beauties, which were conformable to just criticism….' (SoT, 353) Only praiseworthy aspects of an artwork will cause pleasure. From this we can infer that causing a pleasant sentiment is a reason to praise an artwork. Hume seems to defend the non-normativity of sentiments by claiming that sentiments are non-representational feelings impressed upon an agent. Since they neither are intentionally created by the agent, nor do they represent the art work in any way, they do not seem fit for judging that artwork. Nonetheless, Hume also argues that the authority of any given judgment of an artwork is rooted in sentiment.
Philosophy East and West, 2017
Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2012
The Oligarchic Soul Repression: an introduction By and large, being able to resist the motivation... more The Oligarchic Soul Repression: an introduction By and large, being able to resist the motivational force of a desire is a good thing, but there can be too much of a good thing. Some desires provide legitimate reasons for action and some do not. When an agent resists the force of a desire that provides a reason for which he should act, he might very well be repressed. While such repression might seem to be the mark of his autonomous self-control, it could also be the greatest obstacle to it. This is especially the case if something like fear or shame prevents him from seeing the reason-giving force of his desire and causes him to resist its motivational force. Failing to recognize the reasons that his desires give him can be a form of practical irrationality. This book argues that agents, at least occasionally, have reasons to overcome repression so that they can be more capable and rational agents. These reasons, however, are unlike most others because, even though they relate to an agent's desires, they are difficult or even impossible for him to see and deliberate about. Because of this odd feature of reasons to overcome repression, standard philosophical theories of reasons and rationality are unable to account for them. It might seem that repression is more a topic for psychology than it is for philosophy, but even though contemporary philosophers have not given it much consideration, repression actually fits quite squarely within the philosophical tradition. In his Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh, Alfred North Whitehead famously remarked that "the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a set of footnotes to Plato." 1 This book is no exception. In fact, in so far as it can claim the honor of being such a footnote, it would be as a footnote to book VIII of the Republic.
Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2012
Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2012
The previous chapter’s analysis of the reasons one has to overcome repression suggests that there... more The previous chapter’s analysis of the reasons one has to overcome repression suggests that there is a salient distinction not only between those reasons that are relative to an agent’s motivational set and those that are not, but also between those reasons that are deliberatively accessible and those that are not. The intersection of these two distinctions creates space for four different categories of reasons and opens the possibility for categorizing a reason to overcome repression as a relative external reason. Such a reason gains its normative status — its ability to evaluate, constrain, and justify action — from its relativity to an agent’s motivational set, but also has its normative status obscured by the forces that repress the agent. Many of these forces are themselves normative and so it is difficult to say, with any certainty, when a reason to overcome repression is merely a pro tanto reason outweighed by more authoritative reasons and when it is, in fact, an agent’s best reason all things considered. This book does not attempt to provide a protocol for making that decision. Rather, it argues that not being able to explain why a reason to overcome repression is a pro tanto reason that at least occasionally is authoritative enough to be an agent’s best reason is a significant shortcoming for any theory of practical reasoning. This chapter and the next show why only those theories that allow for relative external reasons can overcome this shortcoming, these theories fall under a category that will be called relative externalism for short.
Reasons for actions of all types are elusive. It is notoriously difficult to verify whether or no... more Reasons for actions of all types are elusive. It is notoriously difficult to verify whether or not one really has a reason to act one way or another. If this were not the case, indecision would not be such a regular precursor to action, nor regret it successor. This inconclusiveness is compounded for relative external reasons by the fact that one can only properly deliberate about them after having acted on them, and only after proper deliberation, can an agent determine whether he had a reason for acting. In making that determination, he ought to consider two features: (1) whether having acted on the reason has increased the coherence of his motivational structure in such a way that his agential control has also been enhanced, and (2) whether that reason is relative to some element that was present in that motivational set all along.
Southwest Philosophy Review, 2011
Choice Reviews Online, Feb 1, 2013
Acknowledgements The Oligarchic Soul Normative Repression Repression and External Reasons The Lim... more Acknowledgements The Oligarchic Soul Normative Repression Repression and External Reasons The Limits of Non-Relative Views The Limits of Relative Internalism Reasons, Rationality and Agency Objections and Rejoinders Conclusion: The Scope of Relative Externalism Notes Bibliography Index
Journal of Value Inquiry, Aug 7, 2009
Journal of education for students placed at risk, Apr 1, 2000
The goal of the Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed At Risk (CRESPAR) Early L... more The goal of the Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed At Risk (CRESPAR) Early Learning program is to ensure that young children reach the 1st grade with the necessary skills and competencies to be effective learners. This goal has been accomplished by 2 integrated areas of research. One area of research focuses on the development of effective practices that promote the development of language and literacy skills in young children. A 2nd area of research examines the systemic issues regarding school policies and teachers' beliefs and expectations that affect classroom practices. Over the past 5 years, the CRESPAR Early Learning Program has been conducting research in these areas, which has added to our understanding of how children learn and what teachers think that they can learn.
Contents: From the Editors -- The Dangerous Method, or “Can Procrastination Ever Be a Good Thing?... more Contents: From the Editors -- The Dangerous Method, or “Can Procrastination Ever Be a Good Thing?” -- Disclosure Concerns: The Stigma of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Writing Centers -- (Re)Examining the Socratic Method: A Lesson in Tutoring -- When “Editing” Becomes “Educating” in ESL Tutoring Sessions -- Generation 1.5 Writing Center Practice: Problems with Multilingualism and Possibilities via Hybridity -- Are Our Workshops Working? Assessing Assessment as Research -- The Peer Perspective and Undergraduate Research -- Using Citation Analysis in Writing Center Tutorials to Encourage Deeper Engagement with Sources -- What do Graduate Students Want from the Writing Center? Tutoring Practices to Support Dissertation and Thesis WritersUniversity Writing Cente
Repression, Integrity and Practical Reasoning
Repression, Integrity and Practical Reasoning
The previous chapter’s analysis of the reasons one has to overcome repression suggests that there... more The previous chapter’s analysis of the reasons one has to overcome repression suggests that there is a salient distinction not only between those reasons that are relative to an agent’s motivational set and those that are not, but also between those reasons that are deliberatively accessible and those that are not. The intersection of these two distinctions creates space for four different categories of reasons and opens the possibility for categorizing a reason to overcome repression as a relative external reason. Such a reason gains its normative status — its ability to evaluate, constrain, and justify action — from its relativity to an agent’s motivational set, but also has its normative status obscured by the forces that repress the agent. Many of these forces are themselves normative and so it is difficult to say, with any certainty, when a reason to overcome repression is merely a pro tanto reason outweighed by more authoritative reasons and when it is, in fact, an agent’s best reason all things considered. This book does not attempt to provide a protocol for making that decision. Rather, it argues that not being able to explain why a reason to overcome repression is a pro tanto reason that at least occasionally is authoritative enough to be an agent’s best reason is a significant shortcoming for any theory of practical reasoning. This chapter and the next show why only those theories that allow for relative external reasons can overcome this shortcoming, these theories fall under a category that will be called relative externalism for short.
Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2012
Acknowledgements The Oligarchic Soul Normative Repression Repression and External Reasons The Lim... more Acknowledgements The Oligarchic Soul Normative Repression Repression and External Reasons The Limits of Non-Relative Views The Limits of Relative Internalism Reasons, Rationality and Agency Objections and Rejoinders Conclusion: The Scope of Relative Externalism Notes Bibliography Index
Philosophical Explorations, Aug 20, 2014
Ordinary normative discourse includes talk about the reasons for action we had in the past but on... more Ordinary normative discourse includes talk about the reasons for action we had in the past but only came to discover in hindsight. In some cases, we come to discover these reasons not because new information has come to light, but because our values have changed. Contemporary metaethical views, namely Street's Humean constructivism and Blackburn's and Gibbard's quasi-realism, have some difficulty accounting for these reasons and the claims we make about them. This difficulty hinges on the diachronic complexity of these reasons and claims. It cannot be the case that these reasons were constructed by the perspective we had in the past before our values changed. If there were no extant reasons in the past, then it would seem that our claims about them in the present cannot be true. Quasi-realists can account for the way in which reason claims purport to be true by appealing to a deflationary sense of truth and so can remain agnostic on the actual existence of these reasons. Nevertheless, Street argues that this agnosticism is inconsistent with the quasi-realists' naturalism that should have them reject the existence of such reasons. I argue that Street would suffer from an even more acute form of this inconsistency were she to account for reasons only discovered in hindsight. At best her view does no better than the view of her chosen rivals. At worst, it discounts reasons that are so central to our moral development that it fails to be plausible.
In a recent blog post on the University of Wisconsin writing center’s webpage, Matthew Capdeviell... more In a recent blog post on the University of Wisconsin writing center’s webpage, Matthew Capdevielle asserts that it has become common to describe writing center methods as Socratic. In fact, writing center professionals have embraced the Socratic Method for quite some time. In his classic and agenda-setting article, “The Idea of a Writing Center,” North writes: If writing centers are going to finally be accepted, surely they must be accepted on their own terms as places whose primary responsibility, whose only reason for being, is to talk to writers. That is their heritage, and it stretches… back, in fact, to Athens where in a busy marketplace a tutor called Socrates set up the same kind of shop: open to all comers, no fees charged, offering, on whatever subject a visitor might propose, a continuous dialectic that is, finally, its own end. (North 46) While Capdevielle and North are right to make some connections between writing center practices and the Socratic Method, I nevertheless wonder just how Socratic our methods are or should be.
Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2012
The term repression, as it was defined in Chapter 2 and has been used so far, covers a large rang... more The term repression, as it was defined in Chapter 2 and has been used so far, covers a large range of scenarios. An agent is repressed any time some portion of his motivational structure prevents him from properly deliberating about the reason-giving force of one or more of his desires. An agent has a reason to overcome repression precisely because he ought to be able to properly deliberate about his desires, but cannot do so in his repressed state. Such a reason is relative because it concerns an agent’s own desires, but it is external because the agent lacks deliberative access to it. Even though repression does cover a large range of scenarios — so large in fact that it would seem that most people are at least partially repressed for some period of their lives — it might still seem ontologically indulgent to posit a type of reason, the entire set of which is populated by the reasons agents have to overcome it. In order to dispel the appearance of indulgence, one need only show just how many types of deliberative incapacity there are for which agents have reasons to overcome. One could simply construe the term repression to cover all of these types of deliberative incapacity, but to do so too quickly might lead one to miss the variety and range of incapacities that fall within that construal. This final chapter attempts to expand the set of relative external reasons by looking at a few types of deliberative incapacities that are similar enough to repression to give agents relative external reasons to overcome them, but which are nevertheless different enough to resist an easy classification under the banner of repression.
Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2012
Postgraduate journal of aesthetics, Apr 1, 2004
In his 'Of the Standard of Taste' David Hume seems to make the paradoxical claim that even though... more In his 'Of the Standard of Taste' David Hume seems to make the paradoxical claim that even though the sentiments an agent feels in response to an artwork are subjective and unique, and it cannot be said that such sentiments are either correct or incorrect, there is a standard upon which art can be judged, which is at least partly determined by these sentiments. On first approximation, this claim seems problematic because it appears to assume that sentiments both have and do not have normative weight. What I mean by this is that, if a sentiment has normative weight, then the relationship it shares with an artwork will be one of evaluation or judgment. As Hume has it, good art ought to cause pleasant sentiments. This assumption can be seen in his discussion of the pleasure of poetry, which he attributes to the correct use of the rules of composition. 'If some negligent or irregular writers have pleased, they have not pleased by their transgressions of rule or order, but in spite of these transgressions; They have possessed other beauties, which were conformable to just criticism….' (SoT, 353) Only praiseworthy aspects of an artwork will cause pleasure. From this we can infer that causing a pleasant sentiment is a reason to praise an artwork. Hume seems to defend the non-normativity of sentiments by claiming that sentiments are non-representational feelings impressed upon an agent. Since they neither are intentionally created by the agent, nor do they represent the art work in any way, they do not seem fit for judging that artwork. Nonetheless, Hume also argues that the authority of any given judgment of an artwork is rooted in sentiment.
Philosophy East and West, 2017
Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2012
The Oligarchic Soul Repression: an introduction By and large, being able to resist the motivation... more The Oligarchic Soul Repression: an introduction By and large, being able to resist the motivational force of a desire is a good thing, but there can be too much of a good thing. Some desires provide legitimate reasons for action and some do not. When an agent resists the force of a desire that provides a reason for which he should act, he might very well be repressed. While such repression might seem to be the mark of his autonomous self-control, it could also be the greatest obstacle to it. This is especially the case if something like fear or shame prevents him from seeing the reason-giving force of his desire and causes him to resist its motivational force. Failing to recognize the reasons that his desires give him can be a form of practical irrationality. This book argues that agents, at least occasionally, have reasons to overcome repression so that they can be more capable and rational agents. These reasons, however, are unlike most others because, even though they relate to an agent's desires, they are difficult or even impossible for him to see and deliberate about. Because of this odd feature of reasons to overcome repression, standard philosophical theories of reasons and rationality are unable to account for them. It might seem that repression is more a topic for psychology than it is for philosophy, but even though contemporary philosophers have not given it much consideration, repression actually fits quite squarely within the philosophical tradition. In his Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh, Alfred North Whitehead famously remarked that "the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a set of footnotes to Plato." 1 This book is no exception. In fact, in so far as it can claim the honor of being such a footnote, it would be as a footnote to book VIII of the Republic.
Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2012
Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2012
The previous chapter’s analysis of the reasons one has to overcome repression suggests that there... more The previous chapter’s analysis of the reasons one has to overcome repression suggests that there is a salient distinction not only between those reasons that are relative to an agent’s motivational set and those that are not, but also between those reasons that are deliberatively accessible and those that are not. The intersection of these two distinctions creates space for four different categories of reasons and opens the possibility for categorizing a reason to overcome repression as a relative external reason. Such a reason gains its normative status — its ability to evaluate, constrain, and justify action — from its relativity to an agent’s motivational set, but also has its normative status obscured by the forces that repress the agent. Many of these forces are themselves normative and so it is difficult to say, with any certainty, when a reason to overcome repression is merely a pro tanto reason outweighed by more authoritative reasons and when it is, in fact, an agent’s best reason all things considered. This book does not attempt to provide a protocol for making that decision. Rather, it argues that not being able to explain why a reason to overcome repression is a pro tanto reason that at least occasionally is authoritative enough to be an agent’s best reason is a significant shortcoming for any theory of practical reasoning. This chapter and the next show why only those theories that allow for relative external reasons can overcome this shortcoming, these theories fall under a category that will be called relative externalism for short.
Reasons for actions of all types are elusive. It is notoriously difficult to verify whether or no... more Reasons for actions of all types are elusive. It is notoriously difficult to verify whether or not one really has a reason to act one way or another. If this were not the case, indecision would not be such a regular precursor to action, nor regret it successor. This inconclusiveness is compounded for relative external reasons by the fact that one can only properly deliberate about them after having acted on them, and only after proper deliberation, can an agent determine whether he had a reason for acting. In making that determination, he ought to consider two features: (1) whether having acted on the reason has increased the coherence of his motivational structure in such a way that his agential control has also been enhanced, and (2) whether that reason is relative to some element that was present in that motivational set all along.
Southwest Philosophy Review, 2011
Choice Reviews Online, Feb 1, 2013
Acknowledgements The Oligarchic Soul Normative Repression Repression and External Reasons The Lim... more Acknowledgements The Oligarchic Soul Normative Repression Repression and External Reasons The Limits of Non-Relative Views The Limits of Relative Internalism Reasons, Rationality and Agency Objections and Rejoinders Conclusion: The Scope of Relative Externalism Notes Bibliography Index
Journal of Value Inquiry, Aug 7, 2009
Journal of education for students placed at risk, Apr 1, 2000
The goal of the Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed At Risk (CRESPAR) Early L... more The goal of the Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed At Risk (CRESPAR) Early Learning program is to ensure that young children reach the 1st grade with the necessary skills and competencies to be effective learners. This goal has been accomplished by 2 integrated areas of research. One area of research focuses on the development of effective practices that promote the development of language and literacy skills in young children. A 2nd area of research examines the systemic issues regarding school policies and teachers' beliefs and expectations that affect classroom practices. Over the past 5 years, the CRESPAR Early Learning Program has been conducting research in these areas, which has added to our understanding of how children learn and what teachers think that they can learn.
Contents: From the Editors -- The Dangerous Method, or “Can Procrastination Ever Be a Good Thing?... more Contents: From the Editors -- The Dangerous Method, or “Can Procrastination Ever Be a Good Thing?” -- Disclosure Concerns: The Stigma of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Writing Centers -- (Re)Examining the Socratic Method: A Lesson in Tutoring -- When “Editing” Becomes “Educating” in ESL Tutoring Sessions -- Generation 1.5 Writing Center Practice: Problems with Multilingualism and Possibilities via Hybridity -- Are Our Workshops Working? Assessing Assessment as Research -- The Peer Perspective and Undergraduate Research -- Using Citation Analysis in Writing Center Tutorials to Encourage Deeper Engagement with Sources -- What do Graduate Students Want from the Writing Center? Tutoring Practices to Support Dissertation and Thesis WritersUniversity Writing Cente
Repression, Integrity and Practical Reasoning
Repression, Integrity and Practical Reasoning
The previous chapter’s analysis of the reasons one has to overcome repression suggests that there... more The previous chapter’s analysis of the reasons one has to overcome repression suggests that there is a salient distinction not only between those reasons that are relative to an agent’s motivational set and those that are not, but also between those reasons that are deliberatively accessible and those that are not. The intersection of these two distinctions creates space for four different categories of reasons and opens the possibility for categorizing a reason to overcome repression as a relative external reason. Such a reason gains its normative status — its ability to evaluate, constrain, and justify action — from its relativity to an agent’s motivational set, but also has its normative status obscured by the forces that repress the agent. Many of these forces are themselves normative and so it is difficult to say, with any certainty, when a reason to overcome repression is merely a pro tanto reason outweighed by more authoritative reasons and when it is, in fact, an agent’s best reason all things considered. This book does not attempt to provide a protocol for making that decision. Rather, it argues that not being able to explain why a reason to overcome repression is a pro tanto reason that at least occasionally is authoritative enough to be an agent’s best reason is a significant shortcoming for any theory of practical reasoning. This chapter and the next show why only those theories that allow for relative external reasons can overcome this shortcoming, these theories fall under a category that will be called relative externalism for short.