Victoria McGeer | Princeton University (original) (raw)

Papers by Victoria McGeer

Criminal Law and Philosophy, 2015

ing the content from these accounts, without considering style or possible limitations in the wri... more ing the content from these accounts, without considering style or possible limitations in the writer’s insight, not only discards valuable data, but must lead to questionable conclusions. What are we to make, for example, of an autistic person’s comment that his mental processes or sensations are radically different from other people’s when he is likely to have severely impaired insight into other minds? Is it not probable too, that an autistic child will have peculiarly unreliable memories from a childhood without self-awareness? While these remain open questions, we must be careful in how we use the contents of autistic autobiographies (Happe, 1991, pp. 222–3). Unfortunately, this observation cuts both ways. As theorists, we too must be careful about how we use the contents of autistic autobiographies. For it may be tempting simply to minimize or sideline possibly central features of reported autistic experience that do not fit easily into our preferred theories, especially as the...

Self-knowledge refers to knowledge of one's own mental states, processes, and dispositions. M... more Self-knowledge refers to knowledge of one's own mental states, processes, and dispositions. Most agree it involves a capacity for understanding the representational properties of mental states and their role in shaping behavior. In developmental psychology and cognitive ethology, researchers have investigated how this capacity develops in children and to what extent non-human creatures share it. In philosophy, researchers have focused on three distinguishing features of self-knowledge that pertain to a certain class of (occurrent) mental states: (a) immediacy: self-knowledge is not based on evidence; (b) transparency: self-knowledge is unavoidable; (c) (first-person) authority: self-knowledge normally requires no justification. In reaction to a traditionally ‘Cartesian’ approach, contemporary explanations of these features fall into two broad categories, providing fertile ground for continuing debate on both substantive and methodological issues. (a) Causal-perceptualaccounts fo...

The Philosophy of Trust, 2017

European Journal of Philosophy, 2018

Analyse & Kritik, 2004

Does the Internet provide an environment in which rational individuals can initiate and maintain ... more Does the Internet provide an environment in which rational individuals can initiate and maintain relationships of interpersonal trust? This paper argues that it does. It begins by examining distinctive challenges facing would-be trusters on the net, concluding that, however distinctive, such challenges are not unique to the Internet, so cannot be cited as grounds for disparaging the rationality of Internet trust. Nevertheless, these challenges point up the importance of developing mature capacities for trust, since immature trusters are particularly vulnerable to the liabilities of Internet trust. This suggests that Internet trust can only be rational for those who have developed mature capacities for trust. But that suggestion ignores how trust on the Internet may also facilitate the development of such capacities.

The Modern Schoolman, 2009

What do we ordinarily perceive when we see a person? This paper examines the virtuoso capacity of... more What do we ordinarily perceive when we see a person? This paper examines the virtuoso capacity of typical human beings to see others as minded – as possessed of a rich variety of mental states that animate their activities. The central message of the paper is that we become adept at perceiving the minds of others through developing our expertise in becoming so minded ourselves. “Normal psychological knowing” is what I call a “practice-dependent” skill or expertise. The paper shows this approach deals overcomes certain difficulties often associated with more standard explanations of our capacity for knowing other minds (simulation theory and theory-theory).

The Philosophy and Neuroscience Movement, 2005

Out of the Mouths of Autistics: Subjective Report and Its Role in Cognitive Theorizing Victoria M... more Out of the Mouths of Autistics: Subjective Report and Its Role in Cognitive Theorizing Victoria McGeer The theoretical work that emerges from a study on the work of memory, learning, and other higher functions, such as consciousness, is this: if the psychological (functional) ...

Political Judgement

John Dunn has long criticised the easy assumption that in our psychological and political habits ... more John Dunn has long criticised the easy assumption that in our psychological and political habits of thought we human beings can make ourselves responsive to the lightest breeze of reason. This chapter joins his chorus, focusing on the case of judgement and judgementally sensitive attitudes. We muster evidence that judgement does not come and go as rationality requires; in face of rational demands it proves remarkably sticky. And we argue that there is a case for resorting to the techniques of rhetoric in order to undo that stickiness and to give reason a chance. Rhetoric has a place in the private forum of deliberation, not just in the context of public debate; it can serve in a therapeutic as well as a strategic role.

Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 2003

The Journal of Philosophy, 1994

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2004

What is hope? Though variously characterized as a cognitive attitude, an emotion, a disposition, ... more What is hope? Though variously characterized as a cognitive attitude, an emotion, a disposition, and even a process or activity, hope, more deeply, a unifying and grounding force of human agency. We cannot live a human life without hope, therefore questions about the rationality of hope are properly recast as questions about what it means to hope well. This thesis is defended and elaborated as follows. First, it is argued that hope is an essential and distinctive feature of human agency, both conceptually and developmentally. The author then explores a number of dimensions of agency that are critically implicated in the art of hoping well, drawing on several examples from George Eliot’s Middlemarch. The article concludes with a short section that suggests how hoping well in an individual context may be extended to hope at the collective level.

Between ourselves: Second-person issues in the …, 2001

Victoria McGeer Psycho-practice, Psycho-theory and the Contrastive Case of Autism How practices o... more Victoria McGeer Psycho-practice, Psycho-theory and the Contrastive Case of Autism How practices of mind become second-nature Eleanor: You must know Henry isn't through with John. He'II keep the Vexin till the moon grows blue from cold and as for Richard s wedding day, we'II see ...

European Journal of Philosophy, 2008

Although developmental psychologists are generally happy to endorse dissociationist and gradualis... more Although developmental psychologists are generally happy to endorse dissociationist and gradualist views of development like Woolley’s (2006), the design and interpretation of developmental research often suggests an implicit commitment to a cleaner, less dissociative, sudden-transition view of development. Such an implicit commitment may derive some of its power from the ‘‘representational warehouse’ ’ model of cognition and development that rose to prominence in the cognitive revolution. An alternative model of cognition and development, grounded in dispositional patterns of responding to stimuli, more naturally accommodates dissociative phenomena in development and highlights mechanisms for self-regulation and for fashioning and deploying representations, or depictions, in a uniquely human way. Prevalence of Implicit Antigradualism When asked explicitly, most researchers readily grant that cognitive development can be gradual, fractured and inconstant, riddled with dissociations ...

It is a natural, commonsense assumption that human beings who are competent in their understandin... more It is a natural, commonsense assumption that human beings who are competent in their understanding and use of folk-psychological concepts (e.g. ‘belief’, ‘desire’, ‘intention’, ‘fear’, ‘hope’, ‘jealousy’ and the like) have a special kind of authority with respect to claims they make about their own minds, in particular about their own intentional attitudes. One way to capture this special sense of authority is to argue that such claims are subject to a ‘default hypothesis’ of correctness (e.g. Wright 1991: 143–4). If I claim to be upset or happy about something or to have a yearning for plum pudding, then, all things being equal (i.e. assuming I am sane, and sincere, and not deeply distracted), the appropriate default presumption is that such claims are true. This presumption must be carefully understood, of course. On the one hand, it does not amount to endorsing a person’s infallibility or even incorrigibility with respect to the claims they make about their own minds; others may ...

A dominant view of guilt and shame is that they have opposing action tendencies: guilt- prone peo... more A dominant view of guilt and shame is that they have opposing action tendencies: guilt- prone people are more likely to avoid or overcome dysfunctional patterns of behaviour, making amends for past misdoings, whereas shame-prone people are more likely to persist in dysfunctional patterns of behaviour, avoiding responsibility for past misdoings and/or lashing out in defensive aggression. Some have suggested that addiction treatment should make use of these insights, tailoring therapy according to people's degree of guilt-proneness versus shame-proneness. In this paper, we challenge this dominant view, reviewing empirical findings from others as well as our own to question (1) whether shame and guilt can be so easily disentangled in the experience of people with addiction, and (2) whether shame and guilt have the opposing action tendencies standardly attributed to them. We recommend a shift in theoretical perspective that explains our main finding that both emotions can be either ...