This paper traces the parallels and differences in the analyses of moods, emotions and spirit, an... more This paper traces the parallels and differences in the analyses of moods, emotions and spirit, and their dialectic, in the work of Søren Kierkegaard and in Mādhyamika Buddhism.
This paper examines the concept of "higher madness" in Kierkegaard's work and explo... more This paper examines the concept of "higher madness" in Kierkegaard's work and explores its relationship with conceptions of madness in the early Foucault and existential psychotherapy.
Kierkegaard diagnoses modern boredom as both a social phenomenon and as an individual malaise. He... more Kierkegaard diagnoses modern boredom as both a social phenomenon and as an individual malaise. He focuses on a distinctive second-order form of boredom, “demonic boredom,” in which the reflective aesthete affects boredom in order to overcome it through irony. Modern boredom is construed as an aesthetic and psychological problem, which consists in a lack of resources to make life “interesting.” Its antidotes are taken to be distraction or the subjective injection of “the interesting.” Kierkegaard argues that the modern conceptions of boredom and its antidotes are flawed, since they ignore the spiritual dimensions of acedia. Demonic boredom is a mood, rather than an emotion, and fails to seek its only real antidote in the passion of faith, which can be ignited through spiritual exercises, heartfelt concern for others, temporal reorientation of the self towards eternity, and through finding the “fullness of time” in the life of Christ.
This paper examines Kierkegaard's relations with early German Romanticism and with Danish Rom... more This paper examines Kierkegaard's relations with early German Romanticism and with Danish Romanticism. It explores both his critiques and appropriations of Romantic concepts and ideas.
Much of the recent psychological literature on boredom aims to define, categorize, and measure bo... more Much of the recent psychological literature on boredom aims to define, categorize, and measure boredom in order to assess it, to identify correlated mental pathologies, to find the psychophysiological bases of boredom, or to apply the findings to specific settings or social groups. This literature uses both quantitative and qualitative methods to seek an objective, scientific understanding of boredom. It presupposes that boredom is an aversive, individual experience, which psychology can help ameliorate, prevent, or divert. By contrast, Kierkegaard uses his methods of ‘experimenting psychology’ and ‘indirect communication’ to deploy boredom in awakening his reader to the task of becoming a self. He uses literary devices and exemplary characters to this end. Heidegger pursues a similar aim: to awaken the reader/listener to the possibility of attuning herself to profound boredom in a way that will enable her to become an authentic self (Dasein). Heidegger uses a method of historical, hermeneutic phenomenology to enable his reader to hear the call of being through an attunement to profound boredom. He starts with the familiar experience of boredom, then defamiliarizes his listener to enable an original grasp of the meaning of being.
This paper motivates the idea that social robots should be credited as moral patients, building o... more This paper motivates the idea that social robots should be credited as moral patients, building on an argumentative approach inspired by virtue ethics and social recognition theory. Our proposal answers the call for a nuanced ethical evaluation of human-robot interaction that does justice both to the robustness of the social responses solicited in the human users by their artificial companions and to the human fundamental interest in conceptualizing robots as mere instruments and artifacts, devoid of intrinsic moral dignity and special ontological status. We argue that the ethical approaches in favor of robots rights, emphasizing the fundamentally instrumental nature of social robots, fail to justify moral consideration for robots. To explain how the interaction of human with social robots may - in certain circumstances - be as morally relevant as the interaction with other human beings, we turn to social recognition theory. The theory allows us to acknowledge how social robots, unlike other technological artifacts, are capable of establishing with their human users quasi-reciprocal relationships of pseudo-recognition. This recognition dynamics justifies seeing robots as worthy of moral consideration from a virtue ethical standpoint as it predicts the pre-reflective formation, in the human user’s character, of persistent affective and behavioral habits. Subsequently, like social interaction with other living beings, social interaction with robots offers to the human agents opportunities to cultivate both vices and virtues. We conclude by drawing attention to a potential paradox drawn forth by our analysis and by examining some practical implications of our approach.
John Lippitt & George Pattison (eds), Oxford Handbook of Kierkegaard, Oxford University Press, 2013
This paper examines Kierkegaard's relations with early German Romanticism and with Danish Romanti... more This paper examines Kierkegaard's relations with early German Romanticism and with Danish Romanticism. It explores both his critiques and appropriations of Romantic concepts and ideas.
Carlo Salzani & Barbara Dalle Pezze (eds), Essays on Boredom and Modernity, Rodopi, 2009
Kierkegaard diagnoses modern boredom as both a social phenomenon and as an individual malaise. He... more Kierkegaard diagnoses modern boredom as both a social phenomenon and as an individual malaise. He focuses on a distinctive second-order form of boredom, “demonic boredom,” in which the reflective aesthete affects boredom in order to overcome it through irony. Modern boredom is construed as an aesthetic and psychological problem, which consists in a lack of resources to make life “interesting.” Its antidotes are taken to be distraction or the subjective injection of “the interesting.” Kierkegaard argues that the modern conceptions of boredom and its antidotes are flawed, since they ignore the spiritual dimensions of acedia. Demonic boredom is a mood, rather than an emotion, and fails to seek its only real antidote in the passion of faith, which can be ignited through spiritual exercises, heartfelt concern for others, temporal reorientation of the self towards eternity, and through finding the “fullness of time” in the life of Christ.
This paper examines the concept of "higher madness" in Kierkegaard's work and explores its relati... more This paper examines the concept of "higher madness" in Kierkegaard's work and explores its relationship with conceptions of madness in the early Foucault and existential psychotherapy.
Andrew Burgess, Abrahim Kahn & Peter Sjada (eds), Kierkegaard East & West, Acta Kierkegaardiana Volume 5, 2011
This paper traces the parallels and differences in the analyses of moods, emotions and spirit, an... more This paper traces the parallels and differences in the analyses of moods, emotions and spirit, and their dialectic, in the work of Søren Kierkegaard and in Mādhyamika Buddhism.
This paper traces the parallels and differences in the analyses of moods, emotions and spirit, an... more This paper traces the parallels and differences in the analyses of moods, emotions and spirit, and their dialectic, in the work of Søren Kierkegaard and in Mādhyamika Buddhism.
This paper examines the concept of "higher madness" in Kierkegaard's work and explo... more This paper examines the concept of "higher madness" in Kierkegaard's work and explores its relationship with conceptions of madness in the early Foucault and existential psychotherapy.
Kierkegaard diagnoses modern boredom as both a social phenomenon and as an individual malaise. He... more Kierkegaard diagnoses modern boredom as both a social phenomenon and as an individual malaise. He focuses on a distinctive second-order form of boredom, “demonic boredom,” in which the reflective aesthete affects boredom in order to overcome it through irony. Modern boredom is construed as an aesthetic and psychological problem, which consists in a lack of resources to make life “interesting.” Its antidotes are taken to be distraction or the subjective injection of “the interesting.” Kierkegaard argues that the modern conceptions of boredom and its antidotes are flawed, since they ignore the spiritual dimensions of acedia. Demonic boredom is a mood, rather than an emotion, and fails to seek its only real antidote in the passion of faith, which can be ignited through spiritual exercises, heartfelt concern for others, temporal reorientation of the self towards eternity, and through finding the “fullness of time” in the life of Christ.
This paper examines Kierkegaard's relations with early German Romanticism and with Danish Rom... more This paper examines Kierkegaard's relations with early German Romanticism and with Danish Romanticism. It explores both his critiques and appropriations of Romantic concepts and ideas.
Much of the recent psychological literature on boredom aims to define, categorize, and measure bo... more Much of the recent psychological literature on boredom aims to define, categorize, and measure boredom in order to assess it, to identify correlated mental pathologies, to find the psychophysiological bases of boredom, or to apply the findings to specific settings or social groups. This literature uses both quantitative and qualitative methods to seek an objective, scientific understanding of boredom. It presupposes that boredom is an aversive, individual experience, which psychology can help ameliorate, prevent, or divert. By contrast, Kierkegaard uses his methods of ‘experimenting psychology’ and ‘indirect communication’ to deploy boredom in awakening his reader to the task of becoming a self. He uses literary devices and exemplary characters to this end. Heidegger pursues a similar aim: to awaken the reader/listener to the possibility of attuning herself to profound boredom in a way that will enable her to become an authentic self (Dasein). Heidegger uses a method of historical, hermeneutic phenomenology to enable his reader to hear the call of being through an attunement to profound boredom. He starts with the familiar experience of boredom, then defamiliarizes his listener to enable an original grasp of the meaning of being.
This paper motivates the idea that social robots should be credited as moral patients, building o... more This paper motivates the idea that social robots should be credited as moral patients, building on an argumentative approach inspired by virtue ethics and social recognition theory. Our proposal answers the call for a nuanced ethical evaluation of human-robot interaction that does justice both to the robustness of the social responses solicited in the human users by their artificial companions and to the human fundamental interest in conceptualizing robots as mere instruments and artifacts, devoid of intrinsic moral dignity and special ontological status. We argue that the ethical approaches in favor of robots rights, emphasizing the fundamentally instrumental nature of social robots, fail to justify moral consideration for robots. To explain how the interaction of human with social robots may - in certain circumstances - be as morally relevant as the interaction with other human beings, we turn to social recognition theory. The theory allows us to acknowledge how social robots, unlike other technological artifacts, are capable of establishing with their human users quasi-reciprocal relationships of pseudo-recognition. This recognition dynamics justifies seeing robots as worthy of moral consideration from a virtue ethical standpoint as it predicts the pre-reflective formation, in the human user’s character, of persistent affective and behavioral habits. Subsequently, like social interaction with other living beings, social interaction with robots offers to the human agents opportunities to cultivate both vices and virtues. We conclude by drawing attention to a potential paradox drawn forth by our analysis and by examining some practical implications of our approach.
John Lippitt & George Pattison (eds), Oxford Handbook of Kierkegaard, Oxford University Press, 2013
This paper examines Kierkegaard's relations with early German Romanticism and with Danish Romanti... more This paper examines Kierkegaard's relations with early German Romanticism and with Danish Romanticism. It explores both his critiques and appropriations of Romantic concepts and ideas.
Carlo Salzani & Barbara Dalle Pezze (eds), Essays on Boredom and Modernity, Rodopi, 2009
Kierkegaard diagnoses modern boredom as both a social phenomenon and as an individual malaise. He... more Kierkegaard diagnoses modern boredom as both a social phenomenon and as an individual malaise. He focuses on a distinctive second-order form of boredom, “demonic boredom,” in which the reflective aesthete affects boredom in order to overcome it through irony. Modern boredom is construed as an aesthetic and psychological problem, which consists in a lack of resources to make life “interesting.” Its antidotes are taken to be distraction or the subjective injection of “the interesting.” Kierkegaard argues that the modern conceptions of boredom and its antidotes are flawed, since they ignore the spiritual dimensions of acedia. Demonic boredom is a mood, rather than an emotion, and fails to seek its only real antidote in the passion of faith, which can be ignited through spiritual exercises, heartfelt concern for others, temporal reorientation of the self towards eternity, and through finding the “fullness of time” in the life of Christ.
This paper examines the concept of "higher madness" in Kierkegaard's work and explores its relati... more This paper examines the concept of "higher madness" in Kierkegaard's work and explores its relationship with conceptions of madness in the early Foucault and existential psychotherapy.
Andrew Burgess, Abrahim Kahn & Peter Sjada (eds), Kierkegaard East & West, Acta Kierkegaardiana Volume 5, 2011
This paper traces the parallels and differences in the analyses of moods, emotions and spirit, an... more This paper traces the parallels and differences in the analyses of moods, emotions and spirit, and their dialectic, in the work of Søren Kierkegaard and in Mādhyamika Buddhism.
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Papers by William McDonald
To explain how the interaction of human with social robots may - in certain circumstances - be as morally relevant as the interaction with other human beings, we turn to social recognition theory. The theory allows us to acknowledge how social robots, unlike other technological artifacts, are capable of establishing with their human users quasi-reciprocal relationships of pseudo-recognition. This recognition dynamics justifies seeing robots as worthy of moral consideration from a virtue ethical standpoint as it predicts the pre-reflective formation, in the human user’s character, of persistent affective and behavioral habits. Subsequently, like social interaction with other living beings, social interaction with robots offers to the human agents opportunities to cultivate both vices and virtues. We conclude by drawing attention to a potential paradox drawn forth by our analysis and by examining some practical implications of our approach.
To explain how the interaction of human with social robots may - in certain circumstances - be as morally relevant as the interaction with other human beings, we turn to social recognition theory. The theory allows us to acknowledge how social robots, unlike other technological artifacts, are capable of establishing with their human users quasi-reciprocal relationships of pseudo-recognition. This recognition dynamics justifies seeing robots as worthy of moral consideration from a virtue ethical standpoint as it predicts the pre-reflective formation, in the human user’s character, of persistent affective and behavioral habits. Subsequently, like social interaction with other living beings, social interaction with robots offers to the human agents opportunities to cultivate both vices and virtues. We conclude by drawing attention to a potential paradox drawn forth by our analysis and by examining some practical implications of our approach.