"Making up Your Mind" and the Activity of Reason

Philosoph

Transparent self-knowledge

Philosoph

Active Belief

I argue that cognitively mature human beings have an important sort of control or discretion over their own beliefs, but that to make good sense of this control, we must reject the common idea that it consists in a capacity to act on our belief-state by forming new beliefs or modifying ones we already hold. I propose that we exercise agential control over our beliefs, not primarily in doing things to alter our belief-state, but in holding whatever beliefs we hold. Our beliefs are thus not normally things on which we act; they are themselves our acts, in a sense I seek to explicate.Philosoph

Bar-On on Self-Knowledge and Expression

I critically discuss the account of self-knowledge presented in Dorit Bar-On’s Speaking My Mind (OUP 2004), focusing on Bar-On’s understanding of what makes our capacity for self-knowledge puzzling and on her ‘neo-expressivist’ solution to the puzzle. I argue that there is an important aspect of the problem of self-knowledge that Bar-On’s account does not sufficiently address. A satisfying account of self-knowledge must explain not merely how we are able to make accurate avowals about our own present mental states, but how we can reasonably regard ourselves as entitled to claim self-knowledge. Addressing this aspect of the problem of self-knowledge requires confronting questions about the metaphysical nature of mental states, questions that Bar-On’s approach seeks to avoid.Philosoph

Additive Theories of Rationality: A Critique

“Additive theories” of rationality, as I use the term, are views that hold that an account of our minds can begin with an account of what it is to perceive and desire, in terms which do not presuppose any connection to the capacity to reflect on reasons, and then can add an account of the capacity for rational thought as an independent capacity to “monitor” and “regulate” our believing-­‐on-­‐the-­‐basis-­‐of-­‐perception and our acting-­‐on-­‐the-­‐basis-­‐of-­‐desire. I show that a number of prominent recent discussions of rational perception and action are committed to an additive approach to rationality, and I argue that this approach faces two basic difficulties, each of which is structurally analogous to a classic problem for Cartesian dualism. The Interaction Problem concerns how capacities conceived as intrinsically independent of the power of reason can interact with this power in what is intuitively the right way. The Unity Problem concerns how an additive theorist can explain a rational subject’s entitlement to conceive of the animal whose perceptual and desiderative life he oversees as “I” rather than “it”. I argue that these difficulties give us reason to reject the additive approach, and I sketch an alternative, “transformative” framework in which to think about the cognitive and practical capacities of a rational animal.Philosoph

Essentially Rational Animals

Philosoph

A New Approach to Gentrification: Using the case of Hartford to discover the reasons certain cities have not gentrified.

This thesis presents a new way of looking at and studying gentrification in light of the significant differences of opinion on the subject still found in scholarship roughly 50 years after it first appeared in scholarly literature. Understanding why gentrification does not occur may provide the broadly accepted insights into the phenomenon that studies so far have failed to provide. To initiate this new direction in the literature, I examine the case of Hartford, Connecticut, an old former industrial town that has not gentrified despite having a strong presence of service industry employment and many wealthy suburbs within its metropolitan region. Using the city’s own plans of development and local media articles, this thesis looks at Hartford’s development history from 1955 to 2011 for evidence as to why Hartford has not gentrified. Based on the evidence I obtained, it appears that Hartford’s uniquely extreme subordination to its suburbs, both politically and economically, has impeded gentrification by diminishing any benefits that could accrue to Hartford during times of economic growth. In addition, it appears that the rent-gap has yet to form in Hartford and that rehabilitation in the city has always been economically difficult. Lastly, Hartford’s near-total devastation during the recession of the early 1990’s cut short what may have been a time of gentrification, set the city back decades economically and required it to completely rethink its economic place in the world. In the aftermath of this setback the city can be seen to more clearly desire gentrification and its actions in Downtown may one day lead to observable gentrification occurring in Hartford