New Books in Philosophy

Talia Mae Bettcher, a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Albany, engages in a thought-provoking discussion on trans philosophy and identity. She explores the connections between transphobia, sexism, and racism through a decolonial lens, emphasizing the importance of appearance in gender dysphoria. Bettcher introduces her concept of interpersonal spatiality to analyze intimacy and challenge traditional binaries in gender. She critiques contemporary philosophical practices that oversimplify identities and advocates for inclusive understandings of trans experiences.

Between the study of specific languages and the philosophy of language lies what Ryan Nefdt calls a “Goldilocks zone” of theoretical issues related to language. In The Philosophy of Theoretical Linguistics (Cambridge University Press, 2024), Nefdt introduces and explores the elements in this zone, including different theories of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, and differing views of how language evolved, which languages are possible, and what defines language. Nefdt, a professor of philosophy at the University of Cape Town, shows where dominant linguistic theories, such as Chomskian syntactic theory and truth-conditional semantics, fit in a generalized framework where a key theoretical dimension is the role of social context. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/philosophy

This book is available open access here. The Brain Abstracted: Simplification in the History and Philosophy of Neuroscience (MIT Press, 2024), Mazviita Chirimuuta argues that the standard ways neuroscientists simplify the human brain to build models for their research purposes mislead us about how the brain actually works. The key issue, instead, is to figure out which details of brain function are relevant for understanding its role in causing behavior; after all, the biological brain is a highly energetically efficient basis of cognition in contrast to the massive data centers driving AI that are based on the simplification that brain functionality is just a matter of neuronal action potentials. Chirimuuta, who is a senior lecturer in philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, also argues for a Kantian-inspired view of neuroscientific knowledge called haptic realism, according to which what we can know about the brain is the product of interaction between brains and the scientific methods and aims that guide how we investigate them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/philosophy

Omar Dahbour, a philosophy professor at Hunter College, specializes in political philosophy and global ethics. In this discussion, he introduces the concept of ecosovereignty, arguing it redefines sovereignty and self-determination for tackling today's environmental crisis. He critiques traditional political theories for their inadequacy in addressing ecological challenges and explores themes of food sovereignty and identity in conflict zones. Dahbour emphasizes the need for political theorists to engage with environmental issues and advocates for sustainable governance approaches.

William Paris, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto, delves into the intricate ties between race, time, and utopia. He discusses how historical figures like Du Bois and Fanon inform our understanding of systemic injustice. Paris emphasizes the role of utopian thinking in navigating modern crises and critiques capitalist time organization as a tool of racial domination. He also explores the complexities of Black leadership, advocating for grassroots empowerment while redefining Black Power beyond traditional civil rights.

The idea that there is a distinct phenemenology of thought – that there is thinking experience just as there is visual experience or auditory experience – is a radical position in philosophy of mind. David Pitt is one of its foremost proponents. In The Quality of Thought (Oxford University Press, 2024), Pitt provides an extended defense of the position and its implications: if thinking is a kind of experience, then what about unconscious thought, or the idea that explaining thought must rely essentially and primarily on introspection? Pitt, who is a professor of philosophy at Cal State LA, also considers what the sui generis phenomenology of thought might be and explains how thought contents are determined purely internally, challenging today’s dominant views of content determination and the possibility of explaining thought content using naturalistic, non-introspection-based methods. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/philosophy

In this engaging discussion, John D. Norton, a Distinguished Professor of philosophy of science at the University of Pittsburgh, dives into the intricacies of inductive inference. He presents his material theory of induction, emphasizing the importance of contextual background facts over universal rules. Norton critiques traditional views, shedding light on the complexities of scientific maturity and the intersection of faith and scientific evidence. He also tackles Hume's famous problem of induction, offering a fresh perspective that seeks to dissolve long-standing philosophical challenges.

Various kind of philosophical considerations have been offered in favor of democracy. By some accounts, democracy realizes some intrinsic value, such as equality or collective autonomy. According to other views, democracy’s value is more instrumental: it tends to produce or promote certain social goods like stability, prosperity, and peace. However, a longstanding alternative tradition locates democracy’s value in its capacity to make social and moral progress. Here, the idea isn’t so much that democracy produces an already-identified social good, but rather that democracy fosters a kind of social and moral discovery.In Experiments in Living Together: How Democracy Drives Social Progress (Oxford UP, 2024), Michael Fuerstein draws on normative and empirical considerations in proposing a systematic account of democracy’s capacity to foster progress. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/philosophy

What does mourning have to do with politics? How do practices of forced disappearance and improper burial shape subjects, spaces, and what is intelligible? What are people doing in movements across the globe when they gather in public space and recount nightmares of their disappeared loved ones? In Nightmare Remains: The Politics of Mourning and Epistemologies of Disappearance (Northwestern University Press, 2024), Ege Selin Islekel creates a South-South dialogue, connecting practices of forced disappearance in Latin America with those in Turkey and the movements of resistance developed by the searchers and remnants. By analyzing methods of power that target death and the afterlives of the dead, Islekel shows that the world is, but need not be, organized by such practices. She shows how people mobilize resistance within the death worlds of necrosovereignty, inventing possibilities from the very stuff of nightmares. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/philosophy

This interview is an exception to our “single author monographs” rule, because the edited collection that is its topic is an intellectual achievement worth making an exception for in over 12 years of New Books in Philosophy podcasts. Emotion Theory: The Routledge Comprehensive Guide: Volume I and Volume II (Routledge, 2024) is a two-volume compendium of 62 chapters on emotion theory written by 101 leading theorists from philosophy, psychology, biology, sociology, neuroscience, and other fields, all grappling with the question: What is an emotion? Editor Andrea Scarantino, who is a professor of philosophy at George State University, has compiled a synoptic and thematically organized collection that covers the history of emotion theory, the main contemporary theories of emotions, individual chapters on 35 distinct emotions, and more. The volumes bring together theorists from distinct disciplines that don’t normally engage with each others’ work, and provide readers with a one-stop-shop for clearly written introductions to the current states of play in emotion research.Andrea Scarantino is Professor of Philosophy at Georgia State University, where he has taught since 2005.Carrie Figdor is professor of philosophy at the University of Iowa. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/philosophy