Reading Group “The Normative Mind”
Modality: hybrid, Thursdays at 14:00 hrs every two weeks.
Location: Seminar Room 509 (Metaphysics), Faculty of Philosophy and Education Sciences.
Start date: 17 september, 2026.
Contact: Jean Moritz Müller (jean.muller@uv.es) and Aaron Alvarez (aaron.alvarez@uv.es).
Questions:
(i) What normative properties or statuses do we ascribe to mental phenomena? Why do some mental phenomena exhibit specific normative properties not exhibited by others? (For instance, what makes it the case that beliefs, desires, and emotions admit of reasons, but perceptions don’t?)
(ii) How do the various normative properties that may be instantiated by all or some mental phenomena relate to one another? Is one (or are some) of them conceptually and/or ontologically fundamental?
(iii) Is the nature or essence of (some) mental phenomena normative? What are plausible candidates for the normative essences of mental phenomena? Do (some) intentional mental phenomena depend for their intentionality on having normative properties?
(iv) Can work in subdisciplines of practical philosophy that study normativity (e.g., political philosophy, ethics, and social philosophy) help elucidate the normative properties we ascribe to mental phenomena?
Some things we might read:
• Carter, A. J. and Titus L. M. (2024). “What The Tortoise Should Do: A Knowledge‐First Virtue Approach to the Basing Relation”. Noûs. 58(2), 456-481.(doi: 10.1111/nous.12460)
• Hieronymi, P. (2006). “Controlling Attitudes.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 87(1), 45–74.
• Howard, C., & Cosker-Rowland, R. (2022). “Fittingness: A User’s Guide.” In Fittingness: Essays in the Philosophy of Normativity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1–20.
• Singh, K. (2025). “Rationality, Responding to Reasons, and the First Person.” Res Philosophica 102(3), 239–262.
• Lee, W. (2022). “The Real Myth of Coherence.” Erkenntnis 87, 1211–1230.
• Worsnip, A. (2018). “What Is (In)Coherence?” Oxford Studies in Metaethics 13, 184–206.
• Wu, W. (2026). “ Attunement and Reason.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. https://doi.org/10.1111/phpr.70152