Alessandra Tanesini
Biographic Data
| ID | 964561 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alessandra Tanesini |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alessandra |
| FAMILY NAME | Tanesini |
| SIGNATURE | TANESINI A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Cardiff University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6250-471X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 26 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1995 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Non-Idealised Virtue Epistemology as Particularist Virtue Theory
Is traditional virtue epistemology a kind of idealised epistemology? Is that a bad thing? Some supporters of the virtue epistemology of liberatory virtues seem to answer these questions affirmatively. H. Battaly also argues that to avoid idealization virtue epistemologists should adopt a kind of normative contextualism according to which one and the same character trait is a virtue in some contexts, and a vice (or at least not a virtue) in other …
Precis: The mismeasure of the self
In this precis of The Mismeasure of the Self I summarise and motivate the attitudinal framework adopted in the book. I defend an account of intellectual humility as a virtue of self-evaluation based on attitudes to the self motivated by the need for knowledge. I provide brief descriptions of some intellectual vices of inferiority and superiority and explain that they are underpinned by attitudes serving either ego-defensive or social adjustive fu…
Having the measure of self and world: A response to my critics
In this response I address criticisms raised by Ashton, Battaly, McGlynn and Simion that my account of intellectual humility (hereafter, IH), and of the vices opposed to it, is too internalistic, is insufficiently social and structural, and finally that my proposal for ameliorating vice might be not efficacious
Intellectual arrogance: Individual, group-based, and corporate
In the article I argue that intellectual arrogance can be an individual, collective and even corporate vice. I show that arrogance is in all these cases underpinned by defensive positive evaluations of epistemic features of the evaluator in the service of buttressing its illegitimate social dominance. Individual arrogance as superbia or as hubris stems from attitudes biased by the motive of self-enhancement. Collective arrogance is underpinned by…
Affective Polarisation and Emotional Distortions on Social Media
In this paper I argue that social networking sites (SNSs) are emotion technologies that promote a highly charged emotional environment where intrinsic emotion regulation is significantly weakened, and people's emotions are more strongly modulated by other people and by the technology itself. I show that these features of social media promote a simplistic emotional outlook which is an obstacle to the development and maintenance of virtue. In addit…
The Mismeasure of the Self: A Study in Vice Epistemology
The aim of this book is to offer detailed characterizations of some intellectual virtues and vices of self-evaluation, to highlight the epistemic harms and moral wrongs that flow from them, to explain their psychological bases and to suggest that some interventions that inhibit vicious behaviour and promote intellectual virtue. The first chapter introduces the virtues and vices of intellectual self-evaluation that are the main topic of the book. …
Passionate Speech: On the Uses and Abuses of Anger in Public Debate
Anger dominates debates in the public sphere. In this article I argue that there are diverse forms of anger that merit different responses. My focus is especially on two types of anger that I label respectively arrogant and resistant . The first is the characteristic defensive response of those who unwarrantedly arrogate special privileges for themselves. The second is often a source of insight and a form of moral address. I detail some discursiv…
The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Humility
Extended cognition is when cognitive processes extend beyond the brain and nervous system of the subject, and in the process properly include such ‘external’ devices as technology. This paper explores what relevance extended cognitive processes might have for humility, and especially for the specifically cognitive aspect of humility—viz., intellectual humility. As regards humility in general, it is argued that there are no in principle barriers t…
Blaming the Intellectually Vicious: A Critical Discussion of Cassam’s Account of Blameworthiness and Reprehensibility for Epistemic Vice
Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Humility
Polarisation, Arrogance, and Dogmatism: Philosophical Perspectives
Arrogance, Anger and Debate
Arrogance has widespread negative consequences for epistemic practices. Arrogant people tend to intimidate and humiliate other agents, and to ignore or dismiss their views. They have a propensity to mansplain. They are also angry. In this paper I explain why anger is a common manifestation of arrogance in order to understand the effects of arrogance on debate. I argue that superbia (which is the kind of arrogance that is my concern here) is a vic…
Intellectual Humility as Attitude
Intellectual humility, I argue in this paper, is a cluster of strong attitudes (as these are understood in social psychology) directed toward one's cognitive make‐up and its components, together with the cognitive and affective states that constitute their contents or bases, which serve knowledge and value‐expressive functions. In order to defend this new account of humility I first examine two simpler traits: intellectual self‐acceptance of epis…
Nietzsche on the Diachronic Will and the Problem of Morality: Nietzsche on the Diachronic Will and the Problem of Morality
In this paper I offer an innovative interpretation of Nietzsche's metaethical theory of value which shows him to be a kind of constitutivist. For Nietzsche, I argue, valuing is a conative attitude which institutes values, rather than tracking what is independently of value. What is characteristic of those acts of willing which institute values is that they are owned or authored. Nietzsche makes this point using the vocabulary of self-mastery. One…
Instilling new habits: Addressing Implicit Bias in Healthcare Professionals
Temporal Externalism: A Taxonomy, an Articulation, and a Defence
I argue that the semantic content of thoughts and the linguistic meaning of expressions are things with a history in the sense that they can be made fully intelligible only from the point of view of the future. I defend this position by articulating a version of a view known in the philosophy of language as temporal externalism. Temporal externalism about content is the view that the content of a subject's thoughts and utterances at a timetdepend…
Perception and Action: The Taste Test
Traditional accounts of perception endorse an input–output model: perception is the input from world to mind and action is the output from mind to world. In contrast, enactive accounts propose action to be constitutive of perception. We focus on Noë's sensorimotor version of enactivism, with the aim of clarifying the proper limits of enactivism more generally. Having explained Noë's particular version of enactivism, which accounts for the content…
Ecological Thinking: The Politics of Epistemic Location
Identity Judgements, Queer Politics
Political identities have received bad press for quite some time. Sexual identities constitute no exception to this trend. Nearly ten years ago Judith Butler expressed her ambivalent relation to identity categories by calling them 'necessary errors', whilst at the same time holding that 'there remains a political imperative to use [them]'.1 In more recent times, Alan Sinfield has suggested that we might be entering a period which he labels 'post-…
Queer Theory
Queer Theory is one of the most contested and intellectually complex movements in contemporary sexual politics. Where did it come from, and what does it do? Is queer theory only for queers? If you have ever wanted to be a leather daddy, been puzzled by performativity, tried to measure bisexuality, or wondered whether Diana, Princess of Wales could be a gay icon, Queer Theory is required reading. This vibrant anthology of groundbreaking work by in…
Nietzsche's theory of truth
(1995). Nietzsche's theory of truth. Australasian Journal of Philosophy: Vol. 73, No. 4, pp. 548-559.
Intellectual Humility as Attitude
Intellectual humility, I argue in this paper, is a cluster of strong attitudes (as these are understood in social psychology) directed toward one's cognitive make‐up and its components, together with the cognitive and affective states that constitute their contents or bases, which serve knowledge and value‐expressive functions. In order to defend this new account of humility I first examine two simpler traits: intellectual self‐acceptance of epis…
Instilling new habits: Addressing Implicit Bias in Healthcare Professionals
Temporal Externalism: A Taxonomy, an Articulation, and a Defence
I argue that the semantic content of thoughts and the linguistic meaning of expressions are things with a history in the sense that they can be made fully intelligible only from the point of view of the future. I defend this position by articulating a version of a view known in the philosophy of language as temporal externalism. Temporal externalism about content is the view that the content of a subject's thoughts and utterances at a timetdepend…
Perception and Action: The Taste Test
Traditional accounts of perception endorse an input–output model: perception is the input from world to mind and action is the output from mind to world. In contrast, enactive accounts propose action to be constitutive of perception. We focus on Noë's sensorimotor version of enactivism, with the aim of clarifying the proper limits of enactivism more generally. Having explained Noë's particular version of enactivism, which accounts for the content…
Ecological Thinking: The Politics of Epistemic Location
Nietzsche's theory of truth
(1995). Nietzsche's theory of truth. Australasian Journal of Philosophy: Vol. 73, No. 4, pp. 548-559.
Identity Judgements, Queer Politics
Political identities have received bad press for quite some time. Sexual identities constitute no exception to this trend. Nearly ten years ago Judith Butler expressed her ambivalent relation to identity categories by calling them 'necessary errors', whilst at the same time holding that 'there remains a political imperative to use [them]'.1 In more recent times, Alan Sinfield has suggested that we might be entering a period which he labels 'post-…
Queer Theory
Queer Theory is one of the most contested and intellectually complex movements in contemporary sexual politics. Where did it come from, and what does it do? Is queer theory only for queers? If you have ever wanted to be a leather daddy, been puzzled by performativity, tried to measure bisexuality, or wondered whether Diana, Princess of Wales could be a gay icon, Queer Theory is required reading. This vibrant anthology of groundbreaking work by in…
Ecological Thinking: The Politics of Epistemic Location
Perception and Action: The Taste Test
Traditional accounts of perception endorse an input–output model: perception is the input from world to mind and action is the output from mind to world. In contrast, enactive accounts propose action to be constitutive of perception. We focus on Noë's sensorimotor version of enactivism, with the aim of clarifying the proper limits of enactivism more generally. Having explained Noë's particular version of enactivism, which accounts for the content…
Temporal Externalism: A Taxonomy, an Articulation, and a Defence
I argue that the semantic content of thoughts and the linguistic meaning of expressions are things with a history in the sense that they can be made fully intelligible only from the point of view of the future. I defend this position by articulating a version of a view known in the philosophy of language as temporal externalism. Temporal externalism about content is the view that the content of a subject's thoughts and utterances at a timetdepend…
Nietzsche on the Diachronic Will and the Problem of Morality: Nietzsche on the Diachronic Will and the Problem of Morality
In this paper I offer an innovative interpretation of Nietzsche's metaethical theory of value which shows him to be a kind of constitutivist. For Nietzsche, I argue, valuing is a conative attitude which institutes values, rather than tracking what is independently of value. What is characteristic of those acts of willing which institute values is that they are owned or authored. Nietzsche makes this point using the vocabulary of self-mastery. One…
Instilling new habits: Addressing Implicit Bias in Healthcare Professionals
Intellectual Humility as Attitude
Intellectual humility, I argue in this paper, is a cluster of strong attitudes (as these are understood in social psychology) directed toward one's cognitive make‐up and its components, together with the cognitive and affective states that constitute their contents or bases, which serve knowledge and value‐expressive functions. In order to defend this new account of humility I first examine two simpler traits: intellectual self‐acceptance of epis…
Arrogance, Anger and Debate
Arrogance has widespread negative consequences for epistemic practices. Arrogant people tend to intimidate and humiliate other agents, and to ignore or dismiss their views. They have a propensity to mansplain. They are also angry. In this paper I explain why anger is a common manifestation of arrogance in order to understand the effects of arrogance on debate. I argue that superbia (which is the kind of arrogance that is my concern here) is a vic…
The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Humility
Extended cognition is when cognitive processes extend beyond the brain and nervous system of the subject, and in the process properly include such ‘external’ devices as technology. This paper explores what relevance extended cognitive processes might have for humility, and especially for the specifically cognitive aspect of humility—viz., intellectual humility. As regards humility in general, it is argued that there are no in principle barriers t…
Blaming the Intellectually Vicious: A Critical Discussion of Cassam’s Account of Blameworthiness and Reprehensibility for Epistemic Vice
Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Humility
Polarisation, Arrogance, and Dogmatism: Philosophical Perspectives
The Mismeasure of the Self: A Study in Vice Epistemology
The aim of this book is to offer detailed characterizations of some intellectual virtues and vices of self-evaluation, to highlight the epistemic harms and moral wrongs that flow from them, to explain their psychological bases and to suggest that some interventions that inhibit vicious behaviour and promote intellectual virtue. The first chapter introduces the virtues and vices of intellectual self-evaluation that are the main topic of the book. …
Passionate Speech: On the Uses and Abuses of Anger in Public Debate
Anger dominates debates in the public sphere. In this article I argue that there are diverse forms of anger that merit different responses. My focus is especially on two types of anger that I label respectively arrogant and resistant . The first is the characteristic defensive response of those who unwarrantedly arrogate special privileges for themselves. The second is often a source of insight and a form of moral address. I detail some discursiv…
Affective Polarisation and Emotional Distortions on Social Media
In this paper I argue that social networking sites (SNSs) are emotion technologies that promote a highly charged emotional environment where intrinsic emotion regulation is significantly weakened, and people's emotions are more strongly modulated by other people and by the technology itself. I show that these features of social media promote a simplistic emotional outlook which is an obstacle to the development and maintenance of virtue. In addit…
Intellectual arrogance: Individual, group-based, and corporate
In the article I argue that intellectual arrogance can be an individual, collective and even corporate vice. I show that arrogance is in all these cases underpinned by defensive positive evaluations of epistemic features of the evaluator in the service of buttressing its illegitimate social dominance. Individual arrogance as superbia or as hubris stems from attitudes biased by the motive of self-enhancement. Collective arrogance is underpinned by…
Precis: The mismeasure of the self
In this precis of The Mismeasure of the Self I summarise and motivate the attitudinal framework adopted in the book. I defend an account of intellectual humility as a virtue of self-evaluation based on attitudes to the self motivated by the need for knowledge. I provide brief descriptions of some intellectual vices of inferiority and superiority and explain that they are underpinned by attitudes serving either ego-defensive or social adjustive fu…
Having the measure of self and world: A response to my critics
In this response I address criticisms raised by Ashton, Battaly, McGlynn and Simion that my account of intellectual humility (hereafter, IH), and of the vices opposed to it, is too internalistic, is insufficiently social and structural, and finally that my proposal for ameliorating vice might be not efficacious
Non-Idealised Virtue Epistemology as Particularist Virtue Theory
Is traditional virtue epistemology a kind of idealised epistemology? Is that a bad thing? Some supporters of the virtue epistemology of liberatory virtues seem to answer these questions affirmatively. H. Battaly also argues that to avoid idealization virtue epistemologists should adopt a kind of normative contextualism according to which one and the same character trait is a virtue in some contexts, and a vice (or at least not a virtue) in other …
Epistemology (13 works) · Philosophy (13 works) · Psychology (12 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Computer Science (9 works) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (8 works) · Political science (6 works) · Social Psychology (6 works) · Emotions and Moral Behavior (5 works) · Law (4 works)