Papers by Louise Richardson
Synthese, 2024
I offer a philosophical account of shared grief, on which it is a process, undergone by a group, ... more I offer a philosophical account of shared grief, on which it is a process, undergone by a group, of recognising and accommodating significant possibilities that are lost to that group. In setting out from an understanding of grief’s distinctive characteristics, a philosophically interesting, metaphysically undemanding, and practically useful account of shared grief comes into view, that has broader consequences for understanding shared emotion.
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences
Articles in the popular media and testimonies collected in empirical work suggest that many peopl... more Articles in the popular media and testimonies collected in empirical work suggest that many people who have not been bereaved have nevertheless grieved over pandemic-related losses of various kinds. There is a philosophical question about whether any experience of a non-death loss ought to count as grief, hinging upon how the object of grief is construed. However, even if one accepts that certain significant non-death losses are possible targets of grief, many reported cases of putative pandemic-related grief may appear less plausible. For instance, it might be argued that many of these losses are temporary or minor and therefore unlikely to be grieved, and that the associated experiences are phenomenologically dissimilar to grief. In this article, as well as discussing the more general question about the coherence of the idea of non-bereavement grief, we address these obstacles to taking reports of pandemic non-bereavement grief to be literal and true. In particular, we argue that ...
Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 2023
Philosophical research into olfaction often focuses on its limitations. We explore instead an und... more Philosophical research into olfaction often focuses on its limitations. We explore instead an underappreciated capacity of the sense of smell, namely, its role in interpersonal experience. To illustrate this, we examine how smell can enable continuing connections to deceased loved ones. Understanding this phenomenon requires an appreciation of, first, how olfaction's limitations can facilitate experiences of the deceased person, and second, how olfaction enables experiences of what we refer to as the 'olfactory air' of a person. This way of experiencing someone privileges their status as an environmentally situated human animal.
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2023
Articles in the popular media and testimonies collected in empirical work suggest that many peopl... more Articles in the popular media and testimonies collected in empirical work suggest that many people who have not been bereaved have nevertheless grieved over pandemic-related losses of various kinds. There is a philosophical question about whether any experience of a non-death loss ought to count as grief, hinging upon how the object of grief is construed. However, even if one accepts that certain significant nondeath losses are possible targets of grief, many reported cases of putative pandemicrelated grief may appear less plausible. For instance, it might be argued that many of these losses are temporary or minor and therefore unlikely to be grieved, and that the associated experiences are phenomenologically dissimilar to grief. In this article, as well as discussing the more general question about the coherence of the idea of nonbereavement grief, we address these obstacles to taking reports of pandemic nonbereavement grief to be literal and true. In particular, we argue that some may have experienced grief over even apparently minor losses during the pandemic. This is generally so, we suggest, only insofar as experiences of such losses form part of an overarching grief process directed at some broader significant loss. Thus, we cast light on both the nature of non-bereavement grief and the kinds of disruption and loss experienced during the pandemic.
Passion: Journal of the European Philosophical Society for the Study of Emotions, 2023
Grief is often thought of as an emotional response to the death of someone we love. However, the ... more Grief is often thought of as an emotional response to the death of someone we love. However, the term "grief" is also used when referring to losses of various other kinds, as with grief over illness, injury, unemployment, diminished abilities, relationship breakups, or loss of significant personal possessions. In this paper, we address the question of what, if anything, the relevant experiences have in common. We argue that grief over a bereavement and other experiences of loss share a common phenomenological structure: one experiences the loss of certain possibilities that were integral to-and perhaps central to-the unfolding structure of one's life. Grief can thus be conceived of in a broad but still univocal way. To develop this position, we focus on the example of grief over involuntary childlessness, where lack of a concrete, historical object of emotion serves to make explicit the way in which grief concerns future possibilities. We go on to suggest that the phenomenological complexity, diversity, and prevalence of grief are obscured when approached via an abstract, simplified conception of bereavement.
Journal of Consciousness Studies, 2022
Memory can play two quite different roles in grief. Memories involving a deceased loved one can m... more Memory can play two quite different roles in grief. Memories involving a deceased loved one can make them feel either enjoyably present, or especially and painfully absent. In this paper, we consider what makes it possible for memory to play these two different roles, both in grief and more generally. We answer this question by appeal to the phenomenological nature of vivid remembering, and the context in which such memories occur. We argue that different contexts can make salient different aspects of memory's phenomenological nature, thus making what is remembered sometimes feel pleasantly 'present' again, and sometimes painfully absent.
European Journal of Philosophy, 2022
In this paper, I consider the implications of grief for philosophical theorising about absence ex... more In this paper, I consider the implications of grief for philosophical theorising about absence experience. I argue that whilst some absence experiences that occur in grief might be explained by extant philosophical accounts of absence experience, others need different treatment. I propose that grieving subjects’ descriptions of feeling as if the world seems empty or a part of them seems missing can be understood as referring to a distinctive type of absence experience. In these profound absence experiences, I will argue, the absence of a person as a condition on various possibilities is made manifest in the structure of experience over time. Thus, by paying close attention to grief we can see that even accounts of absence experience that are presented as in competition with one another may not be so, and that to explain all kinds of absence experience we sometimes need to appeal to something overlooked in other accounts, and which is neither straightforwardly perceptual or cognitive. I also suggest that we would have good reason to take such experiences to be part of and not merely psychological effects of grief.
Journal of the American Philosophical Association, 2022
How we understand the nature and role of grief depends on what we take its object to be and vice ... more How we understand the nature and role of grief depends on what we take its object to be and vice versa. This paper focuses on recent claims by philosophers that grief is frequently or even inherently irrational or inappropriate in one or another respect, all of which hinge on assumptions concerning the proper object of grief. By emphasizing the temporally extended structure of grief, we offer an alternative account of its object, which undermines these assumptions and dissolves the apparent problems. The principal object of grief, we suggest, is a loss of life-possibilities, which is experienced, understood, and engaged with over a prolonged period. Other descriptions of grief's object identify more specific aspects of this loss, in ways that do not respect a straightforward distinction between concrete and formal objects.
Journal of the American Philosophical Association, 2020
It is generally accepted that sight—the capacity to see or to have visual experiences—has the pow... more It is generally accepted that sight—the capacity to see or to have visual experiences—has the power to give us knowledge about things in the environment and some of their properties in a distinctive way. Seeing the goose on the lake puts me in a position to know that it’s there and that it’s, say, brown, large, maybe even that it’s angry. And it does this by, when all goes well, presenting us with these features of the goose. One might even think that it’s part of what it is to be a perceptual capacity that it has this kind of epistemological power, such that a capacity that lacked this power could not be perceptual. My focus will be on the sense of taste—the capacity to taste things or to have taste experiences. It has sometimes been suggested that taste lacks sight-like epistemological power. I will argue that taste has epistemological power of the same kind as sight’s, but that as a matter of contingent fact, that power often goes unexercised in our contemporary environment. We can know about things by tasting them in the same kind of way as we can know about things by seeing them, but we often don’t. I then consider the significance of this conclusion. I’ll suggest that in one way, it matters little, because our primary interest in taste (in marked contrast to our other senses) isn’t epistemic but aesthetic. But, I will end by suggesting, it can matter ethically.
Think, 2021
This article addresses the question of whether certain experiences that originate in causes other... more This article addresses the question of whether certain experiences that originate in causes other than bereavement are properly termed ‘grief’. To do so, we focus on widespread experiences of grief that have been reported during the Covid-19 pandemic. We consider two potential objections to a more permissive use of the term: (i) grief is, by definition, a response to a death; (ii) grief is subject to certain norms that apply only to the case of bereavement. Having shown that these objections are unconvincing, we sketch a positive case for a conception of grief that is not specific to bereavement, by noting some features that grief following bereavement shares with other experiences of loss.
A four-year AHRC-funded research project, beginning on 1st January 2020.
Principal Investigator:... more A four-year AHRC-funded research project, beginning on 1st January 2020.
Principal Investigator: Matthew Ratcliffe, University of York
Co-investigator: Louise Richardson, University of York
When I see some object, it visually seems as if the location of that object is distinct from the ... more When I see some object, it visually seems as if the location of that object is distinct from the location from which it is perceived. For example, if I hold out my pencil in front of me, it visually seems to be at some location there, but I seem to it see it from some other location here. The place from which one perceives is, of course, occupied by one's body, and in this chapter I consider whether, in order to capture sight's spatial perspectival character, we need to accept that in normal visual experience, one’s body is always perceptually represented, even though it is typically outside of the visual field (call this the ‘visual bodily awareness claim’, or VBA). I argue that we don’t need to accept VBA, and in particular, that a promising-seeming argument for the claim that we do, fails. Instead, I suggest, aspects of phenomenal character that might lead us to accept VBA can be explained by appeal to structural features of visual experience.
In this paper I offer an account of a particular variety of perception of absence, namely, visual... more In this paper I offer an account of a particular variety of perception of absence, namely, visual perception of empty space. In so doing, I aim to make explicit the role that seeing empty space has, implicitly, in Mike Martin's account of the visual field. I suggest we should make sense of the claim that vision has a field—in Martin's sense—in terms of our being aware of its limitations or boundaries. I argue that the limits of the visual field are our own sensory limitations, and that we are aware of them as such. Seeing empty space, I argue, involves a structural feature of experience that constitutes our awareness of our visual sensory limitations, and thus, in virtue of which vision has a field.
In this paper I argue that olfactory experience, like visual experience, is exteroceptive: it see... more In this paper I argue that olfactory experience, like visual experience, is exteroceptive: it seems to one that odours, when one smells them, are external to the body, as it seems to one that objects are external to the body when one sees them. Where the sense of smell has been discussed by philosophers, it has often been supposed to be non-exteroceptive. The strangeness of this philosophical orthodoxy makes it natural to ask what would lead to its widespread acceptance. I argue that philosophers have been misled by a visuocentric model of what exteroceptivity involves. Since olfaction lacks the spatial features that make vision exteroceptive the conclusion that olfaction is nonexteroceptive can appear quite compelling, particularly in the absence of an alternative model of exteroceptivity appropriate to olfaction. I offer a model according to which odours seem to be external to the body because they seem to be brought into the nose from without by sniffing and breathing through the nostrils. I argue that some natural-seeming objections to this model rely on substantive assumptions about how the senses are distinguished from one another, and how perceptual experience is put together out of its modality-specific parts, that require defence.
I consider the role of psychology and other sciences in telling us about our senses, via the issu... more I consider the role of psychology and other sciences in telling us about our senses, via the issue of whether empirical findings show us that flavours are perceived partly with the sense of smell. I argue that scientific findings do not establish that we’re wrong to think that flavours are just tasted. Non-naturalism, according to which our everyday conception of the senses does not involve empirical commitments of a kind that could be corrected by empirical findings is, I suggest, a plausible view that is not easy to dismiss.
How should interaction between the senses affect thought about them? I try to capture some ways i... more How should interaction between the senses affect thought about them? I try to capture some ways in which non sense-specific perception might be thought to make it impossible or pointless or explanatorily idle to distinguish between the senses. This task is complicated by there being more than one view of the nature of the senses, and more than one kind of non sense-specific perception. I argue, in particular, that provided we are willing to forgo certain assumptions about, for instance, the relationship between modes or kinds of experience, and about how one should count perceptual experiences at a time, at least one way of thinking about the senses survives the occurrence of various kinds of non sense-specific perception relatively unscathed.
Ratio (Special Issue: The Structure of Perceptual Experience), 2014
Whatever the answer to Molyneux's question is, it is certainly not obvious that the answer is ‘ye... more Whatever the answer to Molyneux's question is, it is certainly not obvious that the answer is ‘yes’. In contrast, it seems clear that we should answer affirmatively a temporal variation on Molyneux's question, introduced by Gareth Evans. I offer a phenomenological explanation of this asymmetry in our responses to the two questions. This explanation appeals to the modality-specific spatial structure of perceptual experience and its amodal temporal structure. On this explanation, there are differences in the perception of spatial properties in different modalities, but these differences do not stand in the way of the objectivity of perceptual experience.
Bodily awareness is a kind of perceptual awareness of the body that we do not usually count as a ... more Bodily awareness is a kind of perceptual awareness of the body that we do not usually count as a sense. I argue that that there is an overlooked agential difference between bodily awareness and perception in the five familiar senses: a difference in what is involved in perceptual activity in sight, hearing, touch taste and smell on the one hand, and bodily awareness on the other.
Perceptual Ephemera. OUP., 2018
It is natural to think that sight is unusually direct, at least in comparison to hearing and smel... more It is natural to think that sight is unusually direct, at least in comparison to hearing and smell. We see tables and lemons and pigs directly, in that we do not typically see them by seeing anything else. Hearing and smell are not, according to this picture, direct in the same way. Auditory and olfactory perceptual contact with these sorts of ordinary objects is mediated by more direct perceptual contact with objects that are in some respect non-ordinary: sounds, in the case of audition, odours in the case of olfaction. These non-ordinary, mediating objects are sensibilia: they are intimately related to particular senses in a way that tables, lemons and pigs are not. 1 That is not to say that there are no visibilia, the visual variety of sensibilia. Rainbows, holograms and reflections, for instance, seem to be intimately related to the sense of sight. Rainbows, holograms and reflections then are, or might be, visibilia. However, it is not natural to think that visual perceptual contact with ordinary objects is mediated by perceptual contact with visibilia.
Uploads
Papers by Louise Richardson
Principal Investigator: Matthew Ratcliffe, University of York
Co-investigator: Louise Richardson, University of York
Principal Investigator: Matthew Ratcliffe, University of York
Co-investigator: Louise Richardson, University of York