Self-Expression

by Green, Mitchell S.

• ISBN13: 9780199283781
• ISBN10: 0199283788
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-01-10
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Mitchell S. Green presents a systematic philosophical study of self-expression - a pervasive phenomenon of the everyday life of humans and other species, which has received scant attention in its own right. He explores the ways in which self-expression reveals our states of thought, feeling, and experience, and he defends striking new theses concerning a wide range of fascinating topics: our ability to perceive emotion in others, artistic expression, empathy, expressive language, meaning, facial expression, and speech acts. He draws on insights from evolutionary game theory, ethology, the philosophy of language, social psychology, pragmatics, aesthetics, and neuroscience to present a stimulating and accessible interdisciplinary work.

Author Biography

Mitchell S. Green is NEH/Horace Goldsmith Distinguished Teaching Professor of Philosophy, University of Virginia

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables	p. xi
The Significance of Self-Expression	p. 1
Four models of communication	p. 4
Signals and expressions	p. 11
Methodological issues	p. 15
Glimpsing ahead	p. 17
Expression Delineated	p. 21
Twenty dicta	p. 23
A characterization of self-expression	p. 42
Showing and Meaning	p. 46
Three ways of showing	p. 47
Showing what's within, part i	p. 49
Grice's ladder	p. 53
Intention: nests and hierarchies	p. 63
Speech acts and handicaps	p. 69
Alternative accounts of speaker meaning	p. 75
Meaningful Expression	p. 82
Self-expression and speaker meaning	p. 82
Showing what's within, part ii	p. 84
Expression and automaticity	p. 93
Expression and implicature	p. 99
Alternative accounts of self-expression	p. 104
Facial Expression	p. 110
Darwin on expression in humans and animals	p. 111
The Neurocultural View of facial expression	p. 117
The Behavioral Ecology View of facial expression	p. 126
Strategic readouts: the face is a translucent strategist	p. 133
Convention and Idiosyncrasy	p. 137
The limits of natural expression	p. 137
Expressive idiosyncrasy	p. 140
The conventionalization of self-expression	p. 143
Measuring what's within	p. 151
Some verbal devices of self-expression	p. 161
Expressive Qualities	p. 171
Showing how	p. 172
Congruence of sensation and affect	p. 178
Showing what's within, part iii	p. 182
Empathy	p. 187
Artistic expression	p. 192
Transparency and translucency: expression in representation	p. 207
Definitions and Analyses	p. 212
References	p. 214
Index	p. 224
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