Dr Jonathan Mitchell
Lecturer
School of English, Communication and Philosophy
- Available for postgraduate supervision
Overview
I am currently Lecturer in Philosophy, having joined in 2021.
I work in the philosophy of mind, with a focus on emotion and value, and have a strong interest in Nietzsche and the Phenomenologists.
I recently published a book, titled "Emotions as Feelings Towards Value: A Theory of Emotional Experience" with Oxford University Press.
For a full list of publications and research see http://www.jonathanmitchell.co.uk/
Biography
I studied for my masters in Philosophy of Science at the University of Sheffield and got my Ph.D. from the University of Warwick in 2016. From 2017-8, I was a post-doc at the University of Johannesburg (Department of Philosophy). From 2018-2021 I was a British Academy postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Manchester (on the project 'Emotions as Feeling Towards Value'). I joined the Philosophy Department at the University of Cardiff as a lecturer in September 2021
Publications
2022
- Mitchell, J. 2022. Liking that it hurts: the case of the masochist and second-order desire accounts of pain’s unpleasantness. American Philosophical Quarterly 59(2), pp. 181-189.
2021
- Mitchell, J. 2021. Affective shifts: mood, emotion and well-being. Synthese 199, pp. 11793-11820. (10.1007/s11229-021-03312-3)
- Mitchell, J. 2021. The bodily-attitudinal theory of emotion. Philosophical Studies 178, pp. 2635-2663. (10.1007/s11098-020-01567-z)
- Mitchell, J. 2021. The mind’s presence to itself: In search of non‐intentional awareness. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (10.1111/phpr.12804)
- Mitchell, J. 2021. Affective representation and affective attitudes. Synthese 198, pp. 3519-3546. (10.1007/s11229-019-02294-7)
- Mitchell, J. 2021. Self-locating content in visual experience and the "here-replacement" account. Journal of Philosophy 118(4), pp. 188-213. (10.5840/jphil2021118414)
- Mitchell, J. 2021. Two irreducible classes of emotional experiences: Affective imaginings and affective perceptions. European Journal of Philosophy (10.1111/ejop.12648)
- Mitchell, J. 2021. Emotion as feeling towards value: a theory of emotional experience. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2020
- Mitchell, J. 2020. A Nietzschean theory of emotional experience: Affect as feeling towards value. Inquiry (10.1080/0020174X.2020.1850341)
- Mitchell, J. 2020. The irreducibility of emotional phenomenology. Erkenntnis 85, pp. 1241-1268. (10.1007/s10670-018-0075-8)
- Mitchell, J. 2020. Another look at mode intentionalism. Erkenntnis (10.1007/s10670-020-00314-4)
- Mitchell, J. 2020. On the non-conceptual content of affective-evaluative experience. Synthese 197(7), pp. 3087-3111. (10.1007/s11229-018-1872-y)
- Mitchell, J. 2020. The attitudinal opacity of emotional experience. Philosophical Quarterly 70(280), pp. 524-546. (10.1093/pq/pqz085)
- Mitchell, J. 2020. Understanding meta-emotions: Prospects for a perceptualist account. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 50(4), pp. 505-523. (10.1017/can.2019.47)
2019
- Mitchell, J. 2019. Emotional experience and propositional content. Dialectica 73(4), pp. 535-561. (10.1111/1746-8361.12285)
- Mitchell, J. 2019. Pre-emotional value awareness and the content-priority view. Philosophical Quarterly 69(277), pp. 771-794. (10.1093/pq/pqz018)
- Mitchell, J. 2019. The varieties of mood intentionality. In: Breidenbach, B. and Docherty, T. eds. Mood: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, New Theories. New York, NY: Routledge
- Mitchell, J. 2019. The intentionality and intelligibility of moods. European Journal of Philosophy 27(1), pp. 118-135. (10.1111/ejop.12385)
- Mitchell, J. 2019. Can Evaluativism about unpleasant pains meet the normative condition?. Inquiry 62(7), pp. 779-802. (10.1080/0020174X.2018.1562377)
2017
- Mitchell, J. 2017. A Nietzschean critique of metaphysical philosophy. Journal of Nietzsche Studies 48(3), pp. 347-374. (10.5325/jnietstud.48.3.0347)
- Mitchell, J. 2017. The epistemology of emotional experience. Dialectica 71(1), pp. 84. (10.1111/1746-8361.12171)
- Mitchell, J. 2017. Nietzsche on taste: Epistemic privilege and anti-realism. Inquiry 60(1-2), pp. 31-65. (10.1080/0020174X.2016.1251166)
2016
- Mitchell, J. 2016. Nietzschean self-overcoming. Journal of Nietzsche Studies 47(3), pp. 323-350. (10.5325/jnietstud.47.3.0323)
Teaching
I am an associate fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
UG courses taught or co-taught: A Sense of the Possible, The Varieties of Experience, Critical Thinking
PG courses taught: Varieties of Philosophical Reasoning
My research focuses on the intersection between philosophy of mind, emotion, and value.
I am now working towards a theory of intentional horizons, drawing on material from Husserl, Sartre, and contemporary philosophers. Consider the following puzzling features of everyday experience. Standing in front of a house, we only see its front-side. Nonetheless, our visual experience is of a three-dimensional entity. We see a house, not a mere façade. Alternatively, say I am listening to a piece of music. All I strictly hear at any one moment are the notes currently being sounded, yet nonetheless, I hear a melody unfolding, rather than a series of disconnected chords. Next, consider how a range of our emotions and desires seem to concern themselves with ‘future values’ – say the anticipated joy of a reunion with a friend – the realization of which often falls short of expectations (we experience a ‘dissatisfaction in presence’). In all these cases, different though they are in important respects, the puzzling features seem to stem from the way such experiences involve a ‘sense of the possible’ which goes beyond what is explicitly represented. My current research aims to explain the way in which this sense of the possible figures across a range of experiences, from the kinds of sense-perceptual cases mentioned above to affective and evaluative experience. Connecting discussions of similar themes in the history of philosophy with contemporary philosophy of mind, this research will provide a comprehensive investigation into this fascinating but often overlooked topic.
I continue to have a lively interest in recent developments in the philosophy of emotion, and more broadly in areas of the philosophy of mind that concern themselves with understanding the nature of conscious intentionality.
Supervision
I am interested in supervising PhD students in the following areas:
- Emotion and Value
- Intentionality
- Consciousness (specifically topics related to conscious experience)
- Husserl, Sartre, and other classical phenomenologists
- Nietzsche
Past projects
Ph.D. co-supervisor (University of Manchester): Emile Chan (passed no corrections 2021), Benedetta Margo (2018-); Hsu-Nan Liou (2020-)