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Book Cover for: Transformative Experience, L. A. Paul

Transformative Experience

L. A. Paul

Paperback
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As we live our lives, we repeatedly make decisions that shape our future circumstances and affect the sort of person we will be. When choosing whether to start a family, or deciding on a career, we often think we can assess the options by imagining what different experiences would be like for us. L. A. Paul argues that, for choices involving dramatically new experiences, we are confronted by the brute fact that we can know very little about our subjective futures. This has serious implications for our decisions. If we make life choices in the way we naturally and intuitively want to--by considering what we care about, and what our future selves will be like if we choose to have the experience--we only learn what we really need to know after we have already committed ourselves. If we try to escape the dilemma by avoiding an experience, we have still made a choice.

Choosing rationally, then, may require us to regard big life decisions as choices to make discoveries, small and large, about the intrinsic nature of experience, and to recognize that part of the value of living authentically is to experience one's life and preferences in whatever way they may evolve in the wake of the choices one makes.

Using classic philosophical examples about the nature of consciousness, and drawing on recent work in normative decision theory, cognitive science, epistemology, and the philosophy of mind, Paul develops a rigorous account of transformative experience that sheds light on how we should understand real-world experience and our capacity to rationally map our subjective futures.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Oxford University Press
  • Publish Date: Oct 1st, 2016
  • Pages: 208
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.40in - 5.30in - 0.50in - 0.57lb
  • EAN: 9780198777311
  • Categories: • Epistemology• Mind & Body• Motivational & Inspirational

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About the Author

L. A. Paul received her PhD from Princeton in 1999, and taught at Yale and the University of Arizona before coming to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is a Professorial Fellow at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland.

What people are saying

Mentioner image for: Stefan Wünsche
Stefan Wünsche
@StWuensche
1 year

political science, contemporary history, environmental economics, science diplomacy & communication

It was great that @AvHStiftung brought so many #ResearchAward winners together in #Bamberg. I enjoyed interesting conversions with researchers like @sureshbenjamin and inspiring talks like the one on transformative experience and decision-making by Laurie Paul, Yale. https://t.co/Z1k966tvZ9

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Mentioner image for: Richard Pettigrew
Richard Pettigrew
@Wiglet1981
1 year

Philosopher at University of Bristol

New blogpost: Transformative experiences and choosing when you don't know what you value These blogposts are basically just me walking back my confidence that decision theory can meet the challenges Laurie Paul raised for it in Transformative Experience. https://t.co/TnokdMf2TG

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Mentioner image for: Ellie Anderson
Ellie Anderson
@ellieanderphd
3 years

Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Pomona College | Co-host of @Overthink_pod. Phenomenology/poststructuralism, hermeneutic labor, feminist philosophy of love

@Helenreflects Was just reading Paul’s Transformative Experience, and tasting durian is a running example of an epistemically transformative experience! I wonder whether durian candy counts 😝

twitter.com

Praise for this book

"L.A. Paul's Transformative Experience is one of the best kinds of philosophy books ... [it] has already received well-deserved public and philosophical attention, and should inspire research for years to come." -- Marcus Arvan, Australasian Journal of Philosophy"This book offers a very rigorous account of the notions of transformative experience and rationally moving into the future... Recommended." -- Choice"Transformative Experience hits the sweet spot: it's a significant scholarly work, bearing on deep philosophical issues, but it's also engaging and accessible." --Paul Bloom, The Slate
"It's a provocative, enticing book. It's an enjoyable read, accessible to both specialists in philosophy and non-philosophers. In fact, I teach it in my introductory philosophy classes...her work has sparked an explosion of interesting research." -- The Philosopher's Magazine

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