Instituto de Filosofia da Linguagem
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas
Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Av. de Berna, 26 C
1069-061 Lisboa, Portugal
email: dmendonca.ifl@fsch.unl.pt
I am a member of the research team of Instituto de Filosofia da Linguagem, holding a post-doctoral position granted by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia.
After an undergraduate course in Philosophy at Universidade Católica Portuguesa in Lisbon. I took a masters degree in Philosophy for Children at Montclair State University, New Jersey. It taught me that I really wanted to do philosophy and that children are much better thinkers than they are credited to be. Matthew Lipman was a patient and insightful presence — I learned a lot with him. I returned to Portugal for two difficult years in unemployment and finally applied and was accepted to a Ph.D program at University of South Carolina, Columbia . It was a wonderful experience and I was lucky to find Tom Burke as an advisor, for he did not mind trying to read all of Dewey's works, and these were wonderful philosophical afternoons.
My Dissertation on Dewey's notion of experience "The Anatomy of Experience — An analysis of Dewey's Concept of Experience" gave a substantial form to my enjoyment in philosophy. Dewey's philosophical work proved to be an excellent guide for the philosophical understanding of experience. In addition, reading Dewey helped me to disentangle, revise and organize my philosophical education.
Currently I'm working on a Pragmatic Analysis of Emotion developing a new approach to philosophy of emotions by taking them as dynamic and active situational occurrences. After the construction of a pattern of emotional activity (see SPP-EUROSPP paper) I plan to explore the multiple consequences of adopting this perspective about emotions. In addition, this research of Deweyan inspiration, aims at elaborating a critical interpretation of the philosophy of emotions clarifying: on the one hand, (1) the different methodological approaches to emotions; on the other hand, (2) the topics that surround reflection upon emotion. Among other things, the project aims at the production of a commented bibliography and a research database on philosophy of emotion.