Philosophy Department
Professor, Department Chair
Ph.D., University of Tübingen
Fields: Philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and psychology, philosophy of social science, meta-ethics, and Wittgenstein
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Email: kstueber@holycross.edu
Office Phone: 508-793-3395
Office: Smith 524
PO Box: 0137A
Office Hours:
Biography
Karsten Stueber is well-known internationally for his scholarship on empathy and has widely published in the areas of philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, the philosophy of the social sciences, and meta-ethics. At the moment, he is particularly interested in exploring the role of empathy for the foundations of morality.
Books
Most Recent Release
Ethical Sentimentalism: |
English
 Rediscovering Empathy: Agency, Folk, Psychology and the Human Sciences Publisher:A Bradford Book (August 13, 2010) |  Empathy & Agency: The Problem of Understaning In The Human Sciences Publisher:Westview Press (December 15, 1999) |  Debating Dispositions: Issues in Metaphysics, Epistemology and Philosophy of Mind Publisher: De Gruyter; 1 edition (December 10, 2009) |
Other Languages
Donald Davidsons Theorie sprachlichen Verstehens |  Philosophie der Skepsis Publisher: UTB, Stuttgart (September 1, 1996), Language: German |  L'empatia ( Italian translation of "Rediscovering Empathy") Publisher: Il Mulino |
Important Articles
“Empathy, Imaginative Resistance, and Fragmentary Understanding: Trying to Make Sense of Extremism,” in Explaining Extreme Belief and Behavior, edited by R. Peels and L. Dawson, forthcoming 2025/26, Oxford University Press.
“The Structure of Rational Agency and the Phenomenal Dimensions of Empathic Understanding” in Empathic Understanding, ed. by Christiana Werner and Thomas Petraschka (New York and London, Routledge 2024): 119-137.
"Our Admiration for Exemplars and the Impartial Spectator Perspective: Moral Exemplarism Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments,” in Argumenta (Journal of the Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy) 19 (2024): https://www.argumenta.org/article/our-admiration-for-exemplars-and-the-impartial-spectator-perspective-moral-exemplarism-and-adam-smiths-theory-of-moral-sentiments-2/
“Davidson, Reasons, and Causes: A Plea for a little bit more Empathy,” Journal of the History of Analytic Philosophy 7 (2019), 59-75.
“The Ubiquity of Understanding: Dimensions of Understanding in the Social and the Natural Sciences,” Philosophy of the Social Sciences 49 (2019), 265-281.
“Smithian Constructivism: Elucidating the Reality of the Normative Domain,” in Moral Sentimentalism, co-edited by R. Debes and K. Stueber (Cambridge University Press 2017), 192-209.
“The Cognitive Function of Narratives,” Journal of the Philosophy of History 9 (2015), 393-409.
“The Causal Autonomy of Reason Explanations and How not to Worry about Causal Deviance,” Philosophy of the Social Sciences 43 (2013), 24-45.
“Varieties of Empathy, Neuroscience and the Narrativist Challenge to the Contemporary Theory of Mind Debate,” in Emotion Review 4 (2012), 55-63.
“Understanding vs. Explanation? How to Think about the Difference between the Human and the Natural Sciences,” in Inquiry 55 (2012), 17-32.
“Imagination, Empathy, and Moral Deliberation: The Case of Imaginative Resistance,” in Southern Journal of Philosophy 49 (2011), Spindel Supplement, 156-180.
“Reasons, Generalizations, Empathy, and Narratives: The Epistemic Structure of Action Explanation,” in History and Theory 47 (2008): 31-43.
"Empathy", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/empathy/>. First published March 2008
"Mental Causation and the Paradox of Explanation," in Philosophical Studies 122 (2005): 243-277.
“How to Think about Rules and Rule-Following,” in Philosophy of the Social Sciences 35 (2005): 307-323.
“The Psychological Basis of Historical Explanation: Reenactment, Simulation, and the Fusion of Horizons,” in History and Theory 21 (2002): 25-42. (Reprinted in The Philosophy of Social Science Reader, edited by F. Guala and D. Steele (London: Routledge, 2010)).
“The Problem of Self-Knowledge,” in Erkenntnis 56 (2002): 269-296.
You can download some of these articles here.
Courses
- Philosophical Inquiries
- Philosophy of Mind
- Logic and Language
- Foundations of Ethics
- Philosophy of Science
- Seminars: Philosophy of the Social Sciences; Moral Psychology; The Nature of Morality; Narrative, History, and Agenc