Cecilea Mun - Research

On the healing edge of emotion research...

RESEARCH METHOD

I am trained in the Analytic tradition of philosophy, but my philosophical perspectives and insights are also influenced by feminist, continental, and eastern traditions. I take an interdisciplinary approach to philosophy that is founded on the belief that many problems within a specific area of philosophy, along with their solutions, are intimately related to problems and solutions in other areas of philosophy and the sciences. I believe it is important to have or gain a wider perspective on philosophical issues so as not to lose sight of the forest for the trees, although a narrow focus on a particular technical problem may be essential to smoothing out various wrinkles and laying bare a clearer picture of the world as one (or a community) understands it.

This approach to philosophy is reflected in my specialization in the philosophy of emotion. Questions about what emotions are, and their significance in our daily lives, are the common strands that bind my broader interests in the history of philosophy, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of science, epistemology, normative philosophy, feminist philosophy, ethics, experimental philosophy, and public policy. I also understand my specialization in the area of emotion to be in fact a specialization in the area of the philosophy of mind.

My interests and concerns in the philosophy of mind betrays the influence of my training as a feminist philosopher, as well as ethics and public policy. In short, I regard my interest in the philosophy of emotion as a way of pursuing a distinctly feminist research program in the philosophy of mind.

FOUNDATIONS

My research in the interdisciplinary study of emotion, as demonstrated by my monograph, Interdisciplinary Foundations for the Science of Emotion (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), serves as a foundation to connect my research interests in feminist philosophy, political philosophy, ethics, public policy, Korean philosophy, and cross-cultural interdisciplinary research, as demonstrated by my research statement and publications, which includes two edited collections, Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Shame (Lexington Books, 2019) and Cultural Perspectives on Shame (Routledge, 2023). I am currently working toward my research aim of completing a monograph titled, Liberating Shame: Oppression and Liberation through Social Movements of Shame. The Ex-phi project developed below is part of this research, but is currently on hold due to lack of funding.

CURRENT EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY PROJECT

Cross-Cultural Study of Korean and English Speakers' Conception of Shame & Guilt: Intentional Content, Cognitive Style, Valence, and Relationship Closeness Questions about what shame and guilt are, and how they can be distinguished from other experiences such as embarrassment and humiliation have received considerable attention in both the psychological and philosophical literature on shame and guilt. In this project, I will be concerned with understanding what shame and guilt are, and how they might be related to embarrassment. The first series of studies (I) will be concerned with determining whether or not the concepts of “shame” and “guilt” can be differentiated by the standard distinction about their intentional contents that is made in both philosophical and psychological literature: shame involves a focus on a global, negative self-assessment, and guilt involves a focus on one’s action or behavior. The second series of studies (II) will be concerned with determining whether the experimental philosophy intervention for the employment of the concept of “shame” that was developed and introduced in this survey is an effective intervention. The third series of studies (III) will focus on determining whether the factors of analytic versus holistic cognition and relationship closeness to the “audience” or ”critic” have any effect on a person’s employment of the conception of “shame” compared to the concept of “guilt,” as well as whether they have any effect on the valence of one’s experience in the employment of the concept of “shame” compared to the concept of “guilt.” Furthermore, all three studies will also involve determining whether there are cross-cultural differences between Korean-speakers and English-speakers. Hosted on the Open Science Framework

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