Research and publications
Research and publications
My main research interests are the nature of communication, the nature of affective states, and, especially, their intersection: the nature of affective communication. Because the significance of emotions is pervasive in our lives, because philosophers have neglected emotionally loaded communication, and because affective sciences have boomed in the past decades, I believe that these research interests are both important and timely.
The topics of emotion and communication connect many philosophical issues and have led me to research and publish in the philosophy of mind and of language – my two areas of expertise – but also in philosophy of AI, social ontology, aesthetics, and environmental philosophy.
I have publications and drafts on the following topics: the scope and the nature of Gricean pragmatics, human-AI communication, emotional speech acts, the meaning of slurs, propaganda, emotional appeal in politics, emotion elicitation, emotions' representational content, moods, aesthetic taste, the definitions of art, emotional abstract art, musical meaning, and music cognition. My general audience publications also address other topics (see below).
My approach to many of these topics is to use insights from the affective, cognitive, and social sciences to make progress on philosophical issues. Occasionally, I have also used an empirical methodology. With this approach, I hope to contribute to some aspects of naturalism, though I certainly don't think it should be the only method used in philosophy.
Bonard, C. (2024). ‘Emotions represent evaluative properties unconsciously’, Erkenntnis. [open access]
Bonard, C. (2024). ‘Can AI and humans genuinely communicate?’, in Anna Strasser (ed.), Anna's AI Anthology. How to live with smart machines?, Xenemoi, Berlin. [preprint]
Bonard, C., Contesi, P., and Marques, T. (2024). ‘The defectiveness of propaganda’, The Philosophical Quarterly, 74(4), p. 1080-1201. [preprint]
Bonard, C. (2023). ‘Underdeterminacy without ostension: A blind spot in the prevailing models of communication’, Mind and Language, 39(2), 142–161. [preprint]
Bonard, C. (2023). ‘Natural meaning, probabilistic meaning, and the interpretation of emotional signs’, Synthese, 201:167. [preprint]
22. Bonard, C. “Identity-based irrationality and the goal-directed theory”, Emotion Review.
21. Bonard, C. & Di Pietro, C. “Faire corps à distance : une enquête sur l’incarnation affective commune en milieu militant” [Being one at a distance: an investigation into shared emotional embodiment in activist circles], in Les désordres de l’interaction, ed. by Kaufmann, L. & Oberhauser, P.-N., Georg éditeurs.
20. Bonard, C. “Émotions musicales et le paradoxe de l’abstrait émotionnel” [Musical emotions and the paradox of emotional abstractness], in La variété des émotions, ed. by S. Lepine & S. Lemaire, Elliot éditions.
19. Bonard, C. ‘La nature des émotions : Une recension partisane’ [‘The nature of emotions: An opiniated review’], Les Ateliers de l’éthique/The Ethics forum. https://doi.org/10.7202/1117228ar
18. Bonard, C. & Humbert-Droz, S. ‘The definition of art’, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://iep.utm.edu/definition-of-art/
17. Bonard, C. ‘Emotions represent evaluative properties unconsciously’, Erkenntnis. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-024-00873-w
16. Bonard, C., and Cortal, G. ‘Improving Language Models for Emotion Analysis: Insights from Cognitive Science.’ In Proceedings of the Workshop on Cognitive Modeling and Computational Linguistics, ed. by T. Kuribayashi, G. Rambelli, E. Takmaz, P. Wicke, and Y. Oseki, Association for Computational Linguistics, Bangkok, 264–77.
Une version française est également disponible, publiée dans les Actes de JEP-TALN-RECITAL 2024 [accès libre].
15. Bonard, C., Contesi, P., and Marques, T. ‘The defectiveness of propaganda’, The Philosophical Quarterly, 74(4), p. 1080-1201. DOI: 10.1093/pq/pqae048. [preprint]
14. Bonard, C. ‘Can AI and humans genuinely communicate?’, in Anna Strasser (ed.), Anna's AI Anthology. How to live with smart machines?, Xenemoi, Berlin. [preprint]
13. Bonard, C. ‘Underdeterminacy without ostension: A blind spot in the prevailing models of communication’, Mind and Language, 39(2), 142–161, DOI: 10.1111/mila.12481. [preprint]
12. Bonard, C. ‘Natural meaning, probabilistic meaning, and the interpretation of emotional signs’, Synthese, 201:167. [preprint]
11. Bonard, C. & Deonna, J. ‘Emotion and language in philosophy’, in G. Lenore, Schiewer, J. Altarriba and B. Chin Ng, (eds), Language and emotion. An International handbook, De Gruyter, Berlin. [preprint]
10. Bonard, C. ‘The rationality of mood’, in J. Deonna, C. Tappolet and F. Teroni (eds.), A Tribute to Ronald de Sousa. URL https://www.unige.ch/cisa/related-sites/ronald-de-sousa/
9. Bonard, C. ‘Beyond ostension: Introducing the expressive principle of relevance’, Journal of Pragmatics, 187, 13-23. [preprint]
8. Bonard, C., Cova, F., & Humbert-Droz, S. ‘De gustibus est disputandum: An empirical investigation of the folk concept of aesthetic taste’, in J. Wyatt, J. Zakkou & D. Zeman (eds.), Perspectives on taste, Routledge, London. [preprint]
7. Wharton, T., Bonard, C., Dukes, D., Sander, D., & Oswald, S. ‘Relevance and emotion’, Journal of Pragmatics, 181, 259-269. [open access]
6. Bonard, C. ‘Émotions et sensibilités aux valeurs : Quatre conceptions philosophiques contemporaines’ [‘Emotions and sensitivity to values : Four contemporary philosophical conceptions’], Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, 110(2), 209-229. [preprint]
5. Bonard, C. & Vazard, J. ‘Pas de panique ?’ [‘Don’t panic?’], Les Ateliers de L'Ethique / The Ethics Forum, 16(1), 1-14. [open access]
4. Bonard, C. & Humber-Droz, S. ‘Art’, in M. Kristanek, Encyclopédie Philosophique, URL http://encyclo-philo.fr/.
3. Bonard, C. ‘Lost in Musical Translation. An empirical study of musical grammar’, in F. Cova and S. Réhault (eds.), Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Aesthetics, Bloomsbury Academic, London. [preprint]
2. Bonard, C. & Neeser, B. ‘Les incantatifs : actes de langage, évaluations collectives et groupes sociaux’ [‘The incantatives: Speech acts, collective evaluations, and social groups’], in Implications Philosophiques, 100. [open access]
1. Bonard, C. & Levinson, J. ‘La Créativité’ [‘Creativity’], in E. Tieffenbach and J. Deonna (eds.), Dictionnaire des Valeurs, Editions d’Ithaque, Paris. [preprint]
12. Bonard, C. (2025). “Reasoning as Mental Actions”, in A Causerie on Reasoning, AI-Phi, blog post [link].
11. Bonard, C., Contesi, F., Marques, T. (2025). “What Is This Thing Called Propaganda?” Open Philosophy, blog post [link].
10. Bonard, C. (2019). ‘Humeur et émotions’, Questions–Réponses RTS découvertes, blog post, [link].
9. Bonard, C. & Humbert-Droz, S. (2019). ‘Les actes désintéréssés existent-ils?’, Questions–Réponses RTS découvertes, blog post [link].
8. Bonard, C. (2017). ‘Can fear be enjoyable?’ 'Comment peut-on aimer avoir peur?', in Emotions, ed. by D. Sander and N. Hershdorfer, Benteli Publishing, Zürich. [preprint]
7. Bonard, C. (2017). ‘L'invisible nature de l'art visuel. La théorie des qualités quaternaires appliquées aux acquarelles de Michael Rampa’, in Strappato, Micronaut Editions, Vevey. [preprint]
6. Sarzano, M., Van Loon, M., Bonard, C., & Neeser, B. (2016). ‘Les vices épistémiques de Sam : un homme de ressentiment, suffisant, bête et complaisant’, in a Festschrift dedicated to Kevin Mulligan, iphilo. [published version]
5. Bonard, C. & Neeser, B. (2016). ‘Perdre sa vie à la gagner : Une analyse conceptuelle, normative et généalogique des apparences et de la nature des perdants’, in Acte du Loøseloque: Boloss, Perdants, Rejetés. Ed. by Association Cooloque, Cooloque Editions, Lausanne. [preprint]
4. Bonard, C. & Neeser, B. (2014). ‘L'art de ne rien faire: les normes du chill’, in De la Skholè au Chill: repenser le temps libre, Actes du Colloque. Ed. by Association Cooloque, Cooloque Editions, Lausanne. [preprint]
3. Bonard, C. (2013). ‘Le kitsch du snob: quand être dégouté par le kitsch est-il inapproprié?’, in iphilo, 5. [published version]
2. Bonard, C. & Neeser, B. (2012). ‘C’est quoi un hipster? Essai d’ontologie sociale’, in C’est cool un livre? Actes du colloque: Instances et propriétés d'être cool. Ed. by Association Cooloque, Cooloque Editions, Lausanne. [published version]
1. Bonard, C. & Neeser, B. (2011). ‘Ebauche d’une théorie du cool’, in iphilo, 4. [published version]
These manuscripts are available on demand: don't hesitate to contact me.
7. Bonard, C. [about whether AI models can communicate emotionally with us]
6. Bonard, C. [about Agnes Moors’ goal-directed emotion theory and how it accounts for irrational emotions]
5. Bonard, C. & Diaz, R. [about what and how slurs communicate]
4. Bonard, C. [about belief-desire theories of emotion].
3. Bonard, C. [about affective speech acts and their influence on the formation and maintenance of social groups].
2. Dubourg, E., Thouzeau, V., Beuchot, T, Bonard, C., 25 other authors, and Baumard, N. [about the cognitive and affective mechanisms explaining why humans consume fictional stories]
1. Bonard, C. [about whether emotions may play a key role for the mitigation of environmental issues]
4. First draft Bonard, C. [about unintentionally sending harmful messages]
3. First draft Bonard, C. [about musical meaning and how theories of meaning in semantics and pragmatics can account for it].
2. First draft Bonard, C. [about the meaning of slurs given insights from the affective sciences]
1. First draft Bonard, C. [about understanding expressive speech acts given insights from the philosophy of emotion].