Holroyd, J. and Liao, S.-Y. (2026) Appraisive things. Journal of the American Philosophical Association. ISSN: 2053-4477
Abstract
Philosophical literature on praise primarily focuses on verbal expressions of praise. But material expressions of praise are a pervasive feature of our social practices: we use cash prizes, bonuses, statues, trophies to celebrate and esteem others and their good deeds. What is the normative significance of using things to praise, when using (mere) words is an alternative? Beyond the instrumental and symbolic significance, we draw on recent literature on world-shaping and mind-shaping to explain what can be achieved by appraisive things. We point to, and illustrate, two normatively important properties that are brought to the fore by material praise: the finitude and durability of things. In light of these previously neglected dimensions of our appraisive practices, we revisit norms of positive appraisal, showing the need for a multidimensional account of apt praise.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Article |
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| Authors/Creators: |
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| Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2026 The Authors. Except as otherwise noted, this author-accepted version of a journal article published in Journal of the American Philosophical Association is made available via the University of Sheffield Research Publications and Copyright Policy under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © The Author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Philosophical Association. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the same Creative Commons licence is used to distribute the re-used or adapted article and the original article is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press or the rights holder(s) must be obtained prior to any commercial use. |
| Keywords: | Praise; Material; Cognitive niches; Responsibility practices |
| Dates: |
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| Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
| Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Sheffield) > School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities |
| Date Deposited: | 03 Jul 2026 10:23 |
| Last Modified: | 03 Aug 2026 15:20 |
| Status: | Published online |
| Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
| Refereed: | Yes |
| Identification Number: | 10.1017/apa.2026.10038 |
| Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:242593 |
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