In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:In MemoriamForest HansenKingsley Blake Price, Professor of Philosophy at The Johns Hopkins University for more than three decades, died in Baltimore on October 27, 2009, at the age of 92. He had long served as an editorial consultant for PMER and participated in numerous PME international symposia. His personal and academic life drew admiration from his colleagues, students, and friends (overlapping classes).Kingsley was born in Salem, (...) Indiana, where his father was a Baptist minister. The family moved from there to California, and Kingsley grew up in Berkeley. He earned his B.A. with highest honors from University of California, Berkeley (1938) and went on there for his M.A. (1942) and Ph.D. (1946). His dissertation was on Locke’s theory of knowledge. Kingsley taught first at the University of Washington, then at the University of Nevada and Sarah Lawrence College (where he became a good friend of Susanne Langer) before becoming an assistant professor of philosophy and education at Hopkins in 1953. He retired from Hopkins in 1986. In the meantime he published books and articles, presented invited papers, and traveled extensively, especially to England, France, Italy, and Greece. In 1973–74 he was president of the Philosophy of Education Society.What is especially remarkable about this is that Kingsley became blind at the age of four, as a result of undiagnosed scarlet fever. For the rest of his life he was dependent upon others to read to him (he was never keen on taped readings, and was a consultant to the Library of Congress concerning recordings for the blind). He also needed others to help him with daily practical tasks. Yet he remained fiercely independent and lived alone until his death. He did not use a seeing-eye dog and only rarely a white cane.Besides his two books, Education and Philosophical Thought (1962) and On [End Page 194] Criticizing Music (1982), Kingsley published numerous articles and reviews in the Journal of Philosophy, the Review of Metaphysics, the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Educational Theory, the British Journal of Aesthetics, the Philosophy of Music Education Review, and others. His publications were mostly on topics of art (especially music) and education. He had long been working on a manuscript of reflections upon the alleged emotional qualities of music. Kingsley criticized other theories as having inconsistent of otherwise insupportable claims. Some of his former students hope to bring this work to fruition as a book.Kingsley took piano lessons as a youngster and, typically, excelled. As a teenager he placed second in a Major Bowes Amateur Hour radio competition and considered a career as a concert pianist. When one former student asked why he had not pursued that, Kingsley replied that philosophy was more in need of an excellent philosopher than music was of an only good pianist.A February memorial for Kingsley was postponed because of a blizzard in the Baltimore area. On April 25, 2010, former graduate students, readers, colleagues, and friends—some from as far away as California, Wyoming, Hawaii, and Florida—gathered in Baltimore to honor Kingsley and share their remembrances. Besides their expressions of admiration for his philosophical acumen and his rigorous teaching, people noted Kingsley’s high moral principles, his wide range of interests in the humanities, his commitment to efforts promoting world peace, and his connoisseurship in gardening and antique furniture. Many graduate students rode with him on his tandem bicycle, and later invited him to give papers at their colleges. He was a meticulous dresser and was proud of his bow ties, his four-in-hands, and his beret. Besides such personal testimonies by those present, letters by family members, friends abroad, former graduate students, and other friends were read. Photographs were on display, and recordings of some of Kingsley’s favorites by Bach, Schubert, and Vaughan Williams were played.Above all, Kingsley was that rare professor who maintained friendship with many of his students. He is survived by an older brother, two sisters, and numerous nephews, nieces, and their offspring. And by his many friends for whom his life has made a lasting impact. [End Page 195]Forest HansenEaston, Maryland Professor Emeritus, Lake Forest College forestval2... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 12.1 (2004) 30-42 [Access article in PDF] How Can Music Seem to be Emotional? Kingsley Price Johns Hopkins University Preliminary Let me make some preliminary remarks about my question. First, the distinction employed in it, the distinction between seeming and reality, comes in two forms. The first is inclusive. A thing that really is so-and-so also seems to be so-and-so. The butler (...) really is guilty and seems guilty as well. The second is exclusive. A thing that is really not so-and-so seems to be so-and-so. The butler is really not guilty but seems to be guilty. The distinction that underlies my question is of the exclusive form.Second, the music I ask about is not music as read from scores on paper or held in memory. Nor is it music that contains linguistic elements-words or gestures as in song, opera, ballet, etc. Rather, it is purely instrumental music, and that as perceived or heard.Third, the emotions I refer to are not physiological conditions that may cause them, nor the behavior that may express them, but the conscious feelings we find in ourselves when we are undergoing emotion. [End Page 30] The Problem Persons (perhaps even the lower animals) can seem to be, without really being, emotional. They are pretending, or we perceive mistakenly. There is no difficulty, in principle, in explaining the situation. But there would be if they were sculptured persons only-that is, if they could not possibly be emotional. A sculpture cannot seem to be emotional by pretending it; nor can we perceive mistakenly that it is emotional when we know that it is a sculpture only.Much music is like sculpture. Not personal, we know that it cannot really be emotional. None-the-less, we hear the wedding march from Mendelssohn's music for A Midsummer Night's Dream as joyful, the second movement of Chopin's Sonata in B-flat Minor as sorrowful, "The Great Fugue" as grimly resigned, the first movement of the first Razumowski as hopeful, etc. How can this be so? How can music seem to be emotional?I look for an answer to this question, first, within the perception, the hearing of music, and then, without it in its meaning. If seeming emotionality is found in either place, I shall have answered the question. And now, for the first place. The Perception In sense perception there are two major constituents.1 One is awareness; the other is the object of awareness. Awareness occurs in all the kinds of consciousness-in remembering, imagining, dreaming, and thinking, for example, as well as in sense perception. In this last, it is brought about by operation of the senses; while in the others, that operation plays no direct part. But although it differs in its cause, awareness in sense perception is precisely the same, considered in itself, as it is in all the other kinds of consciousness, considered in themselves.What is awareness? It cannot be explained, as many notions can, by eliciting its parts. To understand what squareness is, for example, we need only bring forward the parts that constitute it: four straight lines equal in length, four right angles, and closed plane figure. But awareness has no parts and cannot be explained in this way. To call attention to its simplicity and its identity in all kinds of consciousness, indeed, is all that can be done to explain it though we might add the simile that likens awareness to the light that brings things before our minds out of the dark that conceals them in its absence.Now, hearing is a kind of sense perception-the kind that occurs by virtue of operation of the auditory organs; and music heard is one of the objects of auditory awareness. Can we understand how this object can seem to be emotional by appeal to the awareness of it? If that awareness seemed to exist and did not really do so, the answer would be that we cannot since the awareness of it... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 12.1 (2004) 30-42 [Access article in PDF] How Can Music Seem to be Emotional? Kingsley Price Johns Hopkins University Preliminary Let me make some preliminary remarks about my question. First, the distinction employed in it, the distinction between seeming and reality, comes in two forms. The first is inclusive. A thing that really is so-and-so also seems to be so-and-so. The butler (...) really is guilty and seems guilty as well. The second is exclusive. A thing that is really not so-and-so seems to be so-and-so. The butler is really not guilty but seems to be guilty. The distinction that underlies my question is of the exclusive form.Second, the music I ask about is not music as read from scores on paper or held in memory. Nor is it music that contains linguistic elements-words or gestures as in song, opera, ballet, etc. Rather, it is purely instrumental music, and that as perceived or heard.Third, the emotions I refer to are not physiological conditions that may cause them, nor the behavior that may express them, but the conscious feelings we find in ourselves when we are undergoing emotion. [End Page 30] The Problem Persons (perhaps even the lower animals) can seem to be, without really being, emotional. They are pretending, or we perceive mistakenly. There is no difficulty, in principle, in explaining the situation. But there would be if they were sculptured persons only-that is, if they could not possibly be emotional. A sculpture cannot seem to be emotional by pretending it; nor can we perceive mistakenly that it is emotional when we know that it is a sculpture only.Much music is like sculpture. Not personal, we know that it cannot really be emotional. None-the-less, we hear the wedding march from Mendelssohn's music for A Midsummer Night's Dream as joyful, the second movement of Chopin's Sonata in B-flat Minor as sorrowful, "The Great Fugue" as grimly resigned, the first movement of the first Razumowski as hopeful, etc. How can this be so? How can music seem to be emotional?I look for an answer to this question, first, within the perception, the hearing of music, and then, without it in its meaning. If seeming emotionality is found in either place, I shall have answered the question. And now, for the first place. The Perception In sense perception there are two major constituents.1 One is awareness; the other is the object of awareness. Awareness occurs in all the kinds of consciousness-in remembering, imagining, dreaming, and thinking, for example, as well as in sense perception. In this last, it is brought about by operation of the senses; while in the others, that operation plays no direct part. But although it differs in its cause, awareness in sense perception is precisely the same, considered in itself, as it is in all the other kinds of consciousness, considered in themselves.What is awareness? It cannot be explained, as many notions can, by eliciting its parts. To understand what squareness is, for example, we need only bring forward the parts that constitute it: four straight lines equal in length, four right angles, and closed plane figure. But awareness has no parts and cannot be explained in this way. To call attention to its simplicity and its identity in all kinds of consciousness, indeed, is all that can be done to explain it though we might add the simile that likens awareness to the light that brings things before our minds out of the dark that conceals them in its absence.Now, hearing is a kind of sense perception-the kind that occurs by virtue of operation of the auditory organs; and music heard is one of the objects of auditory awareness. Can we understand how this object can seem to be emotional by appeal to the awareness of it? If that awareness seemed to exist and did not really do so, the answer would be that we cannot since the awareness of it... (shrink)

Frequently, moreover, the essence sought for has been supposed to be nothing objective; those who have asked the question have supposed, rather, that the property in which the essence of works of art consists must somehow involve human negotiation with something. A work of art is a creation by, and a cherished object in, the life of humanity; and to suppose that the essence of such works is some property common and peculiar to them but exclusive of human interests, would (...) be as foolish as to suppose that a description of disease, in exclusively biochemical terms, with no mention of its misery and pain, could reveal the essence of such disorders. The question, "What is a work of art?" like the question, "What is a disease?" may be interpreted as asking for the essence of works of art, on the assumption that human activities are the realizations of dispositions toward them; that to each, there corresponds a prior mental readiness which when activated leads naturally into it. Thus interpreted, the question inquires after the essence of works of art; and it presupposes that in that essence will be found some posture of the mind, i.e., that if anything is a work of art, someone has a mental disposition of some kind toward it. (shrink)

In their joint paper entitled The Replication of the Hard Problem of Consciousness in AI and BIO-AI (Boltuc et al. Replication of the hard problem of conscious in AI and Bio- AI: An early conceptual framework 2008), Nicholas and Piotr Boltuc suggest that machines could be equipped with phenomenal consciousness, which is subjective consciousness that satisfies Chalmer’s hard problem (We will abbreviate the hard problem of consciousness as H-consciousness ). The claim is that if we knew the inner workings of (...) phenomenal consciousness and could understand its’ precise operation, we could instantiate such consciousness in a machine. This claim, called the extra-strong AI thesis, is an important claim because if true it would demystify the privileged access problem of first-person consciousness and cast it as an empirical problem of science and not a fundamental question of philosophy. A core assumption of the extra-strong AI thesis is that there is no logical argument that precludes the implementation of H-consciousness in an organic or in-organic machine provided we understand its algorithm. Another way of framing this conclusion is that there is nothing special about H-consciousness as compared to any other process. That is, in the same way that we do not preclude a machine from implementing photosynthesis, we also do not preclude a machine from implementing H-consciousness. While one may be more difficult in practice, it is a problem of science and engineering, and no longer a philosophical question. I propose that Boltuc’s conclusion, while plausible and convincing, comes at a very high price; the argument given for his conclusion does not exclude any conceivable process from machine implementation. In short, if we make some assumptions about the equivalence of a rough notion of algorithm and then tie this to human understanding, all logical preconditions vanish and the argument grants that any process can be implemented in a machine. The purpose of this paper is to comment on the argument for his conclusion and offer additional properties of H-consciousness that can be used to make the conclusion falsifiable through scientific investigation rather than relying on the limits of human understanding. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 12.1 (2004) 71-75 [Access article in PDF] Response to Kingsley Price's "How Can Music Seem to be Emotional" Marguerite Nering Calgary, Canada Kingsley Price argues that music, since it is not personal, cannot be emotional but can only seem emotional. In an earlier draft of this paper he described it more fully: "Music is not a person, cannot possibly harbor (...) an inward life, and cannot possibly be emotional." He then sets out to discover how music, since for him it is not emotional, can seem to be so. Through a step-by-step process of philosophical inquiry, he first looks within perception and not finding an answer there, searches without, mainly focusing on meaning and Susanne Langer's theory of emotion and music. His search is unrewarded, leaving him to conclude that the answer to his question remains an incomprehensible mystery.His logic at first seems impervious to dispute. Had he not strictly limited his meaning of music and emotion-particularly emotion-it may have simplified responding to his query. For him, "music" refers to instrumental music that is heard or perceived. "Emotion" means conscious feelings we find ourselves in when undergoing emotion.The major question one must ask is whether his basic premise is accurate. Is he correct in stating that music unequivocally is not emotional but only seems so? [End Page 71] Is he correct in stating that music does not harbor an inward life? After all, he is talking about instrumental music that is perceived. While one cannot deny that notated music on paper is not emotional, does this hold for instrumental music being performed and transmitted? The source is a live human, someone who has an inward life, or at least did have at the time of production. The receptor is alive and has an inward life. The human source is sending living music imbued with emotion and energy. The airwaves transport these vibrations. Can we really say that the living or live music reaching the receiver's ears is not carrying real emotion?Returning to Price's analysis, we find he looks first at perception itself, in this case sense perception, and determines that it has two major constituents: awareness and the object of awareness. He argues that awareness cannot seem to exist; it must exist. It is always simple; therefore, there can be no characteristic that makes it seeming and not real. I question whether the latter conclusion necessarily follows, that is, that reality is a consequence of simplicity, but I must agree that awareness by virtue of its existence must be real.Music heard is the object of awareness. He states that the distinction between seeming and reality does apply to some things-for example, to Macbeth seeing a dagger that really is not there-but declares that this cannot apply to music heard, for it actually exists. Does this mean that one cannot hear music that really is not there? The illusion should work for hearing if it works for vision. Back to his argument, because music heard exists, he reasons that one cannot say that the seeming emotionality in music can be traced to the character of the music that bears it. I wonder then how this would apply to a person playing music with real emotion for his or her own enjoyment? In this case the human receptor of music is also the human source of the music. They are one and the same, and this person of course has an inward personal life. Does this music only seem emotional or is it really emotional? It would make sense that it is really emotional.He then looks at whether the seemingness of emotionality can be traced to emotionality itself and deduces that it cannot. Emotions are real. If we feel joy, it is real joy we are feeling and not seeming joy. One cannot debate this. Again, however, I am not convinced of the seemingness of the emotionality of music. Because music comes from a living person, it is an extension... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 12.1 (2004) 76-79 [Access article in PDF] Response to Kingsley Price, "How Can Music Seem to be Emotional" Forest Hansen Lake Forest College Just as at the International Symposium in Philosophy of Music Education IV (PME-IV) in Birmingham, Kingsley Price has demonstrated his acute logical prowess and his alluring wit. Then as now he was addressing the question of how (...) music can seem to have feelings, how it is that we attribute merriment, joy, sorrow, sadness, and the like to passages of instrumental music. On that occasion he systematically dissected the general theory which explains such attributions by reference to feelings or emotions caused in the listener, and he more explicitly criticized the causal model theories of Peter Kivy, Jerrold Levinson, and Roger Scruton. He half-promised, then, that he would in time examine another kind of relevant theory-namely one that explains by showing that music means feelings.Now he has examined for us what is probably the strongest version of such a theory-that of Susanne Langer-and found it wanting. And he has left us in limbo by refusing to reveal his own true and best theory. Perhaps for that we must wait for PME-VI!By way of responding to Price, I want to point out two things in his argument which I find rather slippery, one perhaps not so important and one that I think is [End Page 76] quite important. Then I will make a quasi-defense of Langer's theory of meaning which may evade Price's criticism. Finally, I would like to hazard a guess as to the kind of position which Price might put forward if he were not so reticent.First, the point that is not so important. There has long been an amazing amount of uncertainly about what constitutes an emotion or a feeling, amazing because philosophers and subsequently psychologists have been reflecting on and doing mental and laboratory experiments in the area for a long, long time. Some take feeling to be the larger field of which emotions are a subset; others do the reverse. Some differentiate feelings or emotions or both in terms of related behavior, whereas others put them in the box of subjective experience. So my first comments are meant to be cautionary with respect to speaking about feelings or emotions.Price, for instance, speaks of love as a kind of emotion. I find that peculiar, especially in the way he describes Romeo's love as "continuous, not a succession of discrete moments" and as something that has a more or less clear beginning and end with no lapses in between. But there must be many times that Romeo does not experience the so-called emotion, when he is asleep, for instance, or doing nothing between acts. I love my wife Valerie, but when I am speaking now, and in most of my actions every day, I am not experiencing some set of feelings that combine to make the emotion "Forest's love of Valerie." Often what we call emotions are only intermittently experienced and are perhaps best understood as dispositions or attitudes or beliefs or commitments.My second, and I hope more telling, point is to note how Price is playful with the notion of "reality." He makes it sound as if the distinction between appearance and reality is something that can be quite clear and unambiguous, even if it is not so in particular situations like that of a person seeing a nonexistent oasis or of Lady Macbeth seeing a nonexistent spot on her hand. But note how Price so often gives us examples from the world, so to speak, of art. Lady Macbeth and Romeo do not exist as real people. Those who enact their parts do, of course, but the Lady Macbeth actor is not fooled about the spot on the hand, and the Romeo actor might quite dislike the Juliet actor and not even be sexually attracted to her. Unlike us poor mortals, Romeo and Juliet live and die again and again... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 12.1 (2004) 76-79 [Access article in PDF] Response to Kingsley Price, "How Can Music Seem to be Emotional" Forest Hansen Lake Forest College Just as at the International Symposium in Philosophy of Music Education IV (PME-IV) in Birmingham, Kingsley Price has demonstrated his acute logical prowess and his alluring wit. Then as now he was addressing the question of how (...) music can seem to have feelings, how it is that we attribute merriment, joy, sorrow, sadness, and the like to passages of instrumental music. On that occasion he systematically dissected the general theory which explains such attributions by reference to feelings or emotions caused in the listener, and he more explicitly criticized the causal model theories of Peter Kivy, Jerrold Levinson, and Roger Scruton. He half-promised, then, that he would in time examine another kind of relevant theory-namely one that explains by showing that music means feelings.Now he has examined for us what is probably the strongest version of such a theory-that of Susanne Langer-and found it wanting. And he has left us in limbo by refusing to reveal his own true and best theory. Perhaps for that we must wait for PME-VI!By way of responding to Price, I want to point out two things in his argument which I find rather slippery, one perhaps not so important and one that I think is [End Page 76] quite important. Then I will make a quasi-defense of Langer's theory of meaning which may evade Price's criticism. Finally, I would like to hazard a guess as to the kind of position which Price might put forward if he were not so reticent.First, the point that is not so important. There has long been an amazing amount of uncertainly about what constitutes an emotion or a feeling, amazing because philosophers and subsequently psychologists have been reflecting on and doing mental and laboratory experiments in the area for a long, long time. Some take feeling to be the larger field of which emotions are a subset; others do the reverse. Some differentiate feelings or emotions or both in terms of related behavior, whereas others put them in the box of subjective experience. So my first comments are meant to be cautionary with respect to speaking about feelings or emotions.Price, for instance, speaks of love as a kind of emotion. I find that peculiar, especially in the way he describes Romeo's love as "continuous, not a succession of discrete moments" and as something that has a more or less clear beginning and end with no lapses in between. But there must be many times that Romeo does not experience the so-called emotion, when he is asleep, for instance, or doing nothing between acts. I love my wife Valerie, but when I am speaking now, and in most of my actions every day, I am not experiencing some set of feelings that combine to make the emotion "Forest's love of Valerie." Often what we call emotions are only intermittently experienced and are perhaps best understood as dispositions or attitudes or beliefs or commitments.My second, and I hope more telling, point is to note how Price is playful with the notion of "reality." He makes it sound as if the distinction between appearance and reality is something that can be quite clear and unambiguous, even if it is not so in particular situations like that of a person seeing a nonexistent oasis or of Lady Macbeth seeing a nonexistent spot on her hand. But note how Price so often gives us examples from the world, so to speak, of art. Lady Macbeth and Romeo do not exist as real people. Those who enact their parts do, of course, but the Lady Macbeth actor is not fooled about the spot on the hand, and the Romeo actor might quite dislike the Juliet actor and not even be sexually attracted to her. Unlike us poor mortals, Romeo and Juliet live and die again and again... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 12.1 (2004) 71-75 [Access article in PDF] Response to Kingsley Price's "How Can Music Seem to be Emotional" Marguerite Nering Calgary, Canada Kingsley Price argues that music, since it is not personal, cannot be emotional but can only seem emotional. In an earlier draft of this paper he described it more fully: "Music is not a person, cannot possibly harbor (...) an inward life, and cannot possibly be emotional." He then sets out to discover how music, since for him it is not emotional, can seem to be so. Through a step-by-step process of philosophical inquiry, he first looks within perception and not finding an answer there, searches without, mainly focusing on meaning and Susanne Langer's theory of emotion and music. His search is unrewarded, leaving him to conclude that the answer to his question remains an incomprehensible mystery.His logic at first seems impervious to dispute. Had he not strictly limited his meaning of music and emotion-particularly emotion-it may have simplified responding to his query. For him, "music" refers to instrumental music that is heard or perceived. "Emotion" means conscious feelings we find ourselves in when undergoing emotion.The major question one must ask is whether his basic premise is accurate. Is he correct in stating that music unequivocally is not emotional but only seems so? [End Page 71] Is he correct in stating that music does not harbor an inward life? After all, he is talking about instrumental music that is perceived. While one cannot deny that notated music on paper is not emotional, does this hold for instrumental music being performed and transmitted? The source is a live human, someone who has an inward life, or at least did have at the time of production. The receptor is alive and has an inward life. The human source is sending living music imbued with emotion and energy. The airwaves transport these vibrations. Can we really say that the living or live music reaching the receiver's ears is not carrying real emotion?Returning to Price's analysis, we find he looks first at perception itself, in this case sense perception, and determines that it has two major constituents: awareness and the object of awareness. He argues that awareness cannot seem to exist; it must exist. It is always simple; therefore, there can be no characteristic that makes it seeming and not real. I question whether the latter conclusion necessarily follows, that is, that reality is a consequence of simplicity, but I must agree that awareness by virtue of its existence must be real.Music heard is the object of awareness. He states that the distinction between seeming and reality does apply to some things-for example, to Macbeth seeing a dagger that really is not there-but declares that this cannot apply to music heard, for it actually exists. Does this mean that one cannot hear music that really is not there? The illusion should work for hearing if it works for vision. Back to his argument, because music heard exists, he reasons that one cannot say that the seeming emotionality in music can be traced to the character of the music that bears it. I wonder then how this would apply to a person playing music with real emotion for his or her own enjoyment? In this case the human receptor of music is also the human source of the music. They are one and the same, and this person of course has an inward personal life. Does this music only seem emotional or is it really emotional? It would make sense that it is really emotional.He then looks at whether the seemingness of emotionality can be traced to emotionality itself and deduces that it cannot. Emotions are real. If we feel joy, it is real joy we are feeling and not seeming joy. One cannot debate this. Again, however, I am not convinced of the seemingness of the emotionality of music. Because music comes from a living person, it is an extension... (shrink)

The epistemic value of seemings is increasingly debated. Such debates are hindered, however, by a lack of consensus about the nature of seemings. There are four prominent conceptions in the literature, and the plausibility of principles such as phenomenal conservatism, which assign a prominent epistemic role to seemings, varies greatly from one conception to another. It is therefore crucial that we identify the correct conception of seemings. I argue that seemings are best understood as sui generis mental states with propositional (...) content and a distinct phenomenal character. Rival conceptions are shown to succumb to numerous difficulties. (shrink)