Basic Emotion theory has had a tremendous influence on the affective sciences, including music psychology, where most researchers have assumed that music expressivity is constrained to a limited set of basic emotions. Several scholars suggested that these constrains to musical expressivity are explained by the existence of a shared acoustic code to the expression of emotions in music and speech prosody. In this article we advocate for a shift from this focus on basic emotions to a constructionist account. This approach (...) proposes that the phenomenon of perception of emotions in music arises from the interaction of music’s ability to express core affects and the influence of top-down and contextual information in the listener’s mind. We start by reviewing the problems with the concept of Basic Emotions, and the inconsistent evidence that supports it. We also demonstrate how decades of developmental and cross-cultural research on music and emotional speech have failed to produce convincing findings to conclude that music expressivity is built upon a set of biologically pre-determined basic emotions. We then examine the cue-emotion consistencies between music and speech, and show how they support a parsimonious explanation, where musical expressivity is grounded on two dimensions of core affect (arousal and valence). Next, we explain how the fact that listeners reliably identify basic emotions in music does not arise from the existence of categorical boundaries in the stimuli, but from processes that facilitate categorical perception, such as using stereotyped stimuli and close-ended response formats, psychological processes of construction of mental prototypes, and contextual information. Finally, we outline our proposal of a constructionist account of perception of emotions in music, and spell out the ways in which this approach is able to make solve past conflicting findings. We conclude by providing explicit pointers about the methodological choices that will be vital to move beyond the popular Basic Emotion paradigm and start untangling the emergence of emotional experiences with music in the actual contexts in which they occur. -/- . (shrink)

The subject of musical emotions has emerged only recently as a major area of research. While much work in this area offers fascinating insights to musicological research, assumptions about the nature of emotional experience seem to remain committed to appraisal, representations, and a rule-based or information-processing model of cognition. Over the past three decades alternative ‘embodied’ and ‘enactive’ models of mind have challenged this approach by emphasising the self-organising aspects of cognition, often describing it as an ongoing process of dynamic (...) interactivity between an organism and its environment. More recently, this perspective has been applied to the study of emotion in general, opening up interesting new possibilities for theory and research. This new approach, however, has received rather limited attention in musical contexts. With this in mind, we critically review the history of music and emotion studies, arguing that many existing theories offer only limited views of what musical-emotional experience entails. We then attempt to provide preliminary grounding for an alternative perspective on music and emotion based on the enactive/dynamic systems approach to the study of mind. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Body Awareness to Recognize Feelings: The Exploration of a Musical Emotional Experience” by Alejandra Vásquez-Rosati. Upshot: A complete account of musical emotions implies examining how factors in the music, the situation, and the person interact, producing objective and subjective changes on affective, bodily and cognitive levels simultaneously. Therefore, a first-person phenomenological method can only provide a limited understanding of these experiences.

This volume brings together studies in the domain of weak referentiality, the phenomenon that a definite or indefinite noun phrase lacks its usual referential force. Several papers investigate syntactic or semantic properties of indefinite noun phrases, such as modality, number neutrality, narrow scope, incorporation, predication, and case marking, and that in a range of languages (Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Catalan, German, Papiamentu, Russian). Other papers deal with weakly referential definite noun phrases in various languages (Basque, Dutch, English, French) involving scrambling, modification, (...) possession, and accessibility. The papers demonstrate a range of empirical methods and theoretical models. This volume will not only be of interest to researchers and students in syntax and semantics, but also in psycholinguistics and language typology. (shrink)

Criminal behaviour is but one behavioural tendency for which a genetic influence has been suggested. Whilst this research certainly raises difficult ethical questions and is subject to scientific criticism, one recent research project suggests that for some families, criminal tendency might be predicted by genetics. In this paper, supposing this research is valid, we consider whether intervening in the criminal tendency of future children is ethically justifiable. We argue that, if avoidance of harm is a paramount consideration, such an intervention (...) is acceptable when genetic selection is employed instead of genetic enhancement. Moreover, other moral problems in avoiding having children with a tendency to criminal behaviour, such as the prospect of social discrimination, can also be overcome. (shrink)

Vida Guerra is a Cuban model from northern New Jersey. She made her name in hiphop videos and in "gentlemen's magazines" but quickly became in intermediate supermodel, with her own calendars, making-of-the-calendar DVDs, official website, fan websites, television show, and controversy over a "leaked" nude photo. . . . Vida's popularity has caused one writer to suggest "You may now move over J-Lo, and make way for Vida;" in short, tiene culo, to borrow the Spanish slang that adorns one of (...) her virally distributed Internet images. . . .this information about Guerra's body explains her popularity by raising additional questions. If the shape of her body makes her popular, what makes that shape popular? Specifically, what accounts for the shift in body fashions that raises the stock of female cults--"rumps with bumps"--at the expense of "stick figures"? And what further shift requires J-Lo to "make way for Vida"? These are questions specifically about the conditions that make Vida Guerra a public figure and that constitute her body as beautiful. (shrink)

This book, the first comprehensive study in English of Heidegger's philosophy of art, starts in the mid-1930s with Heidegger's discussion of the Greek temple and his Hegelian declaration that a great artwork gathers together an entire culture in affirmative celebration of its foundational 'truth', and that, by this criterion, art in modernity is 'dead'. His subsequent work on Hölderlin, whom he later identified as the decisive influence on his mature philosophy, led him into a passionate engagement with the art of (...) Rilke, Ce;zanne, Klee and Zen Buddhism, liberating him not only from the overly restrictive conception of art of the mid-1930s but also from the disastrous politics of the period. Drawing on material hitherto unknown in the anglophone world, Young establishes a new account of Heidegger's philosophy of art and shows that his famous essay 'The Origin of the Work of Art' is its beginning, not its end. (shrink)

Recent studies reveal that violence significantly contributes to explaining individual’s facial preferences. Women who feel at higher risk of violence prefer less-masculine male faces. Given the importance of violence, we explore its influence on people’s preferences for a different physical trait. Masculinity correlates positively with male strength and weight or body mass index. In fact, masculinity and BMI tend to load on the same component of trait perception. Therefore we predicted that individuals’ perceptions of danger from violence will relate to (...) preferences for facial cues to low-BMI. In two studies in Colombia, men and women from Bogota, Medellin, and surrounding communities were shown pairs of faces transformed to epitomize the shape correlates of men with high or low-BMI. The images were of European, Salvadoran, or Colombian men. Participants were asked to choose the face they considered most attractive. Subsequently, participants answered a survey about their health, media access, education level, and experiences/perceptions of violence in study 1 and about specific types of violence in study 2. Results from both studies showed that women who experienced/perceived higher levels of violence preferred faces of low-BMI Salvadoran men. Preferences for low-BMI facial cues were significantly explained by violence, even after controlling for all other variables. These results may reflect women’s strategy to avoid male partners capable of inflicting harm. (shrink)

Among the hardest cases in the ethics of killing are those in which one innocent person poses a lethal threat to another. I argue in favour of the intuition that lethal self-defence is permissible in these cases, despite the difficulties that some philosophers (e.g., Otsuka and McMahan) have raised about it. Philosophers writing in this area—including those sympathetic to the intuition (e.g. Thomson and Kamm)—have downplayed or ignored an essential and authoritative role for intuition per se (as against discursive general (...) principles): one based in moral sensibility and imagination rather than discursive argument or conceptual analysis. I am concerned to call attention to and rehabilitate this role for intuition. (shrink)

In a revolutionary new book, a theoretical physicist attacks the foundations of modern scientific theory, including the notion of time, as he shares evidence of ...

Introduction -- The type/token theory introduced -- Motivating the type/token theory : repeatability -- Nominalist approaches to the ontology of music -- Musical anti-realism -- The type/token theory elaborated -- Types I : abstract, unstructured, unchanging -- Types introduced and nominalism repelled -- Types as abstracta -- Types as unstructured entities -- Types as fixed and unchanging -- Types II : platonism -- Introduction : eternal existence and timelessness -- Types and properties -- The eternal existence of properties reconsidered -- (...) Types and patterns -- Defending the type/token theory I -- Unstructuredness and analogical predication -- Musical works as fixed and unchanging -- Abstractness and audibility (again) -- Works and interpretations -- Conclusion and resumé -- Defending the type/token theory II : musical platonism -- Platonism it is : replies to Anderson and Levinson -- The existence conditions of works of music -- Composition as creative discovery -- The nature of the compositional process : replies to objections -- Composition and aesthetic appraisal : a reply to Levinson -- Composition and aesthetic appraisal : understanding, interpretation, and correctness -- Musical works as continuants : a theory rejected -- A theory introduced -- Explicating and motivating the continuant view -- The continuant view and repeatability -- Further objections to the continuant view -- Musical works as compositional actions : a critique -- Currie's action-type hypothesis -- Davies's performance theory -- Sonicism I : against instrumentalism -- Sonicism introduced -- Sonicism motivated : moderate empiricism -- Instrumentation : timbral sonicism introduced -- Scores -- Instrumentation, artistic properties, and aesthetic content -- Levinson's rejoinder -- Sonicism II : against contextualism -- Introduction : formulating contextualism -- Contextualist ontological proposals -- Levinson's doppelgänger thought-experiments -- Artistic, representational, and object-directed expressive properties -- Aesthetic and non-object-directed expressive properties -- Conclusion : the place of context. (shrink)

In the last decade, the migrant population in Chile has substantially increased, where the rates have not only increased in the adult population, but also among children and adolescents, creating a potential for social and cultural development in the educational system. The present work analyzes the relationship between self-concept, self-efficacy, and subjective well-being in native and migrant adolescents in Santiago de Chile. The sample consisted of 406 students, 56.65% women, with an age range that fluctuated between 12 and 16 years, (...) with an average of 13.36 years. Student’s t-tests were used to compare the average of the constructs evaluated between natives/migrants and boys/girls participants. Subsequently, two multivariate models of simple mediation were constructed, one for natives and another for migrants, which assumed subjective well-being as a dependent variable, academic self-concept as an independent variable and the general self-efficacy as a mediating variable. In both models, gender was considered as a control variable. Results show that migrant students present higher levels of academic self-concept and general self-efficacy than native students. There are no differences with regard to well-being. In the case of gender, differences are observed only for the case of general self-efficacy, where boys present higher levels. On the other hand, a partial mediation is observed for the model of native students and a total mediation for the model of migrant students. The study yielded interesting results regarding the differences in the evaluation of the constructs of self-concept, self-efficacy, and subjective well-being in both groups. Such data can be used as inputs for the development of public policies for adolescents. (shrink)

Great Thinkers A-Z is the ideal book for anyone interested in the history of Western thought and a valuable reference resource for students of philosophy and related disciplines.

En el siglo XX se ha realizado un " punto de inflexión " en la filosofía, que ha sido conocido por muy pocos, que ha sido abandonado apenas entrevisto. Este libro es el intento de tomarlo en serio y ensayar una visión de los problemas morales que no lo pase por alto; dicho con otras palabras, que no sea arcaico.

This chapter questions the causal-constitution fallacy raised against the extended mind. It does so by presenting our signature temporal thesis about how to understand constitutive relations in the context of the extended mind, and with respect to dynamical systems, more broadly. We call this thesis diachronic constitution. We will argue that temporalising the constitution relation is not as remarkable (nor problematic) as it might initially seem. It is (arguably) inevitable, given local interactions between microscale and macroscale states of (coupled) dynamical (...) systems. We focus primarily on the metaphysics of the extended mind in this paper. However, we also show how our account of diachronic constitution has important implications for the metaphysics of dependence relations more generally as well as an emerging literature on inter-level explanations in the mechanistic framework applied to the discussion over extended, enactive and embodied cognition. (shrink)

This groundbreaking work considers one of the central themes of archaeology, time, which until recently has been taken for granted. It considers how time is used and perceived by archaeology and also how time influences the construction of identities. The book presents case studies, eg, transition from hunter gather to farming in early Neolithic, to examine temporality and identity. Drawing upon the work of Martin Heidegger, Thomas develops a way of writing about the past in which time is seenm as (...) central to the emergence of the identities of peoples and things. He questions the modern western distinction between nature and culture, mind and body, object and subject, and argues that in some senses the temporal structure of human beings, artefacts and places are similar. (shrink)

This paper presents a novel account of focal stress and pitch contour in English dialogue. We argue that one should analyse and treat focus and pitch contour jointly, since (i) some pragmatic interpretations vary with contour (e.g., whether an utterance accepts or rejects; or whether it implicates a positive or negative answer); and (ii) there are utterances with identical prosodic focus that in the same context are infelicitous with one contour, but felicitous with another. We offer an account of two (...) distinct pitch contours that predicts the correct felicity judgements and implicatures, outclassing other models in empirical coverage or formality. Prosodic focus triggers a presupposition, where what is presupposed and how the presupposition is resolved depends on prosodic contour. If resolving the presupposition entails the proffered content, then the proffered content is uninteresting and hence the utterance is in-felicitous. Otherwise, resolving the presupposition may lead to an implicature. We regiment this account in SDRT. (shrink)

This is a clear and lucid account of Nietzsche's philosophy of art, combining exegesis, interpretation and criticism in a judicious balance. Julian Young argues that Nietzsche's thought about art can only be understood in the context of his wider philosophy. In particular, he discusses the dramatic changes in Nietzschean aesthetics against the background of the celebrated themes of the death of God, eternal recurrence, and the idea of the Übermensch. Young then divides Nietzsche's career and his philosophy of art (...) into four distinct phases, but suggests that these phases describe a circle. An attempt at world-affirmation is made in the central phases, but Nietzsche is predominantly influenced at the beginning and end of his career by a Schopenhauerian pessimism. At the beginning and end art is important because it 'redeems' us from life. (shrink)

Theoretical ethics includes both metaethics (the meaning of moral terms) and normative ethics (ethical theories and principles). Practical ethics involves making decisions about every day real ethical problems, like decisions about euthanasia, what we should eat, climate change, treatment of animals, and how we should live. It utilizes ethical theories, like utilitarianism and Kantianism, and principles, but more broadly a process of reflective equilibrium and consistency to decide how to act and be.

En el presente texto se evalúan las posibilidades conceptuales de una interpretación fisicalista de la conciencia. Con dicho fin se toman en cuenta posiciones representativas en el ámbito de la filosofía, así como investigaciones neurocientíficas recientes. Ambas líneas de investigación suponen el cuestionamiento de los acercamientos de sentido común al tema de la conciencia. No obstante, no suponen una completa eliminación de lo que dicho acercamiento puede representar. En este sentido, se propone una interpretación epistemológica de la perspectiva intuitiva de (...) primera persona en relación con la perspectiva científica de tercera persona. (shrink)

This is a clear and lucid account of Nietzsche's philosophy of art, combining exegesis, interpretation and criticism in a judicious balance. Julian Young argues that Nietzsche's thought about art can only be understood in the context of his wider philosophy. In particular, he discusses the dramatic changes in Nietzschean aesthetics against the background of the celebrated themes of the death of God, eternal recurrence, and the idea of the Übermensch. Young then divides Nietzsche's career and his philosophy of art (...) into four distinct phases, but suggests that these phases describe a circle. An attempt at world-affirmation is made in the central phases, but Nietzsche is predominantly influenced at the beginning and end of his career by a Schopenhauerian pessimism. At the beginning and end art is important because it 'redeems' us from life. (shrink)

One of the principal presuppositions in the extended mind account of Clark and Chalmers establishes that extended and non-extended cognitive systems have somehow the same structure and that the distinctions between them can only be superficial. In contrast, this work presents some arguments for the idea that it is possible to find fundamental differences between both, mainly on the basis that a criterion that does not include the notion of knowledge is not strong enough to define cognitive processes. A brief (...) analysis on the non-transitivity of trust and the notion of causal dependence between information and cognitive systems might be helpful to support this position. It will be argued that the counterfactual block which supports the extended mind building does not seem to be firm. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The focus of this essay is Kant's argument in the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals III that regarding oneself as rational implies regarding oneself as free. After setting out an interpretation of how the argument is meant to go, I argue that Kant fails to show that regarding oneself as free is incompatible with accepting universal causal determinism. However, I suggest that the argument succeeds in showing that regarding oneself as rational is inconsistent with accepting universal causal determinism (...) if one accepts a certain, plausible view of the explanation of events. RESUMEN El ensayo se enfoca en el argumento de Kant en la Fundamentación de la metafísica de las costumbres III según el cual considerarse racional implica verse a uno mismo como libre. Se interpreta la forma en que debe entenderse el argumento y se afirma que Kant no logra demostrar que considerarse libre es incompatible con la aceptación del determinismo casual universal. No obstante, se sugiere que el argumento sí logra demostrar que considerarse a uno mismo como racional es incompatible con la aceptación del determinismo casual universal, si se acepta una cierta versión plausible de la explicación de los eventos. (shrink)

The publication of the first study to use gene editing techniques in human embryos (Liang et al., 2015) has drawn outrage from many in the scientific community. The prestigious scientific journals Nature and Science have published commentaries which call for this research to be strongly discouraged or halted all together (Lanphier et al., 2015; Baltimore et al., 2015). We believe this should be questioned. There is a moral imperative to continue this research.

This work presents a defense of causal contrastivism based on causal contexualism. As argued, our proposal on causal contextualism is compatible with both causal contrastivism and causal binarism, including explanations of why and in which sense secondary counterfactuals are relevant.

What is exactly the emergence relation? In which sense is irreducibility associated with it besides being assumed by definition? Although in many cases the explanatory role of emergent states does not exceed the explanatory role of more basic states, this does not speak against the fact that, for some relevant explanatory contexts, emergent states are irreducible. On this basis, an epistemic concept of the emergence relation that does not depend strictly on irreducibility is here offered.

There are 4 main arguments for euthanasia: (1) arguments appealing to consistency (e.g., from passive to active euthanasia); (2) the argument from respect for autonomy; (3) appeals to justice; and (4) the argument from interests (mercy or relief of suffering). I will argue that only the last is directly relevant to active euthanasia as a medical intervention, though arguments together from autonomy and justice can in practice (through the backdoor) provide a ground for voluntary active medical euthanasia (AME).

: The notion of growth is one of the most studied notions within economic theory and, traditionally, it is accounted for based on a positivist thesis according to which assumptions are not relevant, if economic models have acceptable predictive power. Following this view, it does not matter whether assumptions are realistic or not. Arguments against this principle may involve a defence of the realistic assumptions over highly idealized or false ones. This article aims in a different direction. Instead of demanding (...) more realism, we can accept the spirit of the mentioned thesis, but, instead, criticize the circularity that may arise by combining different assumptions that are necessary for the explanation of economic growth in mainstream economics. Such a circularity is a key aspect of the well-known problem of providing microfoundations for macroeconomic properties. It is here suggested that the notion of emergence could be appropriate to arrive at a better understanding of growth, clarifying the issues related to circularity, but without totally rejecting the usefulness of unrealistic assumptions. (shrink)

This work responds to a criticism of effective complexity made by James McAllister, according to which such a notion is not an appropriate measure for information content. Roughly, effective complexity is focused on the regularities of the data rather than on the whole data, as opposed to algorithmic complexity. McAllister’s argument shows that, because the set of relevant regularities for a given object is not unique, one cannot assign unique values of effective complexity to considered expressions and, therefore, that algorithmic (...) complexity better serves as a measure of information than effective complexity. We accept that problem regarding uniqueness as McAllister presents it, but would not deny that if contexts could be defined appropriately, one could in principle find unique values of effective complexity. Considering this, effective complexity is informative not only regarding the entity being investigated but also regarding the context of investigation itself. Furthermore, we argue that effective complexity is an interesting epistemological concept that may be applied to better understand crucial issues related to context dependence such as theory choice and emergence. These applications are not available merely on the basis of algorithmic complexity. (shrink)

Animals obviously cannot have a right of free speech or a right to vote because they lack the relevant capacities. But their right to life and to be free of exploitation is no less fundamental than the corresponding right of humans, writes Julian H. Franklin. This theoretically rigorous book will reassure the committed, help the uncertain to decide, and arm the polemicist. Franklin examines all the major arguments for animal rights proposed to date and extends the philosophy in new (...) directions. _Animal Rights and Moral Philosophy_ begins by considering the utilitarian argument of equal respect for animals advocated by Peter Singer and, even more favorably, the rights approach that has been advanced by Tom Regan. Despite their merits, both are found wanting as theoretical foundations for animal rights. Franklin also examines the ecofeminist argument for an ethics of care and several rationalist arguments before concluding that Kant's categorical imperative can be expanded to form a basis for an ethical system that includes all sentient beings. Franklin also discusses compassion as applied to animals, encompassing Albert Schweitzer's ethics of reverence for life. He concludes his analysis by considering conflicts of rights between animals and humans. (shrink)

The generative AI boom is unleashing its minions. Enterprise software vendors have rolled out legions of automated assistants that use large language model (LLM) technology, such as ChatGPT, to offer users helpful suggestions or to execute simple tasks. These so-called copilots and chatbots can increase productivity and automate tedious manual work. In this article, we explain how that leads to the risk that users' ethical competence may degrade over time — and what to do about it.

Delusions have traditionally been considered the hallmark of mental illness, and their conception, diagnosis and treatment raise many of the fundamental conceptual and practical questions of psychopathology. One of these fundamental questions is whether delusions are understandable. In this paper, we propose to consider the question of understandability of delusions from a philosophy of language perspective. For this purpose, we frame the question of how delusions can be understood as a question about the meaning of delusional utterances. Accordingly, we ask: (...) “what meaning(s) can delusional utterances possibly have?”. We argue that in the current literature, there is a standard approach to the meaning of delusional utterances, namely the descriptive account which assumes that a delusional utterance “p” means that p is the case. Drawing on Speech Act Theory, we argue that solely relying on the descriptive account disregards essential ways of how linguistic meaning is constituted. Further, we show that Speech Act Theory can prove a helpful addition to the theoretical and clinical “toolbox” used for attempting to understand delusional utterances. This, we believe, may address some of the theoretical and clinical shortcomings of using only the currently predominant descriptive account. (shrink)

This book offers an account of Kant's theory of moral motivation that comprehends the most challenging and controversial aspects of Kant's theory of the will and human moral motivational psychology. It argues for a new approach to the question about the purity of the Kantian moral motive.

Principles of distributive justice are normative principles designed to guide the allocation of the benefits and burdens of economic activity.

Introduction -- Theory of knowledge -- Moral philosophy -- Philosophy of mind -- Philosophy of religion -- Political philosoply -- Aesthetics.