Discussion is widely held to be the pedagogical approach most appropriate to the exploration of controversial issues in the classroom, but surprisingly little attention has been given to the questions of why it is the preferred approach and how best to facilitate it. Here we address ourselves to both questions. We begin by clarifying the concept of discussion and justifying it as an approach to the teaching of controversial issues. We then report on a recent empirical study of the Perspectives (...) on Science AS-level course, focusing on what it revealed about aids and impediments to discussion of controversial ethical issues. (shrink)
What is science? What is the purpose of science education? Should we be training scientists, or looking towards a greater public understanding of science? In this exciting text, some of the key figures in the fields of science and science education address this debate. Their contributions form an original dialogue on science education and the general public awareness of science, tackling both formal and informal aspects of science learning. the editors argue that a greater knowledge of science can lead to (...) a better future, but that this can only happen through a mutual understanding between scientists, schools and the public. (shrink)
Contemplating Art is a compendium of writings from the last ten years by one of the leading figures in aesthetics, Jerrold Levinson. The twenty-four essays range over issues in general aesthetics and those relating to specific arts--in particular music, film, and literature. It will appeal not only to philosophers but also to musicologists, literary theorists, art critics, and reflective lovers of the arts.
Jerrold Levinson maintains that he is a realist about aesthetic properties. This paper considers his positive arguments for such a view. An argument from Roger Scruton, that aesthetic realism would entail the absurd claim that many aesthetic predicates were ambiguous, is also considered and it is argued that Levinson is in no worse position with respect to this argument than anyone else. However, Levinson cannot account for the phenomenon of aesthetic autonomy: namely, that we cannot be put (...) in a position to make an aesthetic judgement by testimony alone. Finally, Levinson's views on the ontology of aesthetic properties are considered and found wanting. (shrink)
This is a long-awaited reissue of Jerrold Levinson's 1990 book Music, Art, and Metaphysics, which gathers together the writings that made him a leading figure in contemporary aesthetics. Most of the essays are distinguished by a concern with metaphysical questions about artworks and their properties, but other essays address the problem of art's definition, the psychology of aesthetic response, and the logic of interpreting and evaluating works of art. The focus of about half of the essays is the art (...) of music, the art of greatest interest to Levinson throughout his career. Many of the essays have been very influential, being among the most cited in contemporary aesthetics and having become essential references in debates on the definition of art, the ontology of art, emotional response to art, expression in art, and the nature of art forms. (shrink)
[Derek Matravers] Jerrold Levinson maintains that he is a realist about aesthetic properties. This paper considers his positive arguments for such a view. An argument from Roger Scruton, that aesthetic realism would entail the absurd claim that many aesthetic predicates were ambiguous, is also considered and it is argued that Levinson is in no worse position with respect to this argument than anyone else. However, Levinson cannot account for the phenomenon of aesthetic autonomy: namely, that we cannot (...) be put in a position to make an aesthetic judgement by testimony alone. Finally, Levinson's views on the ontology of aesthetic properties are considered and found wanting. /// [Jerrold Levinson] Being an aesthetic realist is hard work. Derek Matravers has raised a number of concerns for the brand of aesthetic realism that I have defended in the past, and that I continue to defend, albeit with modification. Much turns on the nature of aesthetic properties, and on the reasons for acknowledging their existence. I here try to provide further illumination on both scores, suggesting in particular that many aesthetic properties can be viewed as manifest higher-order ways of appearing. Toward the end of my discussion the question of whether or not aesthetic properties are response-dependent is addressed, and I offer the tentative conclusion that some are, and some are not. (shrink)
The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics brings the authority, liveliness, and multi-disciplinary scope of the Handbook series to a fascinating theme in philosophy and the arts. Jerrold Levinson has assembled a hugely impressive range of talent to contribute 48 brand-new essays, making this the most comprehensive guide available to the theory, application, history, and future of the field. This Handbook will be invaluable to academics and students across philosophy and all branches of the arts, both as the reference work of (...) choice and as a stimulus to new research and creativity. (shrink)
This essay explores some aspects of the relation between philosophy and music. First, how music can inspire philosophy; second, how philosophy can inspire music. Mathematics as a middle term between music and philosophy, the idea of wholeness in a musical composition or a philosophical text, music as a mode of thought displaying traits such as logic, coherence, and sense—these are some ways in which music and philosophy may be seen to be connected. Also, composers sometimes have explicit recourse to philosophical (...) ideas in advancing their music, there being prominent examples of this in the twentieth century. Lastly, given there is such a thing as the philosophy of music, might there also be the music of philosophy? (shrink)
I here defend hypothetical intentionalism, the view of literary and cinematic interpretation that I endorse, from some recent criticisms, and then illustrate the appeal of the view in connection with a recent film of enigmatic cast.
Exploring key topics in contemporary aesthetics, this work analyzes the issues that arise from the unique works of Frank Sibley (1923-1996), who developed a distinctive aesthetic theory through a number of papers published between 1955 and 1995. Here, thirteen philosophical aestheticians bring Sibley's insight into a contemporary framework, exploring the ways his ideas foster important new discussion about issues in aesthetics. This collection will interest anyone interested in philosophy, art theory, and art criticism.
In this paper I address the issue of narrativity in music. The central question is the extent to which pure instrumental music in the classical tradition can or should be understood as narrative, that is, as narrating a story of some kind. I am interested in the varying potential and aptness for narrative construal of different sorts of instrumental music, and in what the content of such narratives might plausibly be thought to be. But ultimately I explore, at greater length, (...) an alternative way of construing musical process, namely, as dramatic rather than narrative in nature, following the lead of two musicologists, Anthony Newcomb and Fred Maus. After a comparison of the respective merits of narrative and dramatic construals of music, the paper concludes with an illustrative reading, in dramatic mode, of part of the opening movement of Schubert's Piano Sonata in A minor, D. 845. (shrink)
This major collection of essays stands at the border of aesthetics and ethics and deals with charged issues of practical import: art and morality, the ethics of taste, and censorship. As such its potential interest is by no means confined to professional philosophers; it should also appeal to art historians and critics, literary theorists, and students of film. Prominent philosophers in both aesthetics and ethics tackle a wide array of issues. Some of the questions explored in the volume include: Can (...) art be morally enlightening and, if so, how? If a work of art is morally better does that make it better as art? Is morally deficient art to be shunned, or even censored? Do subjects of artworks have rights as to how they are represented? Do artists have duties as artists and duties as human beings, and if so, to whom? How much tension is there between the demands of art and the demands of life? (shrink)
What Is Aesthetic Pleasure? When is pleasure in an object properly denominated aesthetic? The characterization of aesthetic pleasure is something that ...
In this short paper I begin by underlining the sense in which my intentional-historical theory of art, first proposed in 1979, attributes to art a certain irreducible historicality. I next defend the theory, in broad outline, against a number of objections that have been raised against it in the past ten years. I conclude with some remarks on the similarities and differences between ordinary artefact concepts and the concept of an artwork.
This paper is concerned with the everyday practice of authority and knowledge in a group home for adults with intellectual disability. Based on fieldwork, the group home is understood as a workplace, which provides a model of organizational participation as a dilemma of freedom rather than a problem of power. Three kinds of work are observed in the everyday know-how of counselors and residents. First, Michael Lipskys concept of street-level bureaucracy is used to understand the inherently indeterminate and conflictual nature (...) of counselor work. Second, the competent participation of residents is also organized as work, often explicitly, as the work they must do to become more independent. The group home is therefore understood as a setting of governmentality because it reflects the indirect practice of authority characteristic of contemporary liberal societies. Finally, the ethnomethodological insight about the accomplished character of local order is the basis for the observation of everyday life itself as a third kind of work. (shrink)
In the past few years, a body of ideas based on political economy theory has been built up by North and Weingast, Olson, Przeworski, and Acemoglu and Robinson. One theme that emerges from this literature concerns the transition to democracy: why would dominant elites give up oligarchic power? This article addresses this question by considering a formal model of an authoritarian regime, and then examining three historical regimes: the Argentine junta of 1976—83; Francoist Spain, 1938—75; the Soviet system, 1924—91. We (...) argue that these historical analyses suggest that party dictatorships are more institutionally durable than military or fascist ones. Key Words: democratic transition • authoritarian regimes • rational choice theory. (shrink)
We explore some topics in the model theory of sheaves of modules. First we describe the formal language that we use. Then we present some examples of sheaves obtained from quivers. These, and other examples, will serve as illustrations and as counterexamples. Then we investigate the notion of strong minimality from model theory to see what it means in this context. We also look briefly at the relation between global, local and pointwise versions of properties related to acyclicity.
Stanley Hauerwas's Gifford Lectures are, at least in part, an interpretation of the Giffords that came before him. As a contribution to intellectual and theological history, however, I wish Hauerwas had given witness to Santayana's Hermes the hermeneut, along with the considerable, indeed considerate, witness he does give to his own Christian faith. Hauerwas seems to dislike Reinhold Niebuhr and, by my account, misreads William James. Thus I have to conclude that "With the Grain of the Universe" does not measure (...) up to his own more capacious and incisive works. (shrink)
A REFERENCE UUH FOR Llb^nv, J'-t ONLY Operations Research With Special Reference to Non-Military Applications A Comprehensive Scientific Aid to Executive Decisions OPERATIONS Research (or, as the British say, Operational Research) is ...
Recent investigations and theorising about category-specific deficits have begun to focus upon patients with progressive brain disease such as semantic dementia and Alzheimer's disease. In this commentary we briefly review what insights have been gained from studying patients of this type. We concentrate on four specific issues: the sensory/functional distinction, correlation between features, neuroanatomical considerations, and confounding factors.
An American essayist, poet, and popular philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) began his career as a Unitarian minister in Boston, but achieved worldwide fame as a lecturer and the author of such essays as “Self-Reliance,” “History,” “The Over-Soul,” and “Fate.” Drawing on English and German Romanticism, Neoplatonism, Kantianism, and Hinduism, Emerson developed a metaphysics of process, an epistemology of moods, and an “existentialist” ethics of self-improvement. He influenced generations of Americans, from his friend Henry David Thoreau to John Dewey, (...) and in Europe, Friedrich Nietzsche, who takes up such Emersonian themes as power, fate, the uses of poetry and history, and the critique of Christianity. (shrink)
Ralph Cudworth (1617-88) was one of the Cambridge Platonists. His major work, The True Intellectual System of the Universe, was completed in 1671, a year after Spinoza published (anonymously) the Tractatus Logico-philosophicus. It was published a few years later, in 1678. Cudworth offers a spirited attack against the materialism and mechanism of Thomas Hobbes. His work is couched as a search for truth among the ancient philosophers, and this paper examines his use of the Presocratics as a tool for (...) discussing the issues of his day. (shrink)
This study of Ralph Pred’s Onflow (MIT Press, 2005) expands on Pred’s arguments and raises doubts about the viability of phenomenology. Showing that Pred’s method is indeed phenomenological, I validate his interpretations of William James as phenomenologist and his critique of John Searle in light of James, which documents the extent to which the role of habit in the constitution of experience is neglected by philosophers. In explaining habit, however, Pred himself reverts to non-phenomenological models drawn from James’ postulate (...) of psycho-physical parallelism. Habit, like causation, poses an unmet challenge to phenomenological methods. In his critique of Gerald Edelman, Pred notes that Edelman falls prey to a metaphysical bias inherent in modern Indo-European languages. But Pred’s acuity in exposing a latent linguistic bias in phenomenological data is a two-edged sword. Revealing an invisible dependence of appearance on language, it casts doubt on the project of getting beyond language to "appearances-in-themselves.". (shrink)
