Online research in philosophy

What is philosophy about? Has it a content all its own? A method? This paper examines a few responses to these questions. At the extremes are the Proper Content and the No Content views. The former identifies philosophy with a delimited set of core issues. The latter, abandoning any proper subject-matter for philosophy, identifies it with a core modus operandi. Neither of these is especially compelling. More dynamically conceived is the Vanishing Content view which sees philosophy as continually and inevitably (...) abandoning its business to newly emerging sciences, acting largely as an exploratory initiator of inquiry which is ultimately eliminable. Though promising, this view underrates the resilience and adaptability of philosophy, especially its current drive to forge alliances with and ultimately amalgamate itself into newer areas of study. This tendency is explored via the Partners-for-Progress view, which foresees philosophy becoming dependently indistinguishable from the theoretical wings of various autonomous disciplines. Finally, I examine the Family Inheritance view, which suggests that philosophy cannot merely vanish into the sciences because of idiosyncrasies in its very institutions which are self-sustaining and, more than most, deeply beholden to its own past which it keeps ever present. (shrink)

Two broad metaphysical perspectives deriving from Parmenides and Heraclitus have implications for our notion of sustainability. The Parmenidian defends a deepseated orderliness and permanence in things, while the Heraclitian finds only chance and change. Two further outlooks, the nomic (or the big-picture scientific) and the prudential, present differing accounts of our place in the world. While the nomic outlook accepts nothing privileged about the human perspective or even life itself, the prudential outlook is obviously welfare-centered. It is argued that nomic (...) views, whether Parmenidian or Heraclitian, fail to provide any rationale for sustainability measures or concerns. The only such rationale comes from Parmenidian prudentialism, which, I argue, can operate only if it disowns at its peril the nomic point of view and couches sustainability entirely under the rubric of maximizing certain preferred opportunities drawn from collective self-love. But doing so merely evades rather than answers the tension imposed by the nomic Heraclitian for whom nothing lasts and nothing human counts specially in the measure. The liabilities of Parmenidian prudentialism are examined and found to be too great for any consistent notion of sustainability to bear. (shrink)

This book evaluates traditional musical performance and asks where its unique value lies.