This book is about aesthetic processes and play from the perspectives of psychologists, philosophers, and semiologists. They explore the underlying processes from many viewpoints, including the prehistoric roots of language and art; the historical evolution of artistic, literary, and musical styles; the structure of artworks from both gestalt and semiotic perspectives; the biological and psychological processes underlying production and appreciation; the appeal of sentimental art; emotional responses to art and other aesthetic forms; personality in relation to artistic style; the testing (...) and measurement of art-related skills; the relations between social life and literary understanding; literature in relation to media; as well as neurobiological, developmental and individual growth perspectives on play activity. (shrink)

This article begins with a review of studies in perception and depth psychology concerning the experience of exposure to sacred artworks in Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox contexts. This follows with the results of a qualitative inquiry involving 45 Roman Catholic, Eastern and Coptic Orthodox, and Protestant Christians in Canada. First, participants composed narratives detailing memories of spiritual experiences involving iconography. Then, in the context of a darkened room evocative of a sacred space, they viewed artworks depicting Biblical themes and (...) interpreted their meanings. Stimuli included “Western” paintings from the Roman tradition—a selection from the Gothic, Northern Renaissance, and Renaissance canon—and matched “Eastern” icons in the Byzantine style. Spiritual experience narratives were analyzed in terms of word frequencies, and interpretations of sacred artworks were analyzed thematically. Catholics tended to utilize emotional language when recalling their spiritual experiences, while religious activity was most often the concern of Protestants, and Orthodox Christians wrote most about spiritual figures and their signifiers. A taxonomy of response styles was developed to account for participants’ interpretations of Western and Eastern artworks, with content ranging from detached descriptions to projective engagement with the art-objects. Our approach allows for representation of diverse Christians’ interpretations of sacred art, taking into consideration personal, collective, and cultural-religious sources of meaning. Our paradigm also offers to enrich our understanding of the numinous or emotional dimension of mystical contact. (shrink)

Volumi e saggi Jay Schulkin, Reflections on the Musical Mind. An Evolutionary Perspective , [Michele Gardini, p. 202] • Hans Belting, Faces. Eine Geschichte des Gesichts [Pietro Conte, p. 205] • Aby Warburg, Il primo Rinascimento italiano. Sette conferenze inedite [Alice Barale, p. 207] • Laura Anna Macor , Reading Schiller: Ethics, Aesthetics and Religion [Lorenzo Leonardo Pizzichemi, p. 209] • Bernard Lafargue, Stéphanie Cardoso , Figures de l’art n° 25, Philosophie du design [Claire Azéma, Anne Beyaert Geslin, Stéphanie Cardoso, (...) Cécile Croce, p. 212] • Helmut Leder et al., What Makes an Art Expert? Emotion and Evaluation in Art Appreciation , “Cognition and Emotion”, 2013, 28, pp. 1-11; Enric Munar et al., Aesthetic Appreciation: Event-Related Field and Time-Frequency Analyses , “Frontiers in Human Neurosciences”, 2012, 5, pp. 1-11; Gerald C. Cupchik et al., Viewing Artworks: Contributions of Cognitive Control and Perceptual Facilitation to Aesthetic Experience , “Brain and Cognition”, 2009, 70, pp. 84-91 [Gianluca Consoli, p. 217]. (shrink)

In the last years of his life, Gerald C. MacCallum, Jr., defied illness to continue his work on the philosophy of law. This book is a monument to MacCallum’s effort, containing fourteen of his essays, five of them published here for the first time. Two of those previously published are widely admired and reprinted: “Legislative Intent,” certainly one of the best papers ever published on its topic, and “Negative and Positive Freedom,” which offered a new way of looking at (...) a distinction that had been canonical for the last two centuries. To complete MacCallum’s unfinished pieces, Marcus G. Singer and Rex Martin painstakingly consulted MacCallum’s notes for planned revisions. MacCallum discusses legal reasoning, the application of rules, the interpretation of statutes and constitutional provisions, and the relation of these matters to morality and justice. In the last decade of his working life, he became greatly concerned with the interrelated themes of integrity, autonomy, conscience, and violence. He wished to relate competition to morality and justice to adversarial systems of law. These themes are woven together in Legislative Intent and constitute the main subject of some of the essays. MacCallum was engaged in a constant search for truth and understanding, and in his life and work lived up to Emerson’s vision of the “American Scholar” as a “human being thinking.” These essays are informed by the author’s deep curiosity, penetrating intelligence, wide knowledge, and outstanding character. They will be treasured wherever these characteristics and true philosophy are treasured. (shrink)

The popular slogan that one ought to fight for what he believes right appears to point a way for persons to witness the moral seriousness of their interest in reform. But exactly what way does it point, and, in particular, does it enjoin resort to violence for the sake of what one believes right ? Pursuit of this question exposes some roots of our indecisive and often confused views about the acceptable means of revolution and reform and the eventual r61e (...) of violence therein. Common understandings of ?violence? and ?fight for? do not carry us far. Further, there are doubtless differences in how the slogan's enjoinment of ?fighting? (and thus, if at all, of violence) is understood to be limited. These differences and the issues underlying them are exposed when we ask whether the slogan is to be understood to enjoin fighting or manners of fighting that might be called premature, gratuitous, or wasteful, and when we ask whether the ?ought? in the slogan is to be understood as, at best, a prima facie ought. (shrink)

This is the second of three volumes of posthumously collected writings of G. A. Cohen, who was one of the leading, and most progressive, figures in contemporary political philosophy. This volume brings together some of Cohen's most personal philosophical and nonphilosophical essays, many of them previously unpublished. Rich in first-person narration, insight, and humor, these pieces vividly demonstrate why Thomas Nagel described Cohen as a "wonderful raconteur." The nonphilosophical highlight of the book is Cohen's remarkable account of his first trip (...) to India, which includes unforgettable vignettes of encounters with strangers and reflections on poverty and begging. Other biographical pieces include his valedictory lecture at Oxford, in which he describes his philosophical development and offers his impressions of other philosophers, and "Isaiah's Marx, and Mine," a tribute to his mentor Isaiah Berlin. Other essays address such topics as the truth in "small-c conservatism," who can and can't condemn terrorists, and the essence of bullshit. A recurring theme is finding completion in relation to the world of other human beings. Engaging, perceptive, and empathetic, these writings reveal a more personal side of one of the most influential philosophers of our time. (shrink)