Wittgenstein has written a great number of remarks relevant to aesthetical issues: he has questioned the relation between aesthetics and psychology as well as the status of our norms of judgment; he has drawn philosophers attention to such topics as aspect-seeing and aspect-dawning, and has brought insights into the nature of our aesthetic reactions. The examination of this wide range of topics is far from being completed, and the purpose of this book is to contribute to such completion. It gathers (...) both papers discussing some of Wittgenstein s most provocative and intriguing statements on aesthetics, and papers bringing out their implications for art critic and art history, as well as their significance to epistemology and to the study of human mind.". (shrink)

Comment l'enregistrement a-t-il modifié les manières d'être de la musique?Quelles incidences a-t-il eu sur nos façons d'interpréter et d'écouter les oeuvres ou les improvisations? Comment est-il devenu un outil dans la construction d'un répertoire, d'une tradition, voire d'un genre musical? Quel est son rôle dans la recherche musicologique? Voilà les questions, tant philosophiques que musicologiques, que cet ouvrage se propose d'aborder, en prenant en compte aussi bien la musique savante que les musiques populaires.

Ce livre se veut une lecture d'ensemble des reflexions que Wittgenstein a consacrees aux questions esthetiques concernant la musique. Il s'attache notamment a explorer les fonctions de l' entendre comme un outil conceptuel susceptible de nous aider a analyser nos manieres de comprendre cet art et a mieux definir ses proprietes expressives et son pouvoir emotionnel. Plus generalement, l'approfondissement de ces thematiques a pour objectif la definition d'une strategie pour re-penser l'acte performatif et l'experience auditive.

What do we mean when we talk about the identity of a musical work and what does such an identity involve? What in fact are the properties that make it something worth protecting and preserving? These issues are not only of legal relevance; they are central to a philosophical discipline that has seen considerable advances over the last few decades: musical ontology. Taking into account its main theoretical models, this essay argues that an understanding of the ontological status of musical (...) works should acknowledge the irreducible ambivalence of music as an "art of the trace" and as a "performative art." It advocates a theory of the musical work as a "social object" and, more specifically, as a sound artefact that functions aesthetically and which is based on a trace informed by a normative value. Such a normativity is further explored in relation to three primary ways of conceiving and fixing the trace: orality, notation and phonography. (shrink)

Wittgenstein has often explored language games that have to do with musical objects of different sizes (phrases, themes, formal sections or entire works). These games can refer to a technical language or to common parlance and correspond to different targets. One of these coincides with the intention to suggest a way of conceiving musical understanding. His model takes the form of the invitation to "hear (something) as (something)": typically, to hear a musical passage as an introduction or as a conclusion (...) or in a certain tonality. However one may ask to what extent or in what terms (literal or metaphorical) these procedures, and usually the intervention of language games, is requested by our common ways of understanding music. This article shows through the use of some examples that aspectual perception inherent to musical understanding does not require language games as a necessary condition (although in many cases the link between them seems very strong), in contradiction with the thesis of an essential linguistic character of music. At a basic level, it seems more appropriate to insist on the notion of a game: to understand music means to enter into the orbit of "music games" which show an autonomous functioning. Language games have, however, an important function when we develop this comprehension in the light of the criteria of judgment that substantiate the manner in which music is incorporated in and operates within specific forms of life. (shrink)

The discussion about the uses of the concept “musical object” highlights the difficulties of the project – put forward by Pierre Schaeffer (1966) – of basing its definition on the idea of “objet sonore”. Moreover, the proposal to assimilate the functions of the “objet sonore” to those fulfilled by a “musical work” turns out to be no less problematic. A new definition is proposed: a musical object is a social object resulting from the inscription of perceived sound(s), or of the (...) acoustic event(s)/object(s), in a reference system recognized as “musical” by a group of (minimally) two people. (shrink)

Metamorfosi del tragico : Beethoven fra Nietzsche e Michelstaedter -- Riflessioni sul silenzio : fra Adorno e Jankélévitch -- Musica e fenomenologia -- Musica nel museo : riflessioni su un tema di Gadamer -- ermeneutica della musica? -- Prospettive per l'estetica della musica.

I. Dans un texte récent, le compositeur français Jean-Luc Hervé expose ainsi son projet d’une œuvre conçue pour un espace public, notamment un jardin : (…) une génération totalement aléatoire de son, si elle permet de varier continuellement le matériau sonore, interdit par définition toute construction musicale. Il est impossible par cette méthode de façonner des formes et de proposer à l’auditeur une écoute détaillée. Il ne peut reconnaître aucune forme, aucun objet musical (geste, phrase)....

Starting from the context in which Wittgenstein thinks of the concepts of “seeing-as” and “hearing-as”, the basic relation is clarified between the question of representation, musical understanding, and the theory of musical expressiveness. The points of views of Wollheim, Scruton, Levinson, and Ridley are discussed, in a re-consideration of the notions of hearing and understanding within Wittgenstein’s “last philosophy”.

The article examines some of the consequences of the migration of musical works in cyberspace, particularly with regard to their ways of being and the ways in which we listen to them. Streaming is interpreted as the last stage in the expansion of a phenomenon that arose with the advent of phonography, namely, the ubiquity and availability of the works. A new development consists in the production of musical units in modular terms: works can consist of independent parts, which can (...) be replaced or constituted, in an order that depends on the user, taking inspiration from the model of the playlist. The diffusion of works on the web has also facilitated the development of the remix practice, changing listening standards and generating new conceptual conflicts concerning the identity of the works. The web weakens the distinction between the medium of communication and the medium of recording. It also favors the formation of new cognitive dispositions and generates more flexible and interactive ways of listening, generally different from those implicated in the era of the disc. (shrink)

Some computational phenomena rely essentially on pragmatic considerations, and seem to undermine the independence of the specification from the implementation. These include software development, deviant uses, esoteric languages and recent data-driven applications. To account for them, the interaction between pragmatics, epistemology and ontology in computational artefacts seems essential, indicating the need to recover the role of the language metaphor. We propose a User Levels (ULs) structure as a pragmatic complement to the Levels of Abstraction (LoAs)-based structure defining the ontology and (...) epistemology of computational artefacts. ULs identify a flexible hierarchy in which users bear their own semantic and normative requirements, possibly competing with the logical specification. We formulate a notion of computational act intended in its pragmatic sense, alongside pragmatic versions of implementation and correctness. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The Evolving Evolutionary Synthesis Population Genetics vs. Developmental Genetics Evo‐Devo's Central Target: The Study of Evolvability Origins? Conclusion Postscript: Counterpoint Acknowledgments References.

The Wealth of Ideas, first published in 2005, traces the history of economic thought, from its prehistory to the present day. In this eloquently written, scientifically rigorous and well documented book, chapters on William Petty, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Karl Marx, William Stanley Jevons, Carl Menger, Léon Walras, Alfred Marshall, John Maynard Keynes, Joseph Schumpeter and Piero Sraffa alternate with chapters on other important figures and on debates of the period. Economic thought is seen as developing between two opposite poles: (...) a subjective one, based on the ideas of scarcity and utility, and an objective one based on the notions of physical costs and surplus. Professor Roncaglia focuses on the different views of the economy and society and on their evolution over time and critically evaluates the foundations of the scarcity-utility approach in comparison with the Classical/Keynesian approach. (shrink)

Philosophers distinguish between having a property essentially and having it accidentally. The way the distinction has been drawn suggests that it is modal in character, and so that it can be captured in terms of necessity, or cognate notions. The present chapter takes the suggestion at face value by considering a number of modal characterizations of the essential/accidental distinction that have been articulated and discussed since the early 20th century, as well as some of the challenges that they face.

How and to what extent do people take into account the intentions of others? Alessandro Duranti sets out to answer this question, showing that the role of intentions in human interaction is variable across cultures and contexts. Through careful analysis of data collected over three decades in US and Pacific societies, Duranti demonstrates that, in some communities, social actors avoid intentional discourse, focusing on the consequences of actions rather than on their alleged original goals. In other cases, he argues, (...) people do speculate about their own intentions or guess the intentions of others, including in some societies where it was previously assumed they avoid doing so. To account for such variation, Duranti proposes an 'intentional continuum', a concept that draws from phenomenology and the detailed analysis of face-to-face interaction. A combination of new essays and classic re-evaluations, the book draws together findings from anthropology, linguistics and philosophy to offer a penetrating account of the role of intentions in defining human action. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to present a system of modal connexive logic based on a situation semantics. In general, modal connexive logics are extensions of standard modal logics that incorporate Aristotle’s and Boethius’ theses, that is the thesis that a sentence cannot imply its negation and the thesis that a sentence cannot imply a pair of contradictory sentences. A key problem in devising a connexive logic is to come up with a system that is both sufficiently strong to (...) fulfill some specific connexive theses and sufficiently well-motivated from a semantical point of view. The approach proposed here tries to address this problem by defining an appropriate connexive relation in terms of more basic notions. The result is a well-motivated system of modal connexive logic that nicely fits in both with the traditional ideas concerning the connexive conditional and with the current developments in connexive logic. (shrink)

The purpose of this qualitative study was to analyse nurses’ professional dignity in their everyday working lives. We explored the factors that affect nursing professional dignity in practice that emerge in relationships with health professionals, among clinical nurses working in hospitals and in community settings in central Italy. The main themes identified were: (i) nursing professional dignity perceived as an achievement; (ii) recognition of dignity beyond professional roles. These two concepts are interconnected. This study provides insights into professional dignity in (...) nursing being perceived as an achievement linked to the intrinsic dignity of every human being. The ‘nursing professional dignity perceived as an achievement’ was perceived as having declined in different social factors. Some factors of nursing professional dignity perceived as an achievement were attained more easily in community settings. ‘Recognition of dignity beyond professional roles’ underpins the intrinsic dignity as an expression of humanity, embedded in persons regardless of any profession, and values, such as: respect, moral integrity, humility, working conscientiously and kindness. (shrink)

Ted Sider has famously argued that existence, in the unrestricted sense of ontology, cannot be vague, as long as vagueness is modeled by means of precisifications. The first section of Chapter 9 exposes some controversial assumptions underlying Sider’s alleged reductio of vague existence. The upshot of the discussion is that, although existence cannot be vague, it can be super-vague, i.e. higher-order vague, for all orders. The second section develops and defends a novel framework, dubbed negative supervaluationary semantics, which makes room (...) for the possibility of super-vague existence. (shrink)

L’ambientazione dell’itinerario che qui si propone rinvia ad un’ermeneutica del diritto che concentra l’attenzione non su un settore – costituito da metodologie e principi ai quali attingere per la soluzione di conflitti nella prassi –, ma su una riflessione rigorosa. Tale ordine di pensiero muove dalla filosofia aristotelica del De Interpretatione, sino ai problemi della globalizzazione, trattati interrogandosi se l’ermeneutica occupi o meno un posto prioritario nel complesso universum giuridico. Si prende atto che l’arte dell’interpretazione appare sostituibile con un insieme (...) di teorie argomentative che, con il loro management, rischiano di banalizzare i concetti della responsabilità personale nella vita quotidiana dell’amministrazione della giustizia. (shrink)

This book contains essential contributions to enrich and broaden the application field of pragmatics. It provides an example of how the fruitful reflections and refined conceptual distinctions born in the philosophical field can find a practical application in addressing social, cognitive, clinical, and psychological problems. Its chapters address, from different points of view, the relationship between pragmatic linguistics and philosophy, and outline the possible application of pragmatic theories to different domains. Developed during the third Pragmasophia international conference, whose name is (...) derived from the Greek terms πρᾶγμα (action, fact) and σοφία (knowledge, science), the book aligns itself with its aim to study human actions and activities and how they take shape through language. But ‘Pragma’ and ‘Sophia’ also signal another purpose: highlighting the importance of creating links between empirical investigations on language use, and more traditional philosophical approaches. In this reading, ‘Pragma’ represents the experimental goal devoted to analysing and interpreting language facts. In contrast, the term ‘Sophia’ recalls the original vocation of past philosophers to pursue an ideal of ‘pure knowledge’, disconnected from any practical-economic interest. While maintaining the conference's original purpose of encouraging productive comparisons between different approaches, the book consists of two sections: first, on philosophical approaches, recalls more theoretical aspects (closer to the term ‘Sophia’); the second, ‘Inferential and Cognitive Pragmatics,’ addresses more practical issues affecting domains such as Greek literature, pragmatic disorders, dictionary entries, and speech analysis. The reader, whether in linguists, philosophy or psychology, obtains a complete overview of the most advanced current research lines, both theoretical and empirical, and thus contributes to broadening the scope of pragmatics. (shrink)

Keenan (1987) observed that trivial determiners built from basic existential determiners (e.g.,either zero or else more than zero) are allowed inthere-insertion contexts, and that trivial determiners built from basic non-existential determiners (e.g.,either all or else not all) are not. This result is unexpected under the analyses ofthere-sentences proposed in Barwise and Cooper (1981), Higginbotham (1987), and Keenan (1987). I argue that the class of NPs barred from the postverbal position ofthere-sentences (strong NPs) is correctly characterized in presuppositional terms, as suggested (...) in de Jong and Verkuyl (1985) and Lumsden (1988). According to this characterization, strong NPs share one of the defining components of definiteness proposed in Heim (1982), namely the Descriptive Content Condition (DCC). How to derive the prohibition against strong NPs inthere-insertion contexts (definiteness effect) from the fact that strong NPs meet the DCC is not obvious, however. I argue that accounting for this prohibition involves regarding the XP-coda in [there be NP XP] as providing the contextual domain for the interpretation of the postverbal NP. (shrink)

Philosophers have rightly condemned lookism—that is, discrimination in favor of attractive people or against unattractive people—in education, the justice system, the workplace and elsewhere. Surprisingly, however, the almost universal preference for attractive romantic and sexual partners has rarely received serious ethical scrutiny. On its face, it’s unclear whether this is a form of discrimination we should reject or tolerate. I consider arguments for both views. On the one hand, a strong case can be made that preferring attractive partners is bad. (...) The idea is that choosing partners based on looks seems essentially similar to other objectionable forms of discrimination. (In particular, the preference for attractive partners is arguably both unfair and harmful to a significant degree.) One can try to resist this conclusion in several ways. I consider three possible replies. The first has to do with the possibility of controlling our partner preferences. The second pertains to attractiveness and “good genes”. The last attempts to link certain aspects of attractiveness to a prospective partner’s personality and values. I argue that the first two replies fail conclusively, while the third only amounts to a limited defense of a particular kind of attractiveness preference. So the idea that we should often avoid preferring attractive partners is compelling. (shrink)

A number of companies allocate ownership rights to stakeholders different from shareholders, despite the fact that the law attributes these rights to the equity holders. This article contributes to an understanding of this evidence by developing a contingency model for the allocation of ownership rights. The model sheds light on why companies, despite pressures from the law, vary in their allocation of ownership rights. The model is based on the assumption that corporations increase their chance to survive and prosper if (...) the stakeholders supplying “critical contributions” receive the ownership rights. According to the model, “critical” contributions involve (1) contractual problems due to specific investments, long-term relationships, and low measurability; (2) the assumption of the uncertainty resting on the company; and (3) the supply of scarce and valuable resources. The model is dynamic because it also provides a basis for understanding why the allocation of ownership rights changes with time. Finally, the article presents the strategies companies can use to realize an efficient distribution of ownership rights among their stakeholders. (shrink)

In 2011, van Dijck and Fias described a positional SNARC effect: the SPoARC. To-be-remembered items presented centrally on a screen seemed to acquire a left-to-right spatial dimension. If confirmed, this spatialization could be crucial for immediate memory theories. However, given the intricate links between visual and spatial dimensions, this effect could be due to the visual presentation, which could have probed the left-to-right direction of reading/writing. To allow a generalization of this effect, we adapted van Dijck and Fias's task using (...) an auditory version of Sternberg's paradigm. Lists of five consonants were auditorily presented at a rate of 3 s/item. A SPoARC effect was observed. The consequences are discussed first from an immediate memory perspective, putting forward the view that order could be coded through spatialization, and then in terms of similarities between SPoARC and SNARC. (shrink)