The author considers Pope John Paul II's 1998 encyclical, Fides et ratio, as bringing into view new horizons for Catholic philosophical theology by virtue of its endorsement of a constrained philosophical pluralism. Through a retrospective examination of the history of magisterial interventions as depicted in the encyclical, the author notes how a progressive openness to philosophical pluralism relates to the changed status of Thomism within magisterial teaching on the practice of Catholic philosophical theology. Fides et ratio describes an evolution in (...) magisterial emphasis from proscription to prescription, which corresponds to change in the status of Thomism from an absolute to an exemplary norm. Attention to this decisive shift in the normative status of Thomism, as implied within the encyclical itself, provides both new illumination on the Pope's general intentions and new clarity with regard to some contested interpretive issues. Finally, the author highlights several new challenges that are implied by this development in magisterial teaching. (shrink)

This study develops a theory about the interaction between music cognition and affective response. The theory demonstrates how musical thinking, knowledge, and decision-making result in qualitative musical behaviour. It reports new findings about the cognitive representation of musical structures, imagery as an auditory-phenomenological descriptor of music, aesthetic response as an outcome of specific cognitive decisions, and the value of music in cross-cultural human development. Each of the seven essays identifies a problem in music psychology that is relevant to an explanation (...) of the musical process, reviews the literature relevant to that problem, and, through systematic philosophical analysis, offers a solution. This book should be of interest to music philosophers, and psychologists working in the areas of cognition, aesthetics, music theory, music education, and music therapy. (shrink)

Every discipline has its foundational terms, those words that practitioners use to name what they study, or how they study, or why that study is valid. These terms often go unscrutinized when a discipline is up and running, but in the formative stages of a discipline and in periods of contention or crisis they often become subject to intensive criticism and attempts at redefinition. Challenging foundational terms is no simple task. Because they are foundational, they are difficult to do without, (...) even by those who would reject them. They are often used or assumed by those who question them, and after intensive questioning is done they often simply recur, even in their most unquestioned, naive form. The “foundational” nature of foundational terms, one begins to see, is not just a matter of a basic organizing concept or a description of some natural process, but of a term that is invested with aspirations of different sorts. The term also offers authorization to interpret, enacts a wish, suggests a cultural utopia, or puts in place a political program. The density of functions found in foundational terms guarantees that even the most questioned term will return. (shrink)

Introduction: identity as phantasy in Enlightenment in France and Germany -- The man with too many qualities : the young herder between France and Germany -- The language of cultural identity : Diderot to Nietzsche -- Strange classicism : aesthetic vision in Winckelmann, Nietzsche, and Thomas Mann -- Classicism and gender transformation : David, Goethe, and Stal -- The French Revolution and the problem of time : Hegel to Marx.

In the target article Nijhawan speculates that visual perceptual mechanisms compensate for neural delays so that moving objects may be perceived closer to their physical locations. However, the vast majority of published psychophysical data are inconsistent with this speculation.

This article presents evidence over which we stumbled while investigating a completely different part of the Platonic Corpus. While examining the ordinary working vocabulary of the doubtful dialogues and of those undisputed dialogues most readily compared with them, it seemed essential to have a representative sample of Plato's allegedly 'middle' and 'late' dialogues also. The real surprise came when the Critias was included, showing some frequencies not previously observed in Platonic dialogues. This prompted treatment of the Timaeus also, some of (...) which showed comparable peculiarities. The most distinctive feature was the increase in the rate of the definite article from around 8% of total vocabulary in dialogues assumed to be early, or around 10% in Laws, to some 14% in sizeable parts of the Timaeus-Critias, where Plato seemed no less interested in the literary credentials of his creations than elsewhere. Tests intended for application to our original set of problems were yielding results that appeared to bear on a number of problems central to the interpretation of the Timaeus-Critias. (shrink)