How can imitation lead to free musical expression? This article explores the role of auditory imitation in jazz. Even though many renowned jazz musicians have assessed the method of imitating recorded music, no systematic study has hitherto explored how the method prepares for aural jazz improvisation. The article uses Berliner's assumption that learning jazz by aural imitation is “just like” learning a mother tongue. The article studies three potential stages in the method, comparing them to the imitative, rhythmic, multimodal, and (...) protosymbolic behavior of infant perception (building on the works of Stern, Trevarthen, and Merleau-Ponty). The demonstrations of the aural imitation method draw on pedagogic experiences accumulated since 1979 at the Jazz Program at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. By analyzing structures of behavior suggested by the method, the article indicates key traits that render aural jazz improvisation possible, such as a fundamental sense of rhythm, formation of symbolic behavior, joint musical attention, and the facility to “hear via the other.” In conclusion, we critically address a frequent theoretical model describing musical improvisation as a synthesis of discrete elements or building blocks. (shrink)

How can imitation lead to free musical expression? This article explores the role of auditory imitation in jazz. Even though many renowned jazz musicians have assessed the method of imitating recorded music, no systematic study has hitherto explored how the method prepares for aural jazz improvisation. The article picks up an assumption presented by Berliner (1994), suggesting that learning jazz by aural imitation is “just like” learning a mother tongue. The article studies three potential stages in the method, comparing with (...) imitative, rhythmic, multimodal, and protosymbolic behavior of infant perception (building on the works of Stern, Trevarthen, and Merleau-Ponty). The demonstrations of the aural-imitation method draw on pedagogic experiences accumulated since 1979 in the Jazz Program at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. By analyzing structures of behavior suggested by the method, the article indicates key traits that render aural jazz improvisation possible, such as a fundamental sense of rhythm, formation of symbolic behavior, joint musical attention, and the facility to “hear via the other.” In conclusion, we critically address a frequent theoretical model describing musical improvisation as a synthesis of discrete elements or building blocks. (shrink)

The nature of the product to be discovered guides the reasoning to discover it. Biologists and medical researchers often search for mechanisms. The "new mechanistic philosophy of science" provides resources about the nature of biological mechanisms that aid the discovery of mechanisms. Here, we apply these resources to the discovery of mechanisms in medicine. A new diagrammatic representation of a disease mechanism chain indicates both what is known and, most significantly, what is not known at a given time, thereby guiding (...) the researcher and collaborators in discovery. Mechanisms of genetic diseases provide the examples. (shrink)

This paper examines the questions on how conflicts within and across religious practices could be understood. This paper specifically concerns with the debates around perspectives, both monolithic and plural encountered within the field of religious discourses and at the current juncture provides a way to intervene in the monism-pluralism debate in ethics. The various arguments proposed by John Hick, W.T Stace and Keith E. Yandell’s pluralistic approach have been analysed for examining the discourses more closely. The aim has been (...) to provide a comparative and critical approach towards monism and pluralism. (shrink)

Neoplatonic Exegeses of Plato's Cosmogony JOHN F. PHILLIPS AMONG THE MANY CONTROVERSIES to which the long history of interpretation of Plato's Timaeus has given rise, that concerning the eternity of the cosmos is one of the most enduring and complex, and the source of almost continuous debate from the time of Xenocrates to the present. The importance to all Platonists of a doctrinally consistent answer to the question of whether or not the universe had a beginning in time is (...) made amply clear in the statement attributed to Iamblichus by Proclus that proper understand- ing of the creation of the world is crucial for the entire theory of Nature. Iamblichus here refers obliquely to the orthodox Platonist position that the universe is not a temporal being subject to decay and destruction. The princi- pal problem for all of them, of course, was that, taken literally, Plato's account of the creation in the Timaeus, particularly the passage 27C-a8C, appears to be an unequivocal affirmation of a temporal beginning to the cosmos. Espe- cially troublesome was Plato's use of the verb y~yovev in Timaeus 28b 7, which seems to be an explicit claim for an &QX1] in time. That this passage did indeed refer to a temporal beginning was a point that was made repeatedly and forcefully by the chief opponents of the Platonists on this issue, the Peripa- tetics, who, following Aristotle, read the Timaeus creation account literally.' To.. (shrink)

Aratus’ Phaenomena calls upon its reader to scrutinize the letters of the text as carefully as the stars and constellations that form its subject matter. The poem abounds with clever letter-play and wordplay, and its reception too is characterized by verbal cleverness, as later authors vie with Aratus and one another to create ingenious textual effects. Among the best-known examples is the word ἄρρητον at Phaen. 2, a witty hidden sphragis for Aratus, who nowhere in his work directly names himself. (...) Later poets picked up on this pun: Callimachus speaks of the λεπταὶ ῥήσιες Ἀρήτου, repeating the verbal root of ἄρρητον in ῥήσιες and its sound in Ἀρήτου. Leonidas of Tarentum meanwhile rates Aratus ‘second after Zeus’, acknowledging the hidden sphragis, which follows directly after the invocation of Zeus in line 1 of the Phaenomena. (shrink)

Though the revised edition of A Theory of Justice, published in 1999, is the definitive statement of Rawls's view, so much of the extensive literature on Rawls's theory refers to the first edition.

This article focuses on the relationship between democracy and the notwithstanding clause in s.33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. A number of scholars argue that s.33 is inherently ‘democratic’, as it is an assertion of legislative supremacy. The most influential such theory is Jeremy Waldron’s. This article offers a democracy-based critique of Waldron’s democracy-based account of the notwithstanding clause. The argument that the notwithstanding clause is necessarily ‘democratic’ ignores the constitution of the legislature through elections and the (...) risk of self-dealing by the legislative branch, adopts an idealistic view of legislatures at odds with the reality of executive dominance and party discipline, and over-relies on the assumption that the electorate will ensure retrospective accountability for misuse of s.33. Contrary to Waldron and those who have adopted his arguments in Canada in the context of the Charter, the article argues we can be democrats and have faith in the capacities of legislators and voters while still maintaining skepticism about the uses to which the notwithstanding clause may be put. In short, s.33 is not inherently democratic. The political morality of each use of the notwithstanding clause—including whether it helps or harms democracy—must be assessed on a case-by-case basis. (shrink)

Reissued here in its corrected second edition of 1864, this essay by John Stuart Mill argues for a utilitarian theory of morality. Originally printed as a series of three articles in Fraser's Magazine in 1861, the work sought to refine the 'greatest happiness' principle that had been championed by Jeremy Bentham, defending it from common criticisms, and offering a justification of its validity. Following Bentham, Mill holds that actions can be judged as right or wrong depending on whether they (...) promote happiness or 'the reverse of happiness'. Although attracted by Bentham's consequentialist framework based on empirical evidence rather than intuition, Mill separates happiness into 'higher' and 'lower' pleasures, arguing for a weighted system of measurement when making and judging decisions. Dissected and debated since its first appearance, the essay is Mill's key discussion on the topic and remains a fundamental text in the study of ethics. (shrink)

J.L. Mackie insists that ordinary evaluative thought presents itself as a matter of sensitivity to aspects of the world. And this phenomenological thesis seems correct. When one or another variety of philosophical non-cognitivism claims to capture the truth about what the experience of value is like, or (in a familiar surrogate for phenomenology) about what we mean by our evaluative language, the claim is never based on careful attention to the lived character of evaluative thought or discourse. The idea is, (...) rather, that the very concept of the cognitive or factual rules out the possibility of an undiluted representation of how things are, enjoying, nevertheless, the internal relation to 'attitudes' or the will that would be needed to count as evaluative. On this view the phenomenology of value would involve a mere incoherence, if it were as Mackie says--a possibility that then tends (naturally enough) not to be so much as entertained. But, as Mackie sees, there is no satisfactory justification for supposing that the factual is, by definition, attitudinatively and motivationally neutral. This clears away the only obstacle to accepting his phenomenological claim; and the upshot is that non-cognitivism must offer to correct the phenomenology of value, rather than give an account of it. -/- In Machie's view the correction is called for. In this paper I want to suggest that he attributes an unmerited plausibility to this thesis, by giving a false picture of what one is committed to if one resists it. (shrink)

The article explores digital literacy practices in children’s everyday lives at Norwegian preschools and some of the ways in which young children appropriate basic digital literacy skills through guided participation in situated activities. Building on an ethnomethodological perspective, the analyses are based on 70 hours of video recordings documenting the activities in which 45 children, aged 5-6, and eight preschool teachers participated. Through the detailed analysis of two categorization activities – identifying geometrical shapes and identifying feelings/thoughts –the use of digital (...) tools in the social organization of the activities are examined. The article finds that children’s digital literacy activities encompass visual, verbal, audio and embodied competencies that are made relevant, and thus accessible for learning, in interaction between the children and between the adults and children in the form of norms and guidelines for what constitutes correct categorizations (geometrical shapes and green and red feelings) in the situated activities, and that are appropriated and actualized by the children in interaction with their peers. The findings also show how the categorization practices in preschools deal with symbols and labels in ways that create and sustain socially organized ways of knowing, seeing and acting upon the world. Digital media are embedded in routines, procedures and socialites that are part of these categorization practices; they are part of how children are instructed to experience, interpret, understand and act in the world. Moreover, the different technologies created different conditions for the children’s participation. It was found that peer interaction was part of the digital literacy activities that involved such mobile technologies as smartphones and tablets, while when using non-mobile technologies, e.g. smartboards, the activities were structured more as ‘classic’ classroom activities, primarily guided by the teacher and the didactic material presented through the smartboard. (shrink)

ObjectiveTo examine subjective and objective socioeconomic status as predictors, cognitive abilities as confounders, and personal control perceptions as mediators of health behaviours.DesignA cross-sectional study including 197 participants aged 30–50 years, recruited from the crowd-working platform, Prolific.Main Outcome MeasureThe Good Health Practices Scale, a 16-item inventory of health behaviours.ResultsSSES was the most important predictor of health behaviours. Among the OSES indicators, education, but not income, predicted health behaviours. Intelligence and memory were negatively correlated with health-promoting behaviours, and the effect of memory (...) was upheld in the multivariate model. Personal control perceptions did not act as mediators.ConclusionSSES predicted health behaviours beyond OSES. The effect of socioeconomic indicators was not confounded by cognitive abilities. Surprisingly, cognitive abilities were negatively associated with health-promoting behaviours. Future research should emphasise SSES as a predictor of health behaviours. Delineating the psychological mechanisms linking SSES with health behaviours would be a valuable contribution toward improved understanding of socioeconomic disparities in health behaviours. (shrink)

In his preface Mr Wilson writes 'I feel that a great many adults … would do better to spend less time in simply accepting the concepts of others uncritically, and more time in learning how to analyse concepts in general'. Mr Wilson starts by describing the techniques of conceptual analysis. He then gives examples of them in action by composing answers to specific questions and by criticism of quoted passages of argument. Chapter 3 sums up the importance of this kind (...) of mental activity. Chapter 4 presents selections for the reader to analyse, followed by questions of university entrance/scholarship type. This is a book to be worked through, in a sense a text-book. (shrink)

In this philosophically sophisticated and historically significant work, John H. Zammito reconstructs Kant's composition of The Critique of Judgment and reveals that it underwent three major transformations before publication. He shows that Kant not only made his "cognitive" turn, expanding the project from a "Critique of Taste" to a Critique of Judgment but he also made an "ethical" turn. This "ethical" turn was provoked by controversies in German philosophical and religious culture, in particular the writings of Johann Herder and (...) the Sturm und Drang movement in art and science, as well as the related pantheism controversy. Such topicality made the Third Critique pivotal in creating a "Kantian" movement in the 1790s, leading directly to German Idealism and Romanticism. The austerity and grandeur of Kant's philosophical writings sometimes make it hard to recognize them as the products of a historical individual situated in the particular constellation of his time and society. Here Kant emerges as a concrete historical figure struggling to preserve the achievements of cosmopolitan Aufkl-rung against challenges in natural science, religion, and politics in the late 1780s. More specifically Zammito suggests that Kant's Third Critique was animated throughout by a fierce personal rivalry with Herder and by a strong commitment to traditional Christian ideas of God and human moral freedom. "A work of extraordinary erudition. Zammito's study is both comprehensive and novel, connecting Kant's work with the aesthetic and religious controversies of the late eighteenth century. He seems to have read everything. I know of no comparable historical study of Kant's Third Critique."-Arnulf Zweig, translator and editor of Kant's ;IPhilosophical Correspondence, 1759-1799;X "An intricate, subtle, and exciting explanation of how Kant's thinking developed and adjusted to new challenges over the decade from the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason to the appearance of the Critique of Judgment. "--John W. Burbidge, Review of Metaphysics "There has been for a long time a serious gap in English commentary on Kant's Critique of Judgment Zammito's book finally fills it. All students and scholars of Kant will want to consult it."--Frederick Beiser, Times Literary Supplement. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the development of a theory of economic freedom. In this endeavor, we build our framework on the Hayekian notion of freedom because it explicitly embodies the obvious link between freedom and the state: freedom is an absence of state coercion except for that which enforces abstract, general rules known beforehand. We derive two propositions from this Hayekian thesis and elaborate on them, leading to a categorization of government actions from the viewpoint (...) of economic freedom in which the criterion against which coercive governmental actions must be evaluated is the rule of law, meaning a government’s reliance on general, abstract rules. As an implication, our framework allows us to argue for the imperative differentiation between “efficiency” and “economic freedom” as two separate criteria against which government actions can and must be evaluated. We also show that our framework may help explain the process through which economic freedom enhances growth. (shrink)

Though the revised edition of A Theory of Justice, published in 1999, is the definitive statement of Rawls's view, so much of the extensive literature on Rawls's theory refers to the first edition.

Félix Guattari mentioned an ‘ecology of the virtual’. This notion is developed in this article along two dimensions. The first dimension, which is conceptual, relates the mental or subjective ecology of The Three Ecologies to the ‘functors’ of Schizoanalytic Cartographies. The other dimension takes into consideration today’s context in Brazil, especially Amerindian struggles. I focus on how Guattari’s thinking of the virtual, in dialogue with other contemporary authors, opens the way to heterogenetic processes, with their own ecopolitical consequences.

Knowledge and Lotteries is organized around an epistemological puzzle: in many cases, we seem consistently inclined to deny that we know a certain class of propositions, while crediting ourselves with knowledge of propositions that imply them. In its starkest form, the puzzle is this: we do not think we know that a given lottery ticket will be a loser, yet we normally count ourselves as knowing all sorts of ordinary things that entail that its holder will not suddenly acquire a (...) large fortune. After providing a number of specific and general characterizations of the puzzle, Hawthorne carefully examines the competing merits of candidate solutions. In so doing, he explores a number of central questions concerning the nature and importance of knowledge, including the relationship of knowledge to assertion and practical reasoning, the status of epistemic closure principles, the merits of various brands of scepticism, the prospects for a contextualist account of knowledge, and the potential for other sorts of salience-sensitive accounts. Along the way, he offers a careful treatment of pertinent issues at the foundations of semantics. His book will be of interest to anyone working in the field of epistemology, as well as to philosophers of language. (shrink)

The presence of Indians fundamentally altered the political, social and economic landscape of sugar producing nations. In most cases, race, which was used as an important signifier of difference by the colonising power, left these states with a colonial legacy of division and derision which they continue to endure and navigate in such diverse locations as the Caribbean, the West Indies, Fiji, Mauritius and parts of Africa. In the quest for recognition, equality and political status that allows the girmitiyas to (...) celebrate their past, embrace their present and imagine a future where they are enmeshed in the fabric of a new Fiji entail understanding why the declaration of girmit day on May 15th is such a powerful symbolic gesture on the part of the new coalition government. (shrink)

In the paper all countable Boolean algebras with m distinguished. ideals having countably-categorical elementary theory are described and constructed. From the obtained characterization it follows that all countably-categorical elementary theories of Boolean algebras with distinguished ideals are finite-axiomatizable, decidable and, consequently, their countable models are strongly constructivizable.

1. köt. A Marx előtti filozófia története.--2. köt. Marxtól Lening.--3. köt. Lenintől napjainkig.

This paper examines the overwhelming desire of transnational adoptees to establish a connection with their origins in order to both come to terms with the past and develop an understanding of their identity. It considers the ethical ramifications of the commodification of human bodies. It is suggested that the idea of displacement is most helpful in approaching questions of transnational adoption. In this way, we can look at transnational adoption as a 'beginning' - one that disappears into the present moment, (...) becoming the constitutive reality underlying Derrida's concern with displacement - rather than its origin. For, what does the quest for a return to the point of origin entail? Transnational adoptees, when they embark on the journey of reclaiming their past, of coming to terms with their sense of loss, realise that there is no simple comfort in returning - that they are inevitably caught in the two worlds in which they co-exist. It is through this recognition of the traces that are contained in them, through this displacement, that they are able to negotiate identity. (shrink)

The concept of race is traced to the quest for the origins of language and the manner in which that led to the idea that a separate language indicated a separate racial origin. The Orientalist desire to know and dominate the other and to regard him or her as sub-human necessitated the invention of race. The notion of race is further traced through the slave trade and its contemporary usage in ‘race studies’.

This paper outlines a bicontextual account of fictional reports. A fictional report is a report on something that happens in a fiction, and a bicontextual account is an account that relativizes truth to two contexts. The proposal is motivated by two considerations. First, it explains the intuitive truth conditions of fictional reports without postulating hidden fiction operators. Second, it handles the problem of indexicals in fictional reports better than the standard accounts.

Foreword I. Critical rationalism is a genuinely new philosophical perspective. It is not, however, one systematic view. The development of it by Popper and ...

What does reality encompass? Is it exclusively physical, or does it include mental and 'abstract' aspects? What are the elements of being, reality's raw materials? John Heil offers stimulating answers to these questions framed in terms of a comprehensive metaphysics of substances and properties inspired by Descartes, Locke, and their successors.

Everyone loves something or somebody, and most people are concerned with loving another person like themselves, all equal. This book is based on the belief that getting clear about the concept and meaning of love between equals is essential for success in our practical lives. For how can we love properly unless we have a fairly clear idea of what love is? The book is written in ordinary language and for the ordinary person, without jargon or philosophical technicalities. It aims (...) to show that love between equals involves a single basic disposition, though that disposition expresses itself in various ways. Thus, after an introduction explaining the need for analysis and clarification, the author then deals in order with love as desire or need; with intrinsic friendship and sharing the self; with basic difficulties concerning power, dependence, altruism and paranoia; with sex and erotic love; and finally with the value in human life of love between equals. The work as a whole gives clear, coherent and practical guidance for all who wish to grasp what such love is really like. (shrink)

I argue that incomprehensibility (what the ancient skeptics called acatalepsia) plays a central role in the skepticism of both Bayle and Hume. I challenge a commonly held view (recently argued by Todd Ryan) that Hume, unlike Bayle, does not present oppositions of reason--what Kant called antimonies.

U mnogim etnickim konfliktima i gradjanskim ratovima u XX veku kulturne razlike izmedju sukobljenih strana su bile veoma male. Krvavi sukobi Srba, Hrvata i Bosnjaka tokom raspada Jugoslavije su jedan takav slucaj. Ovaj uvid je neke istrazivace vodio zakljucku da nedostatak objektivnih kulturnih markera izmedju grupa moze pogodovati izbijanju nasilja: kada se clanovi dve grupe tesko razlikuju, pribegava se nasilju da bi se stvorile identitetske granice medju njima. Jedna posebna verzija ove teorije poznata je pod imenom "narcizam malih razlika". Taj (...) izraz potice od Sigmunda Frojda koji ga je primenjivao kako u individualnoj psihologiji, tako i u svojoj filozofiji kulture. Ovaj koncept su u velikoj meri ignorisali psihoterapeuti-prakticari, ali su ga tokom poslednjih decenija otkrili novinari i drustveni naucnici i vise primenjivali u objasnjenju kolektivnog nego individualnog nasilja. U ovom radu ispitani su neke od studija i knjiga u kojima se koristi koncept "narcizma malih razlika" da bi se ocenila snaga i slabosti te teorije.. (shrink)

We present several new studies focusing on “salience effects”—the decreased tendency to attribute knowledge to someone when an unrealized possibility of error has been made salient in a given conversational context. These studies suggest a complicated picture of epistemic universalism: there may be structural universals, universal epistemic parameters that influence epistemic intuitions, but that these parameters vary in such a way that epistemic intuitions, in either their strength or propositional content, can display patterns of genuine cross-cultural diversity.

Lifestyle-induced diseases are becoming a burden on healthcare, actualizing the discussion on health responsibilities. Using data from the National Association for Heart and Lung Diseases ’s 2015 Health Survey, this study examined the public’s attitudes towards personal and social health responsibility in a Norwegian population. The questionnaires covered self-reported health and lifestyle, attitudes towards personal responsibility and the authorities’ responsibility for promoting health, resource-prioritisation and socio-demographic characteristics. Block-wise multiple linear regression assessed the association between attitudes towards health responsibilities and individual (...) lifestyle, political orientation and health condition. We found a moderate support for social responsibility across political views. Respondents reporting unhealthier eating habits, smokers and physically inactive were less supportive of health promotion policies. The idea that individuals are responsible for taking care of their health was widely accepted as an abstract ideal. Yet, only a third of the respondents agreed with introducing higher co-payments for treatment of ‘self-inflicted’ conditions and levels of support were patterned by health-related behaviour and left-right political orientation. Our study suggests that a significant support for social responsibility does not exclude a strong support for personal health responsibility. However, conditional access to healthcare based on personal lifestyle is still controversial. (shrink)

Why do human beings believe in divinities? Why do some seek eternal life, while others seek escape from recurring lives? Why do the beliefs and behaviors we typically call "religious" so deeply affect the human personality and so subtly weave their way through human society? Revised and updated in this second edition, Eight Theories of Religion considers how these fundamental questions have engaged the most important thinkers of the modern era. Accessible, systematic, and succinct, the text examines the classic interpretations (...) of religion advanced by theorists who have left a major imprint on the intellectual culture of the twentieth century. The second edition features a new chapter on Max Weber, a revised introduction, and a revised, expanded conclusion that traces the paths of further inquiry and interpretation traveled by theorists in the most recent decades.Eight Theories of Religion, Second Edition, begins with Edward Burnett Tylor and James Frazer--two Victorian pioneers in anthropology and the comparative study of religion. It then considers the great "reductionist" approaches of Sigmund Freud, Emile Durkheim, and Karl Marx, all of whom have exercised wide influence up to the present day. The discussion goes on to examine the leading challenges to reductionism as articulated by sociologist Max Weber and Romanian-American comparativist Mircea Eliade. Finally, it explores the newer methods and ideas arising from the African field studies of ethnographer E. E. Evans-Pritchard and the interpretive anthropology of Clifford Geertz. Each chapter offers biographical background, theoretical exposition, conceptual analysis, and critical assessment. This common format allows for close comparison and careful evaluation throughout. Ideal for use as a supplementary text in introductory religion courses or as the central text in sociology of religion and courses centered on the explanation and interpretation of religion, Eight Theories of Religion, Second Edition, offers an illuminating treatment of this controversial and fascinating subject. (shrink)