In 2016, the Colorado legislature passed an amendment to Colorado’s medical proxy law that established a process for the appointment of a physician to act as proxy decision maker of last resort for an unrepresented patient (Colorado HB 16-1101: Medical Decisions For Unrepresented Patients). The legislative process brought together a diverse set of stakeholders, not all of whom supported the legislation. Following passage of the statutory amendment, the Colorado Collaborative for Unrepresented Patients (CCUP), a group of advocates responsible for initiating (...) the legislative process, coordinated a unique effort to engage these stakeholders in the creation of a set of voluntary guidelines to assist facilities and individual careproviders in the implementation of policies and procedures enabled by the statute. This article delineates the questions and concerns of stakeholders, describes how those issues were addressed within the guidelines, and proposes additional opportunities for research to assess the impact of the legislation in Colorado. (shrink)

Medical decision making on behalf of unrepresented patients is one of the most challenging ethical issues faced in clinical practice. The legal environment surrounding these patients is equally complex. This article describes the efforts of a small coalition of interested healthcare professionals to address the issue in Colorado. A brief history of the effort is presented, along with discussion of the legal, ethical, practical, and political dimensions that arose in Colorado’s effort to address decision making for unrepresented patients through an (...) extension of the existing Colorado Medical Treatment Decision Act (CRS 15-18). A discussion of lessons learned in the process is included. (shrink)

The only way to settle conclusively what any part of a language means is to discover the circumstances, both linguistic and non-linguistic, in which the speakers of the language are prepared to use it. This is not a new doctrine, but Wittgenstein gave it new life by dramatising the following question: If someone used an expression in a radically non-standard way, could anything he said about his state of mind convince us that he nevertheless meant it in a standard way? (...) To answer ‘No’ to this, and to generalize that answer, is to say that the last-resort criteria for what something means lie in the way in which it is used - a fairly plain statement which I shall call ‘the behavioural theory (of meaning)’ and with which I shall here have no quarrel at all. What I wish to do in the following pages is to consider the relationship between the behavioural theory and some aspects of the concept of proof. It is beyond dispute that one can be led, by one’s acceptance of certain premisses, to accept a certain conclusion. There is, though, a problem about the nature of this ‘leading’. On the one hand, it is usual to think of it as sometimes having the nature of a forcing: ‘If you say that, you are committed to admitting this also; you cannot accept the one and reject the other.’ On the other hand, the behavioural theory of meaning makes it difficult to see how there can possibly be such a relationship between the premisses and the conclusion of any proof. There are many ways of bringing out the apparent clash between the behavioural theory and the notion of logical forcing or committal. Perhaps the clearest of them arises from asking how there can be room for a concept of committal in a purely behavioural study. In this spirit, we might grant that our knowledge of some of the ways in which the parts of a language are used may lead us to expect to find certain sorts of further use and not others; and we could compare such expectations with those of an anthropologist who finds that a certain society has a matriarchal system of authority and then proceeds to investigate its inheritance laws.. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to Randall Allsup, “Music Teacher Quality and Expertise”Bennett ReimerI am delighted to have this opportunity to reflect on Randall Allsup’s excellent, incisive, and wise paper. The issues he raises reach to the core of who we have been, where we are now, and how we must adapt ourselves to new challenges that deeply question both our ideals and our practices.Allsup’s opening questions relate directly to (...) the most pressing matters our profession is now facing—questions philosophical in essence. What kind of music teachers do our students deserve? What is the purpose of public education? And how do we get beyond our continuing and understandable desire for better-trained music teachers to ask the more pertinent question of what constitutes effective music teaching and learning in what the musical world is swiftly becoming. He has the courage to address this level of complexity seriously, and to make significant progress toward clarification. That deserves my respect and, I am quite sure, the respect of all of us.Allsup approaches his central premise on the significant changes needed in our professional identity by reminding us that we have “a long and distinguished [End Page 108] commitment to teaching and teachers.” That commitment, however, is based on the established assumption that music education is founded on excellence of performance as its ultimate goal and its greatest value. To achieve this musical end, he points out, requires mastery, attained through prolonged, careful apprenticeship. This “long running pedagogy of mastery and excellence appears closed to, or at least hostile to, innovation and popular input.”In addition, he argues, this belief system embroils all of us, teachers and their students, in the dichotomy of, on the one hand, replication of existing excellence as our goal, and, on the other, the need for emancipation from what was and what is, toward what might be; the need, that is, for transformation. The past, he recognizes, cannot simply be ignored: it is too precious for that. The future, however, also cannot be excluded. Within this antinomy we must find our way, honoring the past while not allowing it to constrict our future.At this point in his exposition Allsup approaches the proposition he is harboring, a proposition I want to explore for its potential in both clarity and complication. The basis of his key proposal is our need for teachers who are able “to think openly and less certainly about the design and implementation of musical instruction. Our pluralistic society,” he continues, “makes it imperative that we multiply the methods employed in the pursuit and construction of knowledge.”To accomplish this, Allsup presents a foundational dichotomy. There are “open forms of music” relating to “new and evolving ways of aesthetic participation that break with our traditional processes and our established codes and standards.” Contrasting with open forms are “closed forms,” representing the authoritative, the certain, and the canonic. “Closed forms,” he says, “represent culturally-structured and norm-driven literacies, where valuations of goodness pre-exist any aesthetic encounters.” Closed forms, he argues, are based on culturally agreed-upon modes of participation that are rigid in nature, such as in the prescribed and proscribed sequence of musical events proceeding inexorably in the order of composer-conductor-performer-audience.Such past (and present) rigidities, he points out, have become increasingly irrelevant. In every dimension of our lives significant and fast-occurring changes have become dominant, even expected, leaving us, as citizens and as educators, in confusion and uncertainty, and therefore in distress. We encounter aesthetic forms that are open-sourced and de-authored, unconnected to shared standards of practice. Technologies of music making and taking, he points out, have overthrown tradition to a startling degree, erasing distinctions among expert and amateur, between master and apprentice, between process and product, specialist and generalist, the classical and the vernacular.All this, and much more, is argued cogently and, I think, persuasively. It leads us to a central conception influencing how we must act as professionals. Our [End Page 109] obligation is to not only incorporate openness of musical engagements into our present culture of musical “closedness,” but to recognize the advent of openness as being a... (shrink)

Consistent throughout his writings on aesthetics and education, Bennett Reimer maintained the idea that music must be understood and studied as non-conceptual. Music’s forms of knowing point to the subjective realms of life and operate effectively without the assistance or necessity of language. An education in the arts is an education in feelings, a claim that became untenable in an age of evidence and standardization. Critics hostile to a characterization of music as unknowable pointed to very clear concepts, locating (...) the activity of music in both social and sonic contexts whereby extra-musical delineations could be articulated and musical conventions taught. The authors of this essay argue that music can be understood in ways that are both conceptual and non-conceptual, if by the latter one draws upon post-structural notions of the text, particularly Roland Barthes’s explorations of what he called the third meaning or the third space. We leave open the idea that Reimer, in his own explorations of the non-conceptual, shared in this discovery. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Toward Mindful Music Education:A Response To Bennett ReimerSandra L. StaufferIn her book Composing a Life, Mary Catherine Bateson reminds us to acknowledge our antecedents—those who have gone before in whatever way or whatever path.1 I believe we should also acknowledge our co-conspirators—those who have listened to us and wrestled with our ideas. Following Bateson, I wish to recognize the contributions of my teachers and my colleagues, particularly the (...) members of the doctoral seminar at Arizona State University. I am grateful for your contributions to the life of my mind and the words of this morning. For the record, I also want to say that Bennett Reimer is both antecedent and co-conspirator for everyone in this room, and we are indebted to him."The first task of philosophy involves learning to ask a good question," says Walter Feinberg in his essay on the philosophical scholar.2 Reimer asks us, "Who is philosophy of music education for?"—a provocative question indeed. He also gives us an answer: K-12 students.I agree, but not really. How can that be? Imagine this. A music teacher I know, Stephanie, was engaged with some first-grade children in singing songs and moving and reading rhythms. She turned to write on the white board. When she turned back to the children, one boy, Alex, was standing, perfectly still, on his head. What happened next? I will tell you in few minutes. Reimer says, "Philosophical issues are not disconnected to or incidental to musical experience. [End Page 135] They are foundational for musical experience, because one's values, beliefs, desires, preferences, and so forth, directly affect how one engages with music and what one gets from doing it." Abridging those two sentences at my own peril, Reimer appears to be saying that philosophical issues are foundational to musical experience.That idea works for me only if I am standing, figuratively and metaphorically, not literally, on my head. It seems to me that experience is the foundation of philosophy or, put another way, that one's philosophy derives from one's experiences; the richer the experiences, the richer the philosophy. A philosophy based on limited or weak experience is a limited or weak philosophy. This, however, is only surface-level logic for a deeper epistemological question—where does one's philosophy come from? If I take the Deweyan perspective that philosophy derives from experience, then surely I am obligated, in this forum, to define my terms—particularly "experience." It would be easy to say that experience means making music and listening to music, and surely it does. By experience, however, I mean not only these actions—the doing of music—but also thinking, or what Ellen Langer calls mindfulness.3 Langer describes mindful learning as having three characteristics: "the continuous creation of new categories; openness to new information; and an implicit awareness of more than one perspective."4 I like how Robert Duke articulates the same idea: "Teach things that are intellectually interesting and functionally valuable."5 Engage students not just in doing, but also in thinking—in mindful learning. Rich experience makes for rich philosophy. If we are talking about music education at all levels that is not only participatory, but also mindful, then I am all for it.Reimer asks a second question: how are we to accomplish the teaching of philosophy to K-12 students? I want to know what we are trying to accomplish. Are we trying to teach the content of philosophy or are we trying to help students develop their own abilities to think about their experiences as musicians, whether as listeners or as music makers, in whatever contexts they find themselves? The former seems to be a reification of philosophy in which I am not eager to engage most K-12 students. I hope we are aiming for the latter. If so, then our task is to provide rich and mindful experiences in every music setting. Our task is to model the disposition of a philosopher—one who asks questions, is curious, and is engaged in the life of the mind.This seems so obvious. Why aren't we doing it already? There... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 13.1 (2005) 104-108 [Access article in PDF] A Response to Estelle R. Jorgensen, "Four Philosophical Models of the Relationship Between Theory and Practice" Randall Everett Allsup Teachers College, Columbia University Each of the four philosophical models that Estelle Jorgensen has put forth contests, adheres to, or adjusts the hierarchical relationships between dualities, specifically the theory and practice of musical learning. The dichotomy model (...) faces binary associations head on, splitting existence however defined into dualisms like "this/that," "us/them," and "mind/body." Models of polarity, according to Jorgensen, accommodate dualities by buffering edges, emphasizing the interconnectedness of binary relationships. The fusion metaphor is exemplified by Paulo Freire's notion of praxis in which action and reflection are welded together to create hope for a new world, one free of the oppression and conflict that is inherent in binary relationships. The dialectical model is contrapuntal by nature, Edward Said would say.1This relationship highlights our postmodern devotion to différence by embracing the tension created through inclusion so that "this is with that," "we are with them and they are with us," and "mind is with body, just as body is with mind."2Perhaps there is a fifth model, a new kind of relationship where the oppositional or hierarchical nature of binaries co-exists peacefully without tension. [End Page 104] Such an arrangement is, I think, an outgrowth of capitalist democracy—it is, most especially, representative of our global, information age. This type of relationship is problematic philosophically, we will see, lacking as Jorgensen has outlined "logic evidenced in principles," "internal consistency," and "coherence within a unity or whole." Likewise for Bennett Reimer, this new mind-set fails the test of philosophical scrutiny, unconcerned as it is with a "reasoned, structured set of propositions."3 Whether philosophy or mind-set, this new arrangement has as much to do with freedom and free markets as it does with the particular conditions of both modernity and postmodernity.In the novel, White Noise, by Don DeLillo, the postmodern condition is represented in part by an "Airborne Toxic Event," a cloud of gas, Nyodene D, which floats above a tranquil All-American college town.4 A sense of crisis is felt, but felt obliquely and no one knows exactly what harm has been done. In Albert Camus' The Plague, by contrast, the disease that infests the North African town of Oran acts to awaken its citizenry, confronting the populace with the moral imperatives to fight or flee.5 Perhaps the metaphor of quarantine symbolizes the hard boundaries of modernism.Capitalism seeks to dissolve conflict. It operates silently, in the realm of social production, like a cloud of gas. Denise, Jack Gladney's daughter in White Noise, mumbles over and over in her sleep, "Toyota Corolla, Toyota Celica, Toyota Cressida...."6 There is a sense of ontological change, that the expanding reach of media, information, and technology rewires the way we think, the way we dream. Tensions are willed away. The expansion and survival of market shares, after all, depend on the peaceful erosion of boundaries—boundaries that demarcate what we learn, what we buy, and who we are.Questions about what this new system means—this new mind-set—are explored in a book called Empire by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri.7 These writers posit a global world of communication, cooperation, and affect, where an increase in hybrids creates a kind of "omniversality" where the virtual, natural, and ideological converge.8 In the dialectical relationship that Jorgensen shares with writers like Paulo Freire and Maxine Greene, there is no acceptable synthesis, no peaceful co-existence, between oppressors and oppressed. While according to Freire, the oppressed may internalize or house characteristics of the oppressor. In the global world of capital, the oppositional nature of the Other is replaced by niches or fragments, dissolving differences into marketing opportunities, really. That the avant-garde no longer exists is proof of this new state.As the essentialist nature of the Other fades away... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 13.1 (2005) 104-108 [Access article in PDF] A Response to Estelle R. Jorgensen, "Four Philosophical Models of the Relationship Between Theory and Practice" Randall Everett Allsup Teachers College, Columbia University Each of the four philosophical models that Estelle Jorgensen has put forth contests, adheres to, or adjusts the hierarchical relationships between dualities, specifically the theory and practice of musical learning. The dichotomy model (...) faces binary associations head on, splitting existence however defined into dualisms like "this/that," "us/them," and "mind/body." Models of polarity, according to Jorgensen, accommodate dualities by buffering edges, emphasizing the interconnectedness of binary relationships. The fusion metaphor is exemplified by Paulo Freire's notion of praxis in which action and reflection are welded together to create hope for a new world, one free of the oppression and conflict that is inherent in binary relationships. The dialectical model is contrapuntal by nature, Edward Said would say.1This relationship highlights our postmodern devotion to différence by embracing the tension created through inclusion so that "this is with that," "we are with them and they are with us," and "mind is with body, just as body is with mind."2Perhaps there is a fifth model, a new kind of relationship where the oppositional or hierarchical nature of binaries co-exists peacefully without tension. [End Page 104] Such an arrangement is, I think, an outgrowth of capitalist democracy—it is, most especially, representative of our global, information age. This type of relationship is problematic philosophically, we will see, lacking as Jorgensen has outlined "logic evidenced in principles," "internal consistency," and "coherence within a unity or whole." Likewise for Bennett Reimer, this new mind-set fails the test of philosophical scrutiny, unconcerned as it is with a "reasoned, structured set of propositions."3 Whether philosophy or mind-set, this new arrangement has as much to do with freedom and free markets as it does with the particular conditions of both modernity and postmodernity.In the novel, White Noise, by Don DeLillo, the postmodern condition is represented in part by an "Airborne Toxic Event," a cloud of gas, Nyodene D, which floats above a tranquil All-American college town.4 A sense of crisis is felt, but felt obliquely and no one knows exactly what harm has been done. In Albert Camus' The Plague, by contrast, the disease that infests the North African town of Oran acts to awaken its citizenry, confronting the populace with the moral imperatives to fight or flee.5 Perhaps the metaphor of quarantine symbolizes the hard boundaries of modernism.Capitalism seeks to dissolve conflict. It operates silently, in the realm of social production, like a cloud of gas. Denise, Jack Gladney's daughter in White Noise, mumbles over and over in her sleep, "Toyota Corolla, Toyota Celica, Toyota Cressida...."6 There is a sense of ontological change, that the expanding reach of media, information, and technology rewires the way we think, the way we dream. Tensions are willed away. The expansion and survival of market shares, after all, depend on the peaceful erosion of boundaries—boundaries that demarcate what we learn, what we buy, and who we are.Questions about what this new system means—this new mind-set—are explored in a book called Empire by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri.7 These writers posit a global world of communication, cooperation, and affect, where an increase in hybrids creates a kind of "omniversality" where the virtual, natural, and ideological converge.8 In the dialectical relationship that Jorgensen shares with writers like Paulo Freire and Maxine Greene, there is no acceptable synthesis, no peaceful co-existence, between oppressors and oppressed. While according to Freire, the oppressed may internalize or house characteristics of the oppressor. In the global world of capital, the oppositional nature of the Other is replaced by niches or fragments, dissolving differences into marketing opportunities, really. That the avant-garde no longer exists is proof of this new state.As the essentialist nature of the Other fades away... (shrink)

Applying Thomas Aquinas’s account of the intellectual virtue of art to teaching yields valuable results both for those who wish to understand teaching better and those looking for models of the approach to virtue epistemology Roberts and Wood call “regulative.” To vindicate that claim, this article proceeds in four steps: First, I introduce Thomas’s taxonomy of the intellectual virtues in light of a pair of distinctions between practical and speculative knowledge and between immanent and transient operations. In the second section, (...) I consider teaching’s relation to each of Thomas’s intellectual virtues and argue that it belongs most properly to art. Next, I describe Thomas’s taxonomy of art by distinguishing among four cross-cutting categories that characterize species of that virtue. Finally, I outline an account of the art of teaching that treats it, with respect to those categories, as performative, deliberative, cooperative, and intersubjective. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Extraordinary Rendition:On Politics, Music, and Circular MeaningsRandall Everett AllsupThe purpose of this symposium is to look at music, education, and politics. I will begin with an examination of how musical meanings are politically rendered, and how these understandings are attached to moral consequences. Highly resistant to classification, musical meanings are those things we come to understand about ourselves through music, as opposed to musical knowledge which is demonstrable know-how. (...) While marching bands and flute sonatas can be judged with scores estimated to the 100th decimal point, the meanings that are created between the standards of practice of a given genre and the worldview of the listener or performer are provisional at best. Seen in this light, even seemingly secure or knowable realms like Christian heavy metal or anti-war movies are in fact highly un-objective and unpredictable. (More on Christian rock and movies in a moment). The challenge this paper seeks to uncover is participation on the hither side of fact, where understandings are rendered in a world that is contingent, political, and always in motion. What better example of the unclassifiable than the moving axes of politics and art?So what occurs between art and human or so-called "world" experience? [End Page 144] Let's agree that there is always motion, non-neutral, political movement in this interaction. We need not be students of French post-structuralism to recognize that we are part of many ever-evolving human-made systems, some of control, regulation, reward, punishment, and pleasure, but each with their own gravitation pull.1 I like Susan Sontag's take the best when she wrote that every place, every history has its own "sensibility," its own ineffable way of being in the world.2 Sensibilities—perhaps a clearer way of referring to politics in the context of art and experience—do not exist apart from their environment, yet they are more elusive than an idea or recognizable behavior.3 The sensibility of a time and place makes possible multiple discourses through which we make meaning.4 Some discourses, Foucault would remind us, are intensified by a history's particular sensibility and so appear louder than others. Such a discourse might speak so loudly that it shapes the meanings we make, drowning out options, and thus appearing obvious or commonsensical. The logic of musical assessment and evaluation—scoring marching bands and flute sonatas to the 100th decimal—is one such example.In spite of authoritative voices and reasonable discourses, each history's sensibility has its own escape routes, its own distortions and contradictions. I am fascinated by how we comply with or resist these pulls, as they are matters of agency and identity, matters of equity and social justice. In the present-day context of neo-liberalism and conservative values, especially 21st Century American fundamentalism, we would do well to ask how—not whether—such a fundamentalist sensibility shapes our ways of doing and knowing.5 My attempt is to locate music education in such a project.Shortly after the invasion of Iraq, I wrote a short piece on the fundamentalist imagination and its pull on the arts and education.6 This research took place at the 2003 MENC biennial where Bennett Reimer asks philosophy SRIG participants to consider (among other things) the role of metaphor in music education.7 I viewed the fundamentalist imagination as antithetical to metaphor: to paraphrase, the fundamentalist philosophy of education was "a philosophy for, not with, its initiates. Judgments are passed, not reached; answers are given, not argued... [Most importantly,] it is an educational method that emphasizes and then measures what is literal."8Since then, the voices of American literalism have appeared in increasingly loud volume seeking to discourage interpretation and argument in favor of handed-down teachings and binary logic. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia decries the folly of a "living" constitution, in favor of a strict or literal reading. Retired Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, in response to a common ground initiative by the late Joseph Bernadin, labels an appeal to "dialogue" a "fundamental flaw."9 Law sniffed, "Dissent from revealed truth or the authoritative [End Page 145] teaching of the church cannot... (shrink)

Applying Thomas Aquinas’s account of the intellectual virtue of art to teaching yields valuable results both for those who wish to understand teaching better and those looking for models of the approach to virtue epistemology Roberts and Wood call “regulative.” To vindicate that claim, this article proceeds in four steps: First, I introduce Thomas’s taxonomy of the intellectual virtues in light of a pair of distinctions between practical and speculative knowledge and between immanent and transient operations. In the second section, (...) I consider teaching’s relation to each of Thomas’s intellectual virtues and argue that it belongs most properly to art. Next, I describe Thomas’s taxonomy of art by distinguishing among four cross-cutting categories that characterize species of that virtue. Finally, I outline an account of the art of teaching that treats it, with respect to those categories, as performative, deliberative, cooperative, and intersubjective. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Extraordinary Rendition:On Politics, Music, and Circular MeaningsRandall Everett AllsupThe purpose of this symposium is to look at music, education, and politics. I will begin with an examination of how musical meanings are politically rendered, and how these understandings are attached to moral consequences. Highly resistant to classification, musical meanings are those things we come to understand about ourselves through music, as opposed to musical knowledge which is demonstrable know-how. (...) While marching bands and flute sonatas can be judged with scores estimated to the 100th decimal point, the meanings that are created between the standards of practice of a given genre and the worldview of the listener or performer are provisional at best. Seen in this light, even seemingly secure or knowable realms like Christian heavy metal or anti-war movies are in fact highly un-objective and unpredictable. (More on Christian rock and movies in a moment). The challenge this paper seeks to uncover is participation on the hither side of fact, where understandings are rendered in a world that is contingent, political, and always in motion. What better example of the unclassifiable than the moving axes of politics and art?So what occurs between art and human or so-called "world" experience? [End Page 144] Let's agree that there is always motion, non-neutral, political movement in this interaction. We need not be students of French post-structuralism to recognize that we are part of many ever-evolving human-made systems, some of control, regulation, reward, punishment, and pleasure, but each with their own gravitation pull.1 I like Susan Sontag's take the best when she wrote that every place, every history has its own "sensibility," its own ineffable way of being in the world.2 Sensibilities—perhaps a clearer way of referring to politics in the context of art and experience—do not exist apart from their environment, yet they are more elusive than an idea or recognizable behavior.3 The sensibility of a time and place makes possible multiple discourses through which we make meaning.4 Some discourses, Foucault would remind us, are intensified by a history's particular sensibility and so appear louder than others. Such a discourse might speak so loudly that it shapes the meanings we make, drowning out options, and thus appearing obvious or commonsensical. The logic of musical assessment and evaluation—scoring marching bands and flute sonatas to the 100th decimal—is one such example.In spite of authoritative voices and reasonable discourses, each history's sensibility has its own escape routes, its own distortions and contradictions. I am fascinated by how we comply with or resist these pulls, as they are matters of agency and identity, matters of equity and social justice. In the present-day context of neo-liberalism and conservative values, especially 21st Century American fundamentalism, we would do well to ask how—not whether—such a fundamentalist sensibility shapes our ways of doing and knowing.5 My attempt is to locate music education in such a project.Shortly after the invasion of Iraq, I wrote a short piece on the fundamentalist imagination and its pull on the arts and education.6 This research took place at the 2003 MENC biennial where Bennett Reimer asks philosophy SRIG participants to consider (among other things) the role of metaphor in music education.7 I viewed the fundamentalist imagination as antithetical to metaphor: to paraphrase, the fundamentalist philosophy of education was "a philosophy for, not with, its initiates. Judgments are passed, not reached; answers are given, not argued... [Most importantly,] it is an educational method that emphasizes and then measures what is literal."8Since then, the voices of American literalism have appeared in increasingly loud volume seeking to discourage interpretation and argument in favor of handed-down teachings and binary logic. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia decries the folly of a "living" constitution, in favor of a strict or literal reading. Retired Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, in response to a common ground initiative by the late Joseph Bernadin, labels an appeal to "dialogue" a "fundamental flaw."9 Law sniffed, "Dissent from revealed truth or the authoritative [End Page 145] teaching of the church cannot... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:In Memoriam: Bennett ReimerForest HansenIn late afternoon on January 9, 2014, family members, colleagues, former students, and other friends met at Northwestern University to reflect upon and honor the life of Bennett Reimer, who had died from cancer on November 18, 2013 at the age of 81. The printed program fittingly called it a “Memorial Celebration,” because that is what it was. Fine wine and savory hors (...) d’oeuvres were served, a woodwind quartet of Bienen School of Music graduate students played Reimer favorites, and Beth Hebert, Bennett’s life partner of 27 years, greeted every person as they entered the hall. Reimer would have approved of the exuberant tastefulness of the event. He would probably have blushed and demurred, however, when in the formal part of the program his colleagues, daughters, and former students praised him in recalling specific occasions of his mentoring, inspiring, modeling, guiding, collaborating, and originating. (In his writing Reimer loved such extensive discriminatory lists.) Included among the expressions of respect and affection were these words by Estelle Jorgensen, who could not be present, read by Randall Allsup: [End Page 101]We have lost a wonderful person who lived life richly and made an outstanding contribution to the field of music education and beyond. In honor of his work as a philosopher of music education, among the many facets of his professional life, the Philosophy of Music Education Review will have a special issue devoted to the ideas that he left us, contributed by prominent music educational leaders and writers. Such moments of professional loss leave a rent in our midst that can never quite be patched. Along with our sorrow is our memory of the joy, idealism, and hope that characterized his lived life. We cling collectively to the memories of the blessings he brought us in simply being Bennett.Reimer was born on June 19, 1932 in Brooklyn, where he grew up. He earned a B.S. in music education in 1954 at SUNY at Fredonia and an M.S. (1955) and Ed.D. (1963) at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His teaching career started at the Richmond Professional Institute of the College of William and Mary (1955–57) and continued at Madison College (Harrisburg VA) (1958–1960) and the University of Illinois (1960–65). At Case Western Reserve University (1965–1978), he became chair of the Music Education Department and holder of the Kulas Endowed Chair in Music. Then at Northwestern University he held the John W. Beattie Chair in Music from 1978 until his retirement in 1997. He chaired the Music Education Department there, directed the doctoral program in music education, and founded and directed the Center for the Study of Education and the Musical Experience—a weekly research forum for graduate students and faculty. Although Reimer had started out as an instructor in clarinet and oboe, musical theory, conducting, and music appreciation, he became a scholar, teacher, and lecturer in the new field of philosophy of music education with a worldwide following and reputation.Reimer was most noted for his seminal A Philosophy of Music Education (1970), which can fittingly be described as the founding document of the discipline. Typically he made revisions for the second edition in 1989 and more radical ones for the third edition in 2003, retitled as A Philosophy of Music Education: Advancing the Vision. This work has been translated into French, Japanese, and Chinese, and, forthcoming, Greek. He was associated with PMER and the International Society for Philosophy of Music Education (ISPME) from their beginnings in 1990.Besides his seminal works, Reimer wrote or co-wrote another twenty books and more than 150 articles, reviews, and book chapters. A few of his book titles indicate the range of his thought, from his early and widely used textbooks The Experience of Music (1971) for college students and Silver Burdett Music for grades 1–8 to his more recent Performing with Understanding: The Challenge of the National Standards for Musical Education (2000), World Musics and Music [End Page 102] Education: Facing the Issues (2002), and Seeking the Significance of Music Education (2009). He was an active participant and leader in a host of other music... (shrink)

This second edition of Life Science Ethics includes four essays not found in the first edition: Richard Haynes on “Animals in Research” Stephen M. Gardiner on “Climate Change” Christopher Kelty on “Nanotechnology” Gary Comstock on “Genetically Modified Foods” and a revised and expanded version of the chapter on “Farms” in which Stephen Carpenter joins Charles Taliaferro as author. In addition, Part III has been thoroughly revised with the goal of focusing attention on salient examples. Three new case studies have been (...) added: Robert Streiffer and Sara Gavrell Ortiz on “Enviropigs” Donald F. Boesch, et al. on “Coastal Dead Zones” Deb Bennett-Woods on “Nanotechnology and Human Enhancement” The first edition was praised for providing instructors with a stimulating text that will help students hone their critical thinking skills. That text is here enhanced with treatments of critical new issues, including global warming, nanotechnology, and the possibility that bioengineering may be able to change human nature. The new edition includes classroom discussion questions for use in provoking and guiding in-class discussions. Part I introduces ethics, the relationship of religion to ethics, how we assess ethical arguments, and a method ethicists use to reason about ethical theories. Part II demonstrates the relevance of ethical reasoning to the environment, land, farms, food, biotechnology, genetically modified foods, animals in agriculture and research, climate change, and nanotechnology. Part III presents case studies for the topics found in Part II. Two appendices include exercises to help students learn systematic ways of thinking through ethical dilemmas and notes for instructors using the book as a text. (shrink)

Various as these are, they have enough in common for them all to count as events, and in recent years philosophers have turned their attention to this..

In this paper1 I shall present not just the conscience of Huckleberry Finn but two others as well. One of them is the conscience of Heinrich Himmler. He became a Nazi in 1923; he served drably and quietly, but well, and was rewarded with increasing responsibility and power. At the peak of his career he held many offices and commands, of which the most powerful was that of leader of the S.S. - the principal police force of the Nazi regime. (...) In this capacity, Himmler commanded the whole concentration-camp system, and was responsible for the execution of the so-called ‘final solution of the Jewish problem’. It is important for my purposes that this piece of social engineering should be thought of not abstractly but in concrete terms of Jewish families being marched to what they think are bath-houses, to the accompaniment of loud-speaker renditions of extracts from The Merry Widow and Tales of Hoffman, there to be choked to death by poisonous gases. Altogether, Himmler succeeded in murdering about four and a half million of them, as well as several million gentiles, mainly Poles and Russians. The other conscience to be discussed is that of the Calvinist theologian and philosopher Jonathan Edwards. He lived in the first half of the eighteenth century, and has a good claim to be considered America’s first serious and considerable philosophical thinker. He was for many years a widely-renowned preacher and Congregationalist minister in New England; in 1748 a dispute with his congregation led him to resign (he couldn’t accept their view that unbelievers should be admitted to the Lord’s Supper in the hope that it would convert them); for some years after that he worked as a missionary, preaching to Indians through an interpreter;, then in 1758 he accepted the presidency of what is now Princeton University, and within two months died from a smallpox inoculation. Along the way he wrote some first-rate philosophy: his book attacking the notion of free will is still sometimes read.. (shrink)

Anti-realism about the foundations of logic are curiously absent from the literature. This is especially striking given natural analogies with moral anti-realis.

Expressivists explain the expression relation which obtains between sincere moral assertion and the conative or affective attitude thereby expressed by appeal to the relation which obtains between sincere assertion and belief. In fact, they often explicitly take the relation between moral assertion and their favored conative or affective attitude to be exactly the same as the relation between assertion and the belief thereby expressed. If this is correct, then we can use the identity of the expression relation in the two (...) cases to test the expressivist account as a descriptive or hermeneutic account of moral discourse. I formulate one such test, drawing on a standard explanation of Moore's paradox. I show that if expressivism is correct as a descriptive account of moral discourse, then we should expect versions of Moore's paradox where we explicitly deny that we possess certain affective or conative attitudes. I then argue that the constructions that mirror Moore's paradox are not incoherent. It follows that expressivism is either incorrect as a hermeneutic account of moral discourse or that the expression relation which holds between sincere moral assertion and affective or conative attitudes is not identical to the relation which holds between sincere non-moral assertion and belief. A number of objections are canvassed and rejected. (shrink)

We report two experimental studies of human perceptions of robotic facial expressions while systematically varying context effects and the cultural background of subjects. Except for Fear, East Asian and Western subjects were not significantly different in recognition rates, and, while Westerners were better at judging affect from mouth movement alone, East Asians were not any better at judging affect based on eye/brow movement alone. Moreover, context effects appeared capable of over-riding such cultural differences, most notably for Fear. The results seem (...) to run counter to previous theories of cultural differences in facial expression based on emoticons and eye fixation patterns. We connect this to broader research in cognitive science – suggesting the findings support a dynamical systems view of social cognition as an emergent phenomenon. The results here suggest that, if we can induce appropriate context effects, it may be possible to createculture-neutral modelsof robots and affective interaction. (shrink)

A natural suggestion and increasingly popular account of how to revise our logical beliefs treats revision of logic analogously to the revision of scientific theories. I investigate this approach and argue that simple applications of abductive methodology to logic result in revision-cycles, developing a detailed case study of an actual dispute with this property. This is problematic if we take abductive methodology to provide justification for revising our logical framework. I then generalize the case study, pointing to similarities with more (...) recent and popular heterodox logics such as naïve logics of truth. I use this discussion to motivate a constraint—logical partisanhood—on the uses of such methodology: roughly: both the proposed alternative and our actual background logic must be able to agree that moving to the alternative logic is no worse than staying put. (shrink)

This paper explores the wartime creation of veterinary expertise in cattle breeding, and its contribution to the transition between two very different types of agriculture. During the interwar period, falling prices and steep competition from imports caused farmers to adopt a ‘low input, low output’ approach. To cut costs, they usually butchered, marketed or doctored diseased cows in preference to seeking veterinary aid. World War II forced a greater dependence on domestic food production, and inspired wide-ranging state-directed attempts to increase (...) agricultural output. However, the weak connection between veterinary services and livestock productivity meant that the drive for greater milk yields did not automatically translate into a demand for improved veterinary health care. Rather veterinary expertise had to be actively created and made relevant to the new context. Leaders of the profession secured this goal through establishing a government-backed ‘scheme for the control of certain diseases of dairy cows’. Drawing on pre-existing but rarely applied reproductive technologies, the scheme provided the opportunities and education necessary for more extensive veterinary interventions in cattle breeding. I show how its operation transformed understandings of fertility, raised veterinarians to the status of experts, won them the patronage of farmers and the state, and facilitated the shift to a productivity-oriented agriculture. (shrink)

I argue that we can and should extend Tarski's model-theoretic criterion of logicality to cover indefinite expressions like Hilbert's ɛ operator, Russell's indefinite description operator η, and abstraction operators like 'the number of'. I draw on this extension to discuss the logical status of both abstraction operators and abstraction principles.

Sometimes a fact can play a role in a grounding explanation, but the particular content of that fact make no difference to the explanation—any fact would do in its place. I call these facts vacuous grounds. I show that applying the distinction between-vacuous grounds allows us to give a principled solution to Kit Fine and Stephen Kramer’s paradox of ground. This paradox shows that on minimal assumptions about grounding and minimal assumptions about logic, we can show that grounding is reflexive, (...) contra the intuitive character of grounds. I argue that we should never have accepted that grounding is irreflexive in the first place; the intuitions that support the irreflexive intuition plausibly only require that grounding be non-vacuously irreflexive. Fine and Kramer’s paradox relies, essentially, on a case of vacuous grounding and is thus no problem for this account. (shrink)

I argue that certain species of belief, such as mathematical, logical, and normative beliefs, are insulated from a form of Harman-style debunking argument whereas moral beliefs, the primary target of such arguments, are not. Harman-style arguments have been misunderstood as attempts to directly undermine our moral beliefs. They are rather best given as burden-shifting arguments, concluding that we need additional reasons to maintain our moral beliefs. If we understand them this way, then we can see why moral beliefs are vulnerable (...) to such arguments while mathematical, logical, and normative beliefs are not—the very construction of Harman-style skeptical arguments requires the truth of significant fragments of our mathematical, logical, and normative beliefs, but requires no such thing of our moral beliefs. Given this property, Harman-style skeptical arguments against logical, mathematical, and normative beliefs are self-effacing; doubting these beliefs on the basis of such arguments results in the loss of our reasons for doubt. But we can cleanly doubt the truth of morality. (shrink)

John Woods' The Logic of Fiction, now thirty-five years old, is a ground-breaking event in the establishment of the semantics of fiction as a stand-alone research programme in the philosophies of language and logic. There is now a large literature about these matters, but Woods' book retains a striking freshness, and still serves as a convincing template of the treatment options for the field's key problems. The book now appears in a second edition with a new Foreword by (...) Nicholas Griffin and an extended bibliography covering the period 1969-2009. As Griffin notes in his Foreword, it is "surprising on looking back to discover how little was written on the semantics of fiction before John Woods' The Logic of Fiction was published in 1974. The surprise is the greater because Woods' book appeared after almost a quarter century of fierce philosophical debate about reference Fictional discourse, one would have thought, would be an important testing ground for philosophical theories of referential expressions and one, moreover, in which the standard theories would likely be tested to destruction. " " One of the great merits of Woods' book is that it takes seriously the wide-ranging demands that fiction imposes on logic and semantics, and does not try to force fiction into some pre-conceived logical mould. but thanks to Woods' pioneering efforts, we are much closer to one now than we were when he set out to write his book. His book was not the last word on the logic of fiction; it was much more important: it was nearly the first." NICHOLAS GRIFFIN is Canada Research Chair in Philosophy at McMaster University. Recent publications include Russell vs Meinong: The Legacy of "On Denoting," edited with Dale Jacquette. JOHN WOODS is Director of the Abductive Systems Group at the University of British Columbia and Charles S. Peirce Visiting Professor of Logic in the Group on Logic and Computational Science, King's College London. He has two forthcoming books on fiction - an edited volume, Fictions and Models: New Essays, and a research monograph, Sherlock's Member: New Perspectives on the Semantics of Fiction, both to appear in 2010. (shrink)

According to Schopenhauer’s compensation argument for pessimism, the non-existence of the world is preferable to its existence because no goods can ever compensate for the mere existence of evil. Standard interpretations take this argument to be based on Schopenhauer’s thesis that all goods are merely the negation of evils, from which they assume it follows that the apparent goods in life are in fact empty and without value. This article develops a non-standard variant of the standard interpretation, which accepts the (...) relevance of the negativity thesis but rejects that the argument assumes that life’s goods are all empty and valueless. Instead, it argues that whatever value negative goods might possess, they do not have the kind of value to compensate for positive evils. This involves additional development of the negativity thesis and a defence of it against objections from Byron Simmons (2021). (shrink)

We examined Confucian moral philosophy, primarily the Analects, to determine how Confucian ethics could help managers regulate their own behavior (self-regulation) to maintain an ethical standard of practice. We found that some Confucian virtues relevant to self-regulation are common to Western concepts of management ethics such as benevolence, righteousness, wisdom, and trustworthiness. Some are relatively unique, such as ritual propriety and filial piety. We identify seven Confucian principles and discuss how they apply to achieving ethical self-regulation in management. In addition, (...) we examined some of the unique Confucian practices to achieve self-regulation including ritual and music. We balanced the framework by exploring the potential problems in applying Confucian principles to develop ethical self-regulation including whistle blowing. Confucian moral philosophy offers an indigenous Chinese theoretical framework for developing ethical self-regulation in managers. This is relevant for managers and those who relate to managers in Confucian-oriented societies, such as China, Korea, Japan, and Singapore. We recommend further research to examine if the application of the Confucian practices outlined here actually work in regulating the ethical behavior of managers in modern organizations. (shrink)

In a world plagued by disagreement and conflict one might expect that the exact sciences of logic and mathematics would provide a safe harbor. In fact these disciplines are rife with internal divisions between different, often incompatible, systems. Do these disagreements admit of resolution? Can such resolution be achieved without disturbing assumptions that the theorems of logic and mathematics state objective truths about the real world? In this original and historically rich book John Woods explores apparently intractable disagreements in (...) logic and the foundations of mathematics and sets out conflict resolution strategies that evade or disarm these stalemates. An important sub-theme of the book is the extent to which pluralism in logic and the philosophy of mathematics undermines realist assumptions. This book makes an important contribution to such areas of philosophy as logic, philosophy of language and argumentation theory. It will also be of interest to mathematicians and computer scientists. (shrink)

In all three of its manifestations, —abusive, circumstantial and tu quoque—the role of the ad hominem is to raise a doubt about the opposite party’s casemaking bona-fides.Provided that it is both presumptive and provisional, drawing such a conclusion is not a logical mistake, hence not a fallacy on the traditional conception of it. More remarkable is the role of the ad hominem retort in seeking the reassurance of one’s opponent when, on the face of it, reassurance is precisely what he (...) would seem to be ill-placed to give. Brief concluding remarks are given over to an examination of rival approaches to the ad hominem, especially those in which it is conceived of as a dialectical error. (shrink)

Contentless experience involves an absence of mental content such as thought, perception, and mental imagery. In academic work it has been classically treated as including states like those aimed for in Shamatha, Transcendental, and Stillness Meditation. We have used evidence synthesis to select and review 135 expert texts from within the three traditions. In this paper we identify the features of contentless experience referred to in the expert texts and determine whether the experiences are the same or different across the (...) practices with respect to each feature. We identify 65 features reported or implied in one or more practices, with most being reported or implied in all three. While there are broad similarities in the experiences across the traditions, we find that there are differences with respect to four features and possibly many others. The main difference identified is that Shamatha involves substantially greater attentional stability and vividness. Another key finding is that numerous forms of content are present in the experiences, including wakefulness, naturalness, calm, bliss/joy, and freedom. The findings indicate that meditation experiences described as contentless in the academic literature can in fact involve considerable variation, and that in many and perhaps most cases these experiences are not truly contentless. This challenges classical understandings in academic research that in these so-called contentless experiences all content is absent, and that the experiences are therefore an identical state of _pure consciousness_ or consciousness itself. Our assessment is that it remains an open question whether the experiences aimed for in the three practices should be classed as pure consciousness. Implications of our analysis for neuroscientific and clinical studies and for basic understandings of the practices are discussed. (shrink)

I distinguish two ways of developing anti-exceptionalist approaches to logical revision. The first emphasizes comparing the theoretical virtuousness of developed bodies of logical theories, such as classical and intuitionistic logic. I'll call this whole theory comparison. The second attempts local repairs to problematic bits of our logical theories, such as dropping excluded middle to deal with intuitions about vagueness. I'll call this the piecemeal approach. I then briefly discuss a problem I've developed elsewhere for comparisons of logical theories. Essentially, the (...) problem is that a pair of logics may each evaluate the alternative as superior to themselves, resulting in oscillation between logical options. The piecemeal approach offers a way out of this problem andthereby might seem a preferable to whole theory comparisons. I go on to show that reflective equilibrium, the best known piecemeal method, has deep problems of its own when applied to logic. (shrink)

Anyone seriously interested in Aristotle's moral philosophy must take full account of the Eudemian Ethics, a work which has in the past been unduly neglected in favour of the Nicomachean Ethics. The relation between the two treatises is now the subject of lively debate. This volume contains a translation of three of the eight books of the Eudemian Ethics - those that are likely to be of most interest to philosophers today - together with a philosophical commentary on these books (...) from a contemporary point of view. Like the other volumes in the series, it is intended to serve the needs of readers of Aristotle without a knowledge of Greek, and the aim in the translation has been to give as accurate an idea as possible of Aristotle's text; but for the benefit of those who are able to read the original there are notes on the Greek text used for problematic passages. In preparing this new edition Michael Woods has made use of the much improved text of the Eudemian Ethics that has recently been published as an Oxford Classical Text, and has taken into consideration recent philosophical work on Aristotle's ethics. The Clarendon Aristotle Series is designed for both students and professionals. It provides accurate translations of selected Aristotelian texts, accompanied by incisive commentaries which focus on philosophical problems and issues. The volumes in the series have been widely welcomed and favourably reviewed. Important new titles are being added to the series, and a number of well-established volumes are being reissued with revisions and/or supplementary material. (shrink)

Theatrical characters’ dual existence on stage and in text presents a unique, challenging case for the analytical philosopher. -/- Analytic Philosophy and the World of the Play re-examines the ontological status of theatre and its fictional objects through the "possible worlds" thesis, arguing that theatre is not a mirror of our world, but a re-creation of it. Taking a fresh look at theatre’s key elements, including the hotly contested relationships between character and actor; onstage and offstage "worlds"; and the play-text (...) and performance, Michael Y. Bennett presents a radical new way of understanding the world of the play. (shrink)

This is an opinionated overview of the Frege-Geach problem, in both its historical and contemporary guises. Covers Higher-order Attitude approaches, Tree-tying, Gibbard-style solutions, and Schroeder's recent A-type expressivist solution.

I investigate syntactic notions of theoretical equivalence between logical theories and a recent objection thereto. I show that this recent criticism of syntactic accounts, as extensionally inadequate, is unwarranted by developing an account which is plausibly extensionally adequate and more philosophically motivated. This is important for recent anti-exceptionalist treatments of logic since syntactic accounts require less theoretical baggage than semantic accounts.

Conditionals has at its center an extended essay on this problematic and much-debated subject in the philosophy of language and logic, which the widely respected Oxford philosopher Michael Woods had been preparing for publication at the time of his death in 1993. It appears here edited by his eminent colleague David Wiggins, and is accompanied by a commentary specially written by a leading expert on the topic, Dorothy Edgington. This masterly and original treatment of conditionals will demand the attention (...) of all philosophers working in this area. (shrink)

The study assesses how a social desirability (SD) bias influences the relationship between several independent and dependent variables commonly investigated in ethics research. The effect of a SD bias was observed when a questionnaire was administered under varying conditions of anonymity and with different measurement techniques for the SD construct. Findings reveal that a SD bias is present in the majority of relationships studied, and it most frequently plays a moderating role. While the measure of SD influences the strength and (...) type of relationship, condition of anonymity has relatively little effect on the level of SD. (shrink)