Traditional views on philosophical methodology characterize our primary philosophical goal as production of a successful conceptual analysis. The notion of conceptual analysis, however, faces several challenges—from experimental philosophy to more traditional worries such as the paradox of analysis. This paper explores an alternate approach, commonly called conceptual engineering, which aims at recommending conceptual revisions. An important question for the conceptual engineer is as follows: what counts as a case of successful conceptual engineering? What sorts of revisions are permitted, and what (...) sorts are too revisionary? In this paper I examine ‘functional’ approaches to conceptual engineering, ultimately arguing for a ‘radical’ functionalism according to which even revisions which ‘change the subject’ are permitted, and successful re-engineering is constrained only by the requirement that continuity in needed functions of a pre-engineering concept be maintained somewhere in the postengineering conceptual scheme. I further argue that this approach suggests a heightened role, in metaphilosophical discourse, for a neglected epistemic goal—conceptual efficacy. (shrink)

In 1907, Alfred Stieglitz took what was to become one of his signature photographs, The Steerage. Stieglitz stood at the rear of the ocean liner Kaiser Wilhelm II and photographed the decks, first-class passengers above and steerage passengers below, carefully exposing the film to their reflected light. Later, in the darkroom, Stieglitz developed this film and made a number of prints from the resulting negative. The photograph is a familiar one, an enduring piece of social commentary, but what exactly is (...) The Steerage which Stieglitz has given us? It is clearer what The Steerage is not. It is distinct from each of its prints and from its negative. These may be dusty or torn without The Steerage being so, and any one of these could be destroyed without thereby destroying The Steerage itself. Nor is The Steerage the set of its prints. The set could not have had different members, while The Steerage could have had more, fewer, or different prints.1 Similar reasoning rules out the mereological sum of parts of its actual prints, for The Steerage’s prints might not have comprised just these parts. We are left with a puzzle, what sort of thing is a photograph? This puzzle is not unique to photography. Similar reasoning generates an analogous puzzle for any repeatable work of art. Novels, poems, plays, symphonies, songs, and the rest share an ontological predicament and create a 1 general puzzle concerning the ontological status of repeatable works of art. It is widely held that the puzzle has an equally general solution, one which I will argue fails for systematic reasons. Although my target here is the supposed solution to the general problem, photography will remain the central case under scrutiny. I offer it as a model for our thinking about the wider class in order to reap the benefits of thinking in terms of concrete cases. Although this risks a trade-off with the generality of my conclusions—there are important differences of detail between the cases—I hope it is clear that the considerations I appeal to in photography are not idiosyncratic but shared by the wider class.. (shrink)

Winning essay of the American Society for Aesthetics' inaugural Peter Kivy Prize. Extends Kivy's notion of sonic picturing through engagement with recent work in philosophy of perception. Argues that sonic pictures are more widespread and more aesthetically and artistically important than even Kivy envisioned. Topics discussed include: the nature of sonic pictures; the nature of sounds; what we can (and more importantly, cannot) conclude from musical listening; sonic pictures in film; beatboxing as an art of sonic picturing; and cover songs (...) as sonic pictures. To be published in the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. (shrink)

I argue that the work of art in rock music is a track constructed in the studio, that tracks usually manifest songs, which can be performed live, and that a cover version is a track (successfully) intended to manifest the same song as some other track. This ontology reflects the way informed audiences talk about rock. It recognizes not only the centrality of recorded tracks to the tradition, as discussed by Theodore Gracyk, but also the value accorded to live performance (...) skills, emphasized by Stephen Davies. (shrink)

Philosophers should listen to punk rock. Though largely ignored in analytic aesthetics, punk can shed light on the nature, limits, and value of art. Here, I will begin with an overview of punk aesthetics and then extrapolate two lessons. First, punk intentionally violates widely held aesthetic norms, thus raising questions about the plasticity of taste. Second, punk music is associated with accompanying visual styles, fashion, and attitudes; this points to a relationship between art and identity. Together, these lessons suggest that (...) art appreciation is not just about finding beauty or aesthetic worth but is also about constructing a self. (shrink)

Cover versions form a loose but identifiable category of tracks and performances. We distinguish four kinds of covers and argue that they mark important differences in the modes of evaluation that are possible or appropriate for each: mimic covers, which aim merely to echo the canonical track; rendition covers, which change the sound of the canonical track; transformative covers, which diverge so much as to instantiate a distinct, albeit derivative song; and referential covers, which not only instantiate a distinct song, (...) but for which the new song is in part about the original song. In order to allow for the very possibility of transformative and referential covers, we argue that a cover is characterized by relation to a canonical track rather than merely by being a new instance of a song that had been recorded previously. (shrink)

A number of attempts have been made to construct a plausible ontology of rock music. Each of these ontologies identifies a single type of ontological entity as the “work” in rock music. Yet, all the suggestions advanced to date fail to capture some important considerations about how we engage with music of this tradition. This prompted Lee Brown to advocate a healthy skepticism of higher-order musical ontologies. I argue here that we should instead embrace a pluralist ontology of rock, an (...) ontology that recognizes more than one kind of entity as “the work” in rock music. I contend that this approach has a number of advantages over other ontologies of rock, including that of allowing us to make some comparisons across ontological kinds. (shrink)

This article claims that there is no in principle aesthetic difference between a live performance and a recording of that performance, and as such, performance individuation ought to be revised to reflect this. We ought to regard performances as types able to be instantiated both by live performances and by recordings of those performances, or we ought to abandon performances qua aesthetic objects.

Christy Mag Uidhir has recently argued (a) that there is no in principle aesthetic difference between a live performance and a recording of that performance, and (b) that the proper aesthetic object is a type which is instantiated by the performance and potentially repeatable when recordings are played back. This paper considers several objections to (a) and finds them lacking. I then consider improvised music, a subject that Mag Uidhir explicitly brackets in his discussion. Improvisation reveals problems with (b), because (...) the performance-event and the performance-type are distinct but equally proper aesthetic objects. (shrink)

Accounts of the ontology of musical works seek to uncover what metaphysically speaking a musical work is and how we should identify instances of musical works. In this article, I examine the curious case of the mash-up and seek to address two questions: are mash-ups musical works in their own right and what is the relationship between the mash-up and its source materials? As mash-ups are part of the broader tradition of rock, I situate this discussion within an ontology of (...) rock as defended by Theodore Gracyk and Stephen Davies and offer some interpretation as to what their positions might be in regard to mash-ups. Finally, I argue that the account of mash-ups that best makes sense of our evaluative practices would hold that they are emergent musical works that are distinct in their own right and yet also happen to be cases of musical works that instantiate parts of other musical works. (shrink)

-/- Because species names play an important role in scientific communication, it is more important that species be understood to be taxa than that they be equated with functional ecological or evolutionary entities. Although most biologists would agree that taxa are composed of organisms that share a unique common history, 2 major challenges remain in developing a species-as-taxa concept. First, grouping: in the face of genealogical discordance at all levels in the taxonomic hierarchy, how can we understand the nature of (...) taxa? Second, ranking: what criteria should be used to designate certain taxa in a nested series as being species? The grouping problem can be solved by viewing taxa as exclusive groups of organisms— sets of organisms that form a clade for a plurality of the genome (more than any conflicting set). However, no single objective criterion of species rank can be proposed. Instead, the species rank should be assigned by practitioners based on the semisubjective application of a set of species-ranking criteria. Although these criteria can be designed to yield species taxa that approximately match the ecological, evolutionary, and morphological entities that taxonomists have traditionally associated with the species rank, such a correspondence cannot be enforced without undermining the assumption that species are taxa. The challenge and art of monography is to use genealogical and other kinds of data to assign all organisms to one and only one species-ranked taxon. Various implications of the species-as-ranked-taxa view are discussed, including the synchronic nature of taxa, fossil species, the treatment of hybrids, and species nomenclature. I conclude that, although challenges remain, adopting the view that species are ranked taxa will facilitate a much-needed revolution in taxonomy that will allow it to better serve the biodiversity informatic needs of the 21st century. (shrink)