What reasons stand in favor of (or against) violent resistance to oppression? I distinguish two kinds of normative reasons that bear relevantly in such a practical deliberation. I argue that in addition to reasons of impartial morality, victims’ personal projects and relationships may also provide reasons for (or against) violent resistance. Moreover, there is no guarantee that conflicts will not occur between such reasons. Thus, some acts of violent resistance may arise from situations of radical choice in which impartial moral (...) reasons and personal reasons pull the agent in opposite directions. Regardless of what we ultimately think agents facing such decisions ought to do all things considered, recognizing such conflicts is crucial for understanding the circumstances that give rise to violence and for better sympathizing with victims who are pushed to such extreme modes of resistance. (shrink)

Introduction to Marsilio Ficino's Philosophy (English translation): Intellectual Development: The Discovery of a Philosophical Gift. The Organic Worldview: Man as "Intellectual Hero." Psychology: The Soul as "the Midpoint of Everything." Epistemology: The Mind as "Infinite Power." Metaphysics: The Mind-Soul as "Intellect and Will." Aesthetics: The Soul as "Artist." Reception and Updated Bibliography (selection).

The goal of the study is to analyse the relation between students' digital learning and transversal skills, as well as between students' digital learning and virtues. In the correlative study, 73 teachers of Class 12 of general education institutions participated, filling out a questionnaire in the Google Docs environment. As a result of the theoretical analysis, the criteria for digital learning have been identified -access to digital technologies, cooperation, teachers’ digital competence and availability of activities in compliance with cognitive engagement (...) levels. The findings of the correlation analysis show that the availability of activities in compliance with cognitive engagement levels is the most important in the development of transversal skills,while in the inculcation of virtues -cooperation. The access to digital technologies has a statistically significant correlation with both transversal skills and virtues. The teachers’ digital competence promotes digital literacy and such virtues as responsibility and wisdom. The recommendations developed as part of the study include compilation and promotion of the positive experiences of digital learning at the state and local government level; continuous monitoring and feedback analysis of purposeful digital learning and educational quality at school and classroom level; the application of digital learning resources based on the offer of activities in compliance with the students' cognitive engagement levels at the personal level. Keywords:Digital technologies, cooperation, digital competence, cognitive engagement. (shrink)

Wissenschaftliches Fehlverhalten ist in der Forschungspraxis omnipräsent und hinterlässt Spuren: Dies kann einerseits mit der Tatsache zusammenhängen, dass die Forschenden unter einem enormen Zeitdruck stehen und die Qualität der wissenschaftlichen Publikationen darunter leidet. Andererseits schließt der Begriff auch Datenmanipulationen aller Art ein, die nicht mehr mit Irrtum zu begründen sind, sondern mit Vorsatz. Solche Fälle sind immer wieder zu beobachten, aber sie werden in den Medien trotz eines starken Anstiegs von Retractions seit der Jahrtausendwende nicht ausreichend diskutiert. Um diesem Phänomen (...) mehr Raum zu geben und entsprechende Ansätze und Lösungen zu finden, wie mit Verstößen gegen die gute wissenschaftliche Praxis verfahren werden kann, die nachweislich an Hochschulen in Deutschland festgestellt wurden, unternimmt die vorliegende Studie den Versuch wissenschaftliche Bibliotheken als Dienstleister in diesen Klärungsprozess einzubeziehen, indem sie deren Rollen und Möglichkeiten erörtert. Zu diesem Zweck wurden Expert*innen befragt, die sich in ihrer Berufspraxis mit akademischer Integrität beschäftigen. Anschließend wurden die Expert*inneninterviews mit gängigen Methoden der qualitativen Sozialforschung ausgewertet, die Aufschluss über mögliche Herausforderungen und Chancen geben. (shrink)

English translation of paper title: Action and Passion in the Renaissance. The Womanly and the Manly in Agrippa, Postel, and Bovelles. This paper uses the philosophy of Nicholas of Cusa and the Querelle des Femmes as historic backgrounds for how Agrippa of Nettesheim, Guillaum Postel, and Charles de Bovelles reconcile the notions of "male" and "female" in their respective philosophies.

This paper aims to show that the idea of a female friendship in Ancient Greece and Rome is possible, even in terms of an “ideal” friendship, i.e. form of a friendship ancient philosophers aspired to. The author of this paper will elucidate the position of women in Greece and Rome and points out that various women actively participated in the work of the philosophical schools and women’s societies. In accordance with the philosophical ideals, “ideal,” “perfect” or “genuine” friends could only (...) be those who possess or at least strive for moral virtue (ἀρετή), while education (παιδεία) was seen as a precondition for acquiring moral virtue. Having in mind that various women met that precondition, it is emphasized that the ideal friendship could be ascribed not only to virtuous men but also to virtuous women. Thus, educated women could potentially be both, “ideal” and “ordinary” friends. (shrink)

У статті здійснено огляд українського законодавства і міжнародних зобов’язань України щодо забезпечення ґендерної рівності у Збройних силах України (ЗСУ). Наголошено на аспектах ґендерної політики в інститутах освіти і медіа, які важливі також і для військової політики. Охарактеризовано основні результати серії соціологічних досліджень із циклу «Невидимий батальйон», виокремлено успіхи і проблеми на шляху до інтеграції жінок у ЗСУ протягом останніх десяти років війни, починаючи з антитерористичної операції (АТО). Поступове подолання явища вертикальної і горизонтальної ґендерної сегрегації у військовій сфері, відхід від патерналістської (...) ґендерної політики, надання формального доступу жінок до всіх бойових спеціальностей і до військової освіти зазначено серед успішних результатів політики забезпечення рівних прав і можливостей у ЗСУ. Задля професійної інтеграції жінок у ЗСУ потрібно вирішити такі нагальні проблеми, як брак чіткого механізму реагувань на явища сексуальних домагань, розуміння потреб жінок як бійчинь (впровадження ґендерно чутливого підходу), більша видимість жінок серед військової еліти та експертного військового середовища. На основі репрезентативного для українського населення опитування з’ясовано громадську думку про забезпечення ґендерної рівності у військовій сфері станом на 2018 і 2023 рр. Ідеться про підтримку ідеї працевлаштування жінок нарівні з чоловіками у Збройних силах України, армію як професійну сферу з рівним доступом жінок і чоловіків. Згідно з результатами опитування, більшість як чоловіків, так і жінок готові чинити збройний опір, щоб зупинити російську окупацію України. (shrink)

Are democratic states permitted to denationalize citizens, in particular those whom they believe pose dangers to the physical safety of others? In this article, I argue that they are not. The power to denationalize citizens—that is, to revoke citizenship—is one that many states have historically claimed for themselves, but which has largely been in disuse in the last several decades. Recent terrorist events have, however, prompted scholars and political actors to reconsider the role that denationalization can and perhaps should play (...) in democratic states, in particular with respect to its role in protecting national security and in supporting the global fight against terror more generally. In this article, my objective is to show that denationalization laws have no place in democratic states. To understand why, I propose examining the foundations of the right of citizenship, which lie, I shall argue, in the very strong interests that individuals have in security of residence. I use this formulation of the right to respond to two broad clusters of arguments: (1) those that claim that it is justifiable to denationalize citizens who threaten to undermine the safety of citizens in a democratic state or the ability of a democratic state to function as a democratic state, and (2) those that claim that it is justifiable to denationalize dual citizens because they possess citizenship status in a second country that is also able to protect their rights. (shrink)

This paper illuminates the conversational functions of the combination of creaky voice quality and the response token yeah. Jefferson described yeah as an acknowledgement token that also projects “a preparedness to shift from recipiency to speakership”. This speaker incipiency is not consistent, though. While yeah is sometimes used to indicate a shift from recipient to speaker, it is sometimes used simply as an acknowledgement token. This difference in function of apparently similar items may be related to token shape. This paper (...) examines several telephone interactions and finds the use of yeah with creaky voice to indicate passive recipiency and either a dispreference to continue the current topic, or a disalignment with the primary speaker. This analysis contributes to the study of phonetics in interactional linguistics. In addition, it supports the notion that token-shape distinctions can account for functional differences within token types. It suggests that phonation or other behavior below the word level may be significant in verbal interaction. (shrink)

Der Körper-Geist-Dualismus besitzt eine langjährige Tradition und besitzt laut der Forschung einen seiner ältesten Vertreter in Platon. Dass diese Position allerdings nicht Platon, sondern den populären Philosophieströmungen seiner Zeit entspricht, welche durche den platonischen Sokrates ironisch dargestellt werden, zeigt diese Arbeit auf.

One of the most significant challenges facing global egalitarian theorists is the motivational gap: there is a noted gap between the duties imposed by a global commitment to the equal moral worth of all people and the willingness of the wealthy to carry out these duties. For Pablo Gilabert, the apparent absence of motivation to act justly on a global scale presses us to consider the importance of feasibility in developing a persuasive account of global justice, part of which requires (...) being attentive to what motivates us to act in support of global egalitarianism. In this article, I am critical of Gilabert’s account of the role that relationships between individuals play in conceiving our global justice duties. I begin with an account of some confusion in Gilabert’s account of the actual costs likely to be imposed on citizens of wealthy states as a result of the duties he demands of us and why it is important to resolve that confusion. I will then consider, and critique, Gilabert’s account of special responsibilities. I shall argue that, fundamentally, there is an ineliminable tension between the special responsibilities individuals legitimately possess and the duties they have to eradicate global poverty. (shrink)

The major stages of development of cosmic pedagogy have been researched. Based on the achievements of the modern neurosciences as well as of psychology, cosmology, and philosophy, the authors provide their reasoning for the cosmic education and its outlooks for the educational systems of the world. Through the studies of how important human mind is for the Earth and the cosmos and by researching the evolution of human mind within the structure of the Universe, the authors create a more advanced (...) scientific and philosophic basis for the cosmic education where the subject is a comprehensive process of formation and directed progress of both an individual mind and a conglomerate of minds called the "psychospace". The cosmic education researches the permanent progress of the intelligent matter of the Earth. The purpose of the cosmic education has been determined as formation of a planetary and cosmic personality. According to the authors, a planetary and cosmic personality is a harmony of mind, soul, and body, and such harmony is directed to usethe internal creative potential of mind to the benefit of the intelligent matter of the entire Earthand the cosmos. The properties of such a planetary and cosmic personality are being improved continuously; they are a sample (the ideal) of the cosmic pedagogy and the image of a human being of the future. Through the usage of the entire potential and art of upbringing and educating, the cosmic pedagogy is called to embody the major properties of the image of a human being of the future in the new generations of minds and to form a planetary and cosmic personalitycapable of self-actualization to the benefit of the permanent progress of the intelligent matter. (shrink)

The growth of the sharing economy is important for developing countries because it creates value, economic growth, technological innovation, environmental sustainability, and social inclusion. Macedonian citizens have a long tradition of sharing things between friends, relatives, and neighbours. However, the new concept of sharing economy that enables strangers globally to share goods and services is still not developed and used by the Macedonian citizens. The goal of this study is by empirical analysis to give the state and potential of the (...) usage of sharing economy by Macedonian citizens from the perspectives of providers and consumers. The results of the observational study and survey address future actions to boost the development of the sharing economy. (shrink)

People are increasingly exposed to conflicting health information and must navigate this information to make numerous decisions, such as which foods to consume, a process many find difficult. Although some consumers attribute these disagreements to aspects related to uncertainty and complexity of research, many use a narrower set of credibility-based explanations. Experts’ views on disagreements are underinvestigated and lack explicit identification and classification of the differences in causes for disagreement. Consequently, there is a gap in existing literature to understand the (...) range of reasons for these contradictions. Combining the findings from a literature study and expert interviews, a taxonomy of disagreements was developed. It identifies 10 types of disagreement classified under three dimensions: informant-, information- and uncertainty-related causes for disagreement. The taxonomy may assist with adoption of more effective strategies to deal with conflicting information and contributes to research and practice of science communication in the context of disagreement. (shrink)

For 4E cognitive science, minds are embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended. Proponents observe that we regularly ‘offload’ our thinking onto body and world: we use gestures and calculators to augment mathematical reasoning, and smartphones and search engines as memory aids. I argue that music is a beyond-the-head resource that affords offloading. Via this offloading, music scaffolds access to new forms of thought, experience, and behaviour. I focus on music’s capacity to scaffold emotional consciousness, including the self-regulative processes (...) constitutive of emotional consciousness. In developing this idea, I consider the ‘material’ and ‘worldmaking’ character music, and I apply these considerations to two case studies: music as a tool for religious worship, and music as a weapon for torture. (shrink)

I explain a tension between musical creationism (the view that musical works are abstract artifacts) and the view that there is no vague existence. I then suggest ways to reconcile these views. My central conclusion is that, although some versions of musical creationism imply vague existence, others do not. I discuss versions of musical creationism held by Jerrold Levinson, Simon Evnine, and Kit Fine. I also present two new versions. I close by considering whether the tension is merely an instance (...) of a general problem raised by artifacts, both abstract and concrete. I argue that on at least one defensible account of music the tension is especially problematic for abstracta. I focus on musical works, but much of the paper straightforwardly applies to other kinds of abstract artifacts. (shrink)

In the ontology of music the Aristotelian theory of musical works is the view that musical works are immanent universals. The Aristotelian theory (hereafter Musical Aristotelianism) is an attractive and serviceable hypothesis. However, it is overlooked as a genuine competitor to the more well-known theories of Musical Platonism and nominalism. Worse still, there is no detailed account in the literature of the nature of the universals that the Aristotelian identifies musical works with. In this paper, I argue that the (...) best version of Musical Aristotelianism identifies musical works with structural universals. I first motivate the view by outlining its explanatory benefits. I then argue that Musical Aristotelianism is preferable to Musical Platonism and present a novel account of musical works as structural universals by developing D. M. Armstrong’s theory of structural universals. I discuss the consequences of Musical Aristotelianism with respect to on-going issues in debates about musical works and defend the view against an influential objection, concluding that Musical Aristotelianism is a genuine competitor in debates about the nature of musical works. (shrink)

There is a popular theory in the metaphysics of time according to which time is one of four similar dimensions that make up a single manifold that is appropriately called spacetime. One consequence of this thesis is that changing an object’s orientation in the manifold does not change its intrinsic features. In this paper I offer a new argument against this popular theory. I claim that an especially good performance of a particularly beautiful piece of music, when oriented within (...) the manifold in the normal way, adds to the intrinsic value of the world, but that if the same performance is turned sideways within the manifold, so that it involves a number of different notes spread out in space and all occurring at the same time, then it does not add the same intrinsic value to the world. (shrink)

In the small but growing literature on the philosophy of country music, the question of how we ought to understand the genre’s notion of authenticity has emerged as one of the central questions. Many country music scholars argue that authenticity claims track attributions of cultural standing or artistic self-expression. However, careful attention to the history of the genre reveals that these claims are simply factually wrong. On the basis of this, we have grounds for dismissing these attributions. Here, (...) I argue for an alternative model of authenticity in which we take claims about the relative authenticity of country music to be evidence of ‘country’ being a dual character concept in the same way that it has been suggested of punk rock and hip-hop. Authentic country music is country music that embodies the core value commitments of the genre. These values form the basis of country artists’ and audiences’ practical identities. Part of country music’s aesthetic practice is that audiences reconnect with, reify, and revise this common practical identity through identification with artists and works that manifest these values. We should then think of authenticity discourse within country music as a kind of game within the genre’s practice of shaping and maintaining this practical identity. (shrink)

Realism about musical works is often tied to some type of Platonism. Nominalism, which posits that musical works exist and that they are concrete objects, goes with ontological realism much less often than Platonism: there is a long tradition which holds human-created objects (artifacts) to be mind-dependent. Musical Platonism leads to the well-known paradox of the impossibility of creating abstract objects, and so it has been suggested that only some form of nominalism becoming dominant in the ontology of art could (...) cause a great change in the field and open up new possibilities. This paper aims to develop a new metaontological view starting from the widely accepted claim that musical works are created. It contends that musical works must be concrete and created objects of some sort, but, nevertheless, they are mind-independent, and we should take the revisionary methodological stance. Although musical works are artifacts, what people think about them does not determine what musical works are. Musical works are similar to natural objects in the following sense: semantic externalism applies to the term ‘musical work’ because, firstly, they possess a shared nature, and, secondly, we can be mistaken about what they are. (shrink)

Music is a universal human activity. Its evolution and its value as a cognitive resource are starting to come into focus. This chapter endeavors to give readers a clearer sense of the adaptive aspects of music, as well as the underlying cognitive and neural structures. Special attention is given to the important emotional dimensions of music, and an evolutionary argument is made for thinking of music as a prelinguistic embodied form of cognition—a form that is still (...) available to us as contemporary music creators and consumers. (shrink)

This chapter offers the beginning of an enactive account of auditory experience—particularly the experience of listening sensitively to music. It investigates how sensorimotor regularities grant perceptual access to music qua music. Two specific claims are defended: (1) music manifests experientially as having complex spatial content; (2) sensorimotor regularities constrain this content. Musical content is thus brought to phenomenal presence by bodily exploring structural features of music. We enact musical content.

I argue for an enactive account of musical experience — that is, the experience of listening ‘deeply’(i.e., sensitively and understandingly) to a piece of music. The guiding question is: what do we do when we listen ‘deeply’to music? I argue that these music listening episodes are, in fact, doings. They are instances of active perceiving, robust sensorimotor engagements with and manipulations of sonic structures within musical pieces. Music is thus experiential art, and in Nietzsche’s words, ‘we (...) listen to music with our muscles’. This paper attempts to explicate and defend this claim. First, I discuss enactive approaches to consciousness and cognition generally. Next, I apply an enactive model of perceptual consciousness to the experience of listening to music. To clarify what is at stake, I use Peter Kivy’s ‘enhanced formalism’ as a philosophical foil. I then look at how the animate body shapes musical experience. (shrink)

Basic Emotion theory has had a tremendous influence on the affective sciences, including music psychology, where most researchers have assumed that music expressivity is constrained to a limited set of basic emotions. Several scholars suggested that these constrains to musical expressivity are explained by the existence of a shared acoustic code to the expression of emotions in music and speech prosody. In this article we advocate for a shift from this focus on basic emotions to a constructionist (...) account. This approach proposes that the phenomenon of perception of emotions in music arises from the interaction of music’s ability to express core affects and the influence of top-down and contextual information in the listener’s mind. We start by reviewing the problems with the concept of Basic Emotions, and the inconsistent evidence that supports it. We also demonstrate how decades of developmental and cross-cultural research on music and emotional speech have failed to produce convincing findings to conclude that music expressivity is built upon a set of biologically pre-determined basic emotions. We then examine the cue-emotion consistencies between music and speech, and show how they support a parsimonious explanation, where musical expressivity is grounded on two dimensions of core affect (arousal and valence). Next, we explain how the fact that listeners reliably identify basic emotions in music does not arise from the existence of categorical boundaries in the stimuli, but from processes that facilitate categorical perception, such as using stereotyped stimuli and close-ended response formats, psychological processes of construction of mental prototypes, and contextual information. Finally, we outline our proposal of a constructionist account of perception of emotions in music, and spell out the ways in which this approach is able to make solve past conflicting findings. We conclude by providing explicit pointers about the methodological choices that will be vital to move beyond the popular Basic Emotion paradigm and start untangling the emergence of emotional experiences with music in the actual contexts in which they occur. -/- . (shrink)

This book is the first to put forward a general theory of the manner in which different media--music, words, moving picture, and dance--work together to create multimedia. Beginning with a study of the way in which meaning is mediated in television commercials, the book concludes with in-depth readings of Disney's Fantasia, Madonna's video Material Girl, and Armide (Godard's sequence from the collaborative film Aria). Analysing Musical Multimedia not only shows how approaches deriving from music theory can contribute to (...) the understanding of multimedia, but also seeks to draw conclusions from the practice and further development of musical analysis. (shrink)

Music and language are universal human abilities with many apparent similarities relating to their acoustics, structure, and frequent use in social situations. We might therefore expect them to be understood and processed similarly, and indeed an emerging body of research suggests that this is the case. But the focus has historically been on the individual, looking at the passive listener or the isolated speaker or performer, even though social interaction is the primary site of use for both domains. Nonetheless, (...) an important goal of emerging research is to compare music and language in terms of acoustics and structure, social interaction, and functional origins to develop parallel accounts across the two domains. Indeed, a central aim of both of evolutionary musicology and language evolution research is to understand the adaptive significance or functional origin of human music and language. An influential proposal to emerge in recent years has been referred to as the social bonding hypothesis. Here, within a comparative approach to animal communication systems, I review empirical studies in support of the social bonding hypothesis in humans, non-human primates, songbirds, and various other mammals. In support of this hypothesis, I review six research fields: (i) the functional origins of music; (ii) the functional origins of language; (iii) mechanisms of social synchrony for human social bonding; (iv) language and social bonding in humans; (v) music and social bonding in humans; and (vi) pitch, tone and emotional expression in human speech and music. I conclude that the comparative study of complex vocalizations and behaviors in various extant species can provide important insights into the adaptive function(s) of these traits in these species, as well as offer evidence-based speculations for the existence of “musilanguage” in our primate ancestors, and thus inform our understanding of the biology and evolution of human music and language. (shrink)

Some hold that musical works are fusions of, or coincide with, their performances. But if performances contain wrong notes, won't works inherit that property? We say ‘no’.

Music impinges upon the body and the brain and has inductive power, relying on both innate dispositions and acquired mechanisms for coping with the sounds. This process is partly autonomous and partly deliberate, but multiple interrelations between several levels of processing can be shown. There is, further, a tradition in neuroscience that divides the organization of the brain into lower and higher functions. The latter have received a lot of attention in music and brain studies during the last (...) decades. Recent developments in neuroimaging techniques, however, have broadened the field by encompassing the study of both cortical and subcortical processing of the sounds. Much is still to be investigated but some major observations seem already to emerge. The domain of music and emotions is a typical example with a major focus on the pleasure that can be derived from listening to music. Pleasure, however, is not the only emotion that music can induce and the mechanisms behind its elicitation are far from understood. There are also mechanisms related to arousal and activation that are both less differentiated and at the same time more complex than the assumed mechanisms triggering basic emotions. It is tempting, therefore, to bring together contributions from neuroscience studies with a view to cover the possible range of answers to the question of what pleasurable or mood-modifying effects music can have on human beings in real-time listening situations. (shrink)

Music can contaminate us. Sometimes, listeners perceive music as expressing some emotion (say, sadness), and this elicits the same emotion in them (they feel sad). What is musical contagion? This entry presents the main theories of musical contagion that crystallize around the challenge to the leading theory of emotions as experiences of values. How and why does music contaminate us? Does musical contagion elicit garden variety emotions, such as sadness, joy, and anxiety? Does music contaminate us (...) by simply moving us? Which role does imagination play in our affective responses to music? Is musical arousal elicited by automatic mimicry? What does musical contagion teach us about emotions? Musical contagion addresses fundamental theoretical and practical issues. (shrink)

Since language provides the most typical paradigm of meaning, when we ask what meanings music may communicate, it will certainly be illuminative to compare these meanings with those conveyed by language. In particular we would want to ask an even more specific question: how, in general, the respective meanings of music and words are related in a vocal composition.

In what follows I offer some reflections on an ethics of listening, or perhaps more generally a philosophy of listening, that can be discerned in different forms in the experimental music that, since the 1950s, has challenged and radicalised how music is understood. I situate these reflections around three of my own concert experiences as an audience member.

In Flourish, the positive psychologist Martin Seligman (2011) identifies five commonly recognized factors that are characteristic of human flourishing or wellbeing: (1) “positive emotion,” (2) “relationships,” (3) “engagement,” (4) “achievement,” and (5) “meaning” (p. 24). Although there is no settled set of necessary and sufficient conditions neatly circumscribing the bounds of human flourishing (Seligman, 2011), we would mostly likely consider a person that possessed high levels of these five factors as paradigmatic or prototypical of human flourishing. Accordingly, if we wanted (...) to go about the practical task of actually increasing our level of wellbeing, we ought to do so by focusing on practically increasing the levels of the five factors that are characteristic of wellbeing. If, for instance, an activity such as musical engagement can be shown to positively influence each or all of these five factors, this would be compelling evidence that an activity such as musical engagement can positively contribute to one’s living a flourishing life. I’m of the belief that psychological research can and should be used, not only to identify and diagnose maladaptive psychological states, but identify and promote adaptive psychological states as well. In this article I advance the hypothesis and provide supporting evidence for the claim that musical engagement can positively contribute to one’s living a flourishing life. Since there has not yet been a substantive and up-to-date investigation of the possible role of music in contributing to one’s living a flourishing life, the purpose of this article is to conduct this investigation, thereby bridging the gap and stimulating discussion between the psychology of music and the psychology of wellbeing. (shrink)

“4E” approaches in cognitive science see mind as embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended. They observe that we routinely “offload” part of our thinking onto body and world. Recently, 4E theorists have turned to music cognition: from work on music perception and musical emotions, to improvisation and music education. I continue this trend. I argue that music — like other tools and technologies — is a beyond-the-head resource that affords offloading. And via this offloading, music can (...) (at least potentially) scaffold various forms of thought, experience, and behavior. To develop this idea, I consider the “material” and “worldmaking” character of music, and I apply these considerations to two cases studies: music as a tool for religious worship, and music as a weapon for torture. (shrink)

Why is listening to sad music pleasurable? Eerola et al. convincingly argue that we should adopt an integrative framework — encompassing biological, psycho-social, and cultural levels of explanation — to answer this question. I agree. The authors have done a great service in providing the outline of such an integrative account. But in their otherwise rich discussion of the psycho-social level of engagements with sad music, they say little about the phenomenology of such experiences — including features that (...) may help shed further light on this question. I suggest that emerging enactive perspectives on music and emotion can offer some useful resources. (shrink)

The current debate concerning musical profundity was instigated, and set up by Peter Kivy in his book Music Alone (1990) as part of his comprehensive defense of enhanced formalism, a position he championed vigorously throughout his entire career. Kivy’s view of music led him to maintain utter skepticism regarding musical profundity. The scholarly debate that ensued centers on the question whether or not (at least some) music can be profound. In this study I would like to take (...) the opportunity to relate Wittgenstein’s ideas on music to this current debate, thereby achieving a twofold goal: not only to reintroduce Wittgenstein’s ideas into the current debate, but also to use the current debate as a foil to better appreciating Wittgenstein’s otherness as a philosopher of music. I argue that Wittgenstein’s unique philosophical response to the Romantic framing of the discourse concerning musical profundity —specifically, its threefold emphasis on the specificity, aboutness, and artistically exalted status of music— occasioned a view, which was bound to be glossed over by a philosophical tradition, whose origins had made it inimical to Wittgenstein’s original philosophical insights. I conclude that, in a sense, Wittgenstein occasions a paradigm shift by his philosophical thrust to undo the gravitational forces which form the current debate: the very idea of aboutness pertaining to music, and the very idea that a clear line could ever be drawn between music and language. (shrink)

In “Flourish,” Martin Seligman maintained that the elements of well-being consist of “PERMA: positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment.” Although the question of what constitutes human flourishing or psychological well-being has remained a topic of continued debate among scholars, it has recently been argued in the literature that a paradigmatic or prototypical case of human psychological well-being would largely manifest most or all of the aforementioned PERMA factors. Further, in “A Neuroscientific Perspective on Music Therapy,” Stefan Koelsch also (...) suggested that “Music therapy can have effects that improve the psychological and physiological health of individuals,” so it seems plausible that engaging in practices of music can positively contribute to one living a more optimally flourishing life with greater psychological well-being. However, recent studies on music practice and participation have not yet been reviewed and integrated under the PERMA framework from positive psychology to further explore and explicate this possibility. This article therefore contributes to extant work by reviewing recent research on psychological well-being and music to offer support for the claim that music practice and participation can positively contribute to one living a flourishing life by positively influencing their emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. (shrink)

In Flourish, the positive psychologist Seligman (2011) identifies five commonly recognized factors that are characteristic of human flourishing or well-being: (1) “positive emotion,” (2) “relationships,” (3) “engagement,” (4) “achievement,” and (5) “meaning” (p. 24). Although there is no settled set of necessary and sufficient conditions neatly circumscribing the bounds of human flourishing (Seligman, 2011), we would mostly likely consider a person that possessed high levels of these five factors as paradigmatic or prototypical of human flourishing. Accordingly, if we wanted to (...) go about the practical task of actually increasing our level of well-being, we ought to do so by focusing on practically increasing the levels of the five factors that are characteristic of well-being. If, for instance, an activity such as musical engagement can be shown to positively influence each or all of these five factors, this would be compelling evidence that an activity such as musical engagement can positively contribute to one’s living a flourishing life. I am of the belief that psychological research can and should be used, not only to identify and diagnose maladaptive psychological states, but identify and promote adaptive psychological states as well. In this article I advance the hypothesis and provide supporting evidence for the claim that musical engagement can positively contribute to one’s living a flourishing life. Since there has not yet been a substantive and up-to-date investigation of the possible role of music in contributing to one’s living a flourishing life, the purpose of this article is to conduct this investigation, thereby bridging the gap and stimulating discussion between the psychology of music and the psychology of well-being. (shrink)

This article is the attempt of an historically oriented analysis focused on the role of Nigerian music as a cultural hub for the export of African cultural influences into the Black diaspora in the United States and its anticipation by the Free Jazz/Avantgarde-scene as well as the import of key-values related to the Black Power-movement to the African continent. The aim is to demonstrate the leading role and international impact of Nigeria's cultural industry among sub-saharan African nation states and (...) its specific ability to absorb and incorporate elements of Western culture. -/- After a short discussion of African influences on jazz music in general and the socio-political, cultural, and artistic context in which Free Jazz emerged, examples for the articulation of African consciousness among influencing key figures such as saxophonist John Coltrane or the Art Ensemble of Chicago are being presented. Furthermore, the personal and ideological links between the Avantgarde Jazz-scene and the Black Power-movement - especially the Black Panther Party - are made transparent. -/- In a second step the central influence of the Nigerian drum-pioneer Babatunde Olatunji on the Africanization of US-Jazz musicians, his personal and creative impact on John Coltrane, as well as the Black Power-movement is being highlighted. On the other hand, Coltrane, Free Jazz, and the Black Panther Party are being portrayed as a central creative and ideological turn in the career and work of Fela Kuti and towards political activism and his efforts to implement and apply the Africa-inspired Black Power -struggle of the US on the African continent in order to fight post-colonial forms of oppression. -/- . (shrink)

I develop Schopenhauerian musical formalism. First, I present a Schopenhauerian account of music with a background of his metaphysical framework. Then, I define meaningfulness as an analog to a Kantian notion of purposiveness and argue that, in light of Schopenhauer, music is meaningful as a direct manifestation of the universal will. Given the ineffable nature of what music points to, its form lacks any representation of meaning. Music is therefore the mere form of meaningfulness, and it (...) is precisely this mere form that gives rise to the infinite possibilities to ascribe it with a variety of musical meaning. (shrink)

Dance, Music and Dramaturgy: collaboration plan and dramaturgical apparatus – The unfolding of the concept of dramaturgy and the problematics of contemporary choreography are, today, a vast and diverse field of research, bearing numerous disclosures that lead to their reciprocal implication. Apart from that, dance and music share significant complementary ties allowing for the consideration of a common compositional inquiry. Reflecting on the compositional processes of dance and music, this article cross-examines the collaboration between choreographers and composers, (...) integrating the incidence of dramaturgy in the strategies of choreographic and musical composition. (shrink)

This article reviews some of the ways in which philosophical problems concerning music can be informed by approaches from the cognitive sciences (principally psychology and neuroscience). Focusing on the issues of musical expressiveness and the arousal of emotions by music, the key philosophical problems and their alternative solutions are outlined. There is room for optimism that while current experimental data does not always unambiguously satisfy philosophical scrutiny, it can potentially support one theory over another, and in some cases (...) allow us to synthesize or reject traditional philosophical differences. (shrink)

Extended cognition holds that cognitive processes sometimes leak into the world (Dawson, 2013). A recent trend among proponents of extended cognition has been to put pressure on phenomena thought to be safe havens for internalists (Sneddon, 2011; Wilson, 2010; Wilson & Lenart, 2014). This paper attempts to continue this trend by arguing that music perception is an extended phenomenon. It is claimed that because music perception involves the detection of musical invariants within an “acoustic array”, the interaction between (...) the auditory system and the musical invariants can be characterized as an extended computational cognitive system. In articulating this view, the work of J. J. Gibson (1966, 1986) and Robert Wilson (1994, 1995, 2004) is drawn on. The view is defended from several objections and its implications outlined. The paper concludes with a comparison to Krueger’s (2014) view of the “musically extended emotional mind”. (shrink)

The power of music to arouse garden-variety emotions has attracted attention from musicians, psychologists, and philosophers over decades. Despite its widespread acknowledgement, there is no agreement on how pure music with no propositional content can induce such a wide range of emotions. Jenefer Robinson coined this 1 problemthepuzzleofmusicalemotion. Inthisessay,Iwillfirstdiscusswhymusical emotion is a puzzle. Then, Jesse Prinz’s perceptual theory of emotion and his solution 2 to the puzzle will be discussed. Prinz regards an emotion as an embodied appraisal, and (...) a musical emotion as an illusory embodied appraisal which is a by-product of the adaptive emotion system. I argue that it is problematic to regard musical emotions as illusions for two reasons: 1) the bodily responses aroused by music are not specific enough to produce an illusion of a real emotion; 2) musical emotion is adaptive by itself in the sense that it is a mirroring-based simulation of the emotion represented by music, and such mirroring system plays an important role in interpersonal emotion communications. (shrink)

Upon abolition of the sultanate, proclamation of the Republic, and termination of the seemingly existing caliphate position, the 1921 Constitution was replaced with the 1924 Constitution, which would remain in full force until 1961. It is observed that as a result of all such consecutive developments, the no. 677 Law on Preclusion and Abolition of Lodges, Zawiyahs, Tomb Keepers and Some Titles, which had been presented to the assembly with a bill prepared by Refik Koraltan, a member of the parliament (...) from Konya province, along with his friends, accepted in November 30th, 1925 and published in the official gazette in December 13th, 1925, interrupted, in general, the religious Turkish music; and in particular, the music of Mevleviyeh and Bektashism cults -lodge/dervish music- during the production stages, which has been determined to be directly connected with the following problems to be dealt with, and which will constitute the focus of our study. Therefore, our "Music Policies in Turkish Single-party Era: Religious Music Example" titled study, as mentioned above, has been the subject of the research concentrated around especially the no. 677 Law came into force in December 13th, 1925, accepted with a bill, within the scope of transitions paving the way for the proclamation of the republic, and legitimacy of various revolutions implemented, and it is important that the effects of the political mobility experienced in our country between 1923 and 1950 during the single-party era on our society, and the extent of such effects on the music life, in particular Turkish religious music education, culture and art in our country can be observed and evaluated. (shrink)

Building on Elliot and SilvermanÕs (2015) embodied and enactive approach to musicing, I argue for an extended approach: namely, the idea that music can function as an environmental scaffolding supporting the development of various experiences and embodied practices that would otherwise remain inaccessible. I focus especially on the materiality of music. I argue that one of the central ways we use music, as a material resource, is to manipulate social spaceÑand in so doing, manipulate our emotions. Acts (...) of musicing, thought of as processes of environmental space manipulation, are thus examples of what I term Òemotional niche construction.Ó I explore three dimensions of this process and appeal to different strands of empirical work to support this picture. (shrink)

I start with the observation that we often respond to a musical performance with emotion -- even if it is just the performance of a piece of absolute music, unaccompanied by text, title or programme. We can be exhilarated after a Rossini overture brought off with subtlety and panache; somber and melancholy after Furtlanger’s performance of the slow movement of the Eroica. And so forth. These emotions feel like the real thing to me – or anyway very close to (...) the real thing. When one experiences them, it takes time for them to wear off, and one gets irritated with the companion who, because not similarly moved, wants immediately to start discussing where to go for dinner. Like many others, I am drawn to the philosophy of music by a need to understand how such emotional responses are possible. How can absolute music move us in the way that it does, and to the extent that it does? (shrink)

ABSTRACTIneffability of musical meaning is a frequent theme in music philosophy. However, talk about musical meaning persists and seems to be not only inherently enjoyable and socially acceptable, but also functionally useful. Relying on a phenomenological account of musical meaning combined with a naturalist explanatory attitude, we argue for a novel explanation of how ineffability is a feature of musical meaning and experience and we show why it cannot be remedied by perfecting language or musico-philosophical study.Musical meaning is seen (...) as an experiential phenomenon that consists of layers, some recent, others archaic. As such, musical meaning is strongly characterized by asubjectivity. It is in-between, in a state where the division of subject and object is not yet valid or valid anymore. A naturalistic interplay of experiential layers in music brings about a non-reified dynamics driving for expressions, interpretations, engenderings of subjects and objects or even for political action. Generally speaking, the in-betweenness of musical meaning can never be universally reified or symbolic nor can it ever be “subjective,” “mine” or present “at the origin.”In this view, ineffability has two primary reasons. First, the criteria offered for defining musical meaning are often too strict, resulting in untenable pretensions of universality. Second, the processual and relational nature of the in-between keeps meaning in flux; any snapshot creates a new situation and new meanings. (shrink)

The tears of Odysseus -- History : music gives voice to the ineffable -- Tears, chills, and broken bones -- The music itself -- Explaining strong emotional responses to music I -- Explaining strong emotional responses to music II -- The sublime, revisited -- Conclusion : values.

I respond to Kersten’s criticism in his article “Music and Cognitive Extension” of my approach to the musically extended emotional mind in Krueger (2014). I specify how we manipulate—and in so doing, integrate with—music when, as active listeners, we become part of a musically extended cognitive system. I also indicate how Kersten’s account might be enriched by paying closer attention to the way that music functions as an environmental artifact for emotion regulation.