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)

Markosian presents an argument against certain theories of time based on the aesthetic value of music. He argues that turning a piece of music sideways in time destroys its intrinsic value, which would not be possible if the Spacetime Thesis were true. In this paper I show that sideways music poses no problems for any theory of time by demonstrating that turning a piece of music sideways does not affect its intrinsic value. I do this by appealing (...) to spatial analogies that highlight the similarities between spatial and temporal rotations. (shrink)

In “Sideways Music”, Ned Markosian uses aesthetic intuitions about temporally-rotated music to argue that the metaphysics of time is different from the metaphysics of space. In response, I use aesthetic intuitions about spatially-rotated paintings to pose a dilemma for Markosian’s argument: either he accepts the intuitions about spatially-rotated paintings, in which case he must give up on some assumptions in his argument, or he rejects intuitions about spatially-rotated paintings, in which case an analogous response can be given regarding intuitions (...) about temporally-rotated music. That is, if Markosian wants to hold on to the assumptions that underwrite his argument, then he thereby offers his opponent the resources with which to resist his conclusion. As such, Markosian’s argument cannot offer a new independent consideration for adjudicating the metaphysical debate between the Dynamic Theorist and the Spacetime Theorist. [Unpublishable 2019]. (shrink)

Aspect-seeing, I claim, involves reflection on concepts. It involves letting oneself feel how it would be like to conceptualize something with a certain concept, without committing oneself to this conceptualization. I distinguish between two kinds of aspect-perception: -/- 1. Preparatory: allows us to develop, criticize, and shape concepts. It involves bringing a concept to an object for the purpose of examining what would be the best way to conceptualize it. -/- 2. Non-Preparatory: allows us to express the ingraspability of certain (...) experiences. It involves bringing a concept to an object for the purpose of showing—per impossible—what it would take to properly capture one’s experience. -/- I demonstrate the usefulness of the two kinds of aspect perception in making conceptual judgments, and in making moral and aesthetic judgments. (shrink)

This chapter presents a typology of the different kinds of inductive inferences we can draw from our evidence, based on the explanatory relationship between evidence and conclusion. Drawing on the literature on graphical models of explanation, I divide inductive inferences into (a) downwards inferences, which proceed from cause to effect, (b) upwards inferences, which proceed from effect to cause, and (c) sideways inferences, which proceed first from effect to cause and then from that cause to an additional effect. I (...) further distinguish between direct and indirect forms of downwards and upwards inferences. I then show how we can subsume canonical forms of inductive inference mentioned in the literature, such as inference to the best explanation, enumerative induction, and analogical inference, under this typology. Along the way, I explore connections with probability and confirmation, epistemic defeat, the relation between abduction and enumerative induction, the compatibility of IBE and Bayesianism, and theories of epistemic justification. (shrink)

This essay distinguishes some significant commonalities and differences between the film-philosophies of Chilean filmmaker Raúl Ruiz (especially in his book Poetics of Cinema) and U.S. philosopher Stanley Cavell. I argue that despite shared senses of the poetics of the film image and certain shared philosophical references, Ruiz and Cavell differed over their conceptions of the model spectator and their relations to autonomous films and worlds from which spectators are excluded (on Cavell's picture) versus fragments out of which the spectator might (...) create their own films and worlds in which a spectator might become included (on Ruiz's picture). I then argue that a striking reconciliation between these perspectives takes place via each's conception of television, since it was precisely the features of the medium and its heteronomous parts that Cavell found bemusing from the perspective of his view of film (and its supposedly autonomous works) that allowed for Ruiz's natural career-long relationship with television and heteronomy, especially in Latin American telenovelas. I thus approach Ruiz's relation to telenovelas via Cavell's understanding of the possibilities of soap operas to explore arguments between different temporalities: "dialectical," narrative time and "undialectical" recurrences of needs and drives. I further explore this possibility with a reading of Ruiz's neglected, late-career Chilean TV series Litoral (2008), focused on the construction of stories by sailors aboard a ghost ship. I argue that the series' treatment of these different temporalities reaches its culmination in the poignant image of a sailor-storyteller stuck within a story of his own creation: a stark rendering of his taking a sideways-on view of the role of his own fantasies in its construction. (shrink)

In this paper, I contest increasingly common "realist" interpretations of Hegel's theory of "the concept" (der Begriff), offering instead a "isomorphic" conception of the relation of concepts and the world. The isomorphism recommended, however, is metaphysically deflationary, for I show how Hegel's conception of conceptual form creates a conceptually internal standard for the adequacy of concepts. No "sideways-on" theory of the concept-world relationship is envisioned. This standard of conceptual adequacy is also "graduated" in that it allows for a lack (...) of fit between concept and world. The possibility for a "maximally isomorphic" fit between concept and world obtains through the teleological realization of concepts, which marks especially the "artificial" world of human culture (law, art, religion, etc.). Some of the most seemingly exaggerated claims Hegel makes about the concept, I contend, can be understood when we consider the significance Hegel ascribes to human making, which is provided for in his conceptual theory. But my framework provides an interpretive key for the way Hegel sees concepts imperfectly realized in the natural world as well. (shrink)

Symbolic violence from TV, due to false regulation on content, in Spain, Portugal, Canada, France and US.