Why do humans make music? Theories of the evolution of musicality have focused mainly on the value of music for specific adaptive contexts such as mate selection, parental care, coalition signaling, and group cohesion. Synthesizing and extending previous proposals, we argue that social bonding is an overarching function that unifies all of these theories, and that musicality enabled social bonding at larger scales than grooming and other bonding mechanisms available in ancestral primate societies. We combine cross-disciplinary evidence from archeology, anthropology, (...) biology, musicology, psychology, and neuroscience into a unified framework that accounts for the biological and cultural evolution of music. We argue that the evolution of musicality involves gene–culture coevolution, through which proto-musical behaviors that initially arose and spread as cultural inventions had feedback effects on biological evolution because of their impact on social bonding. We emphasize the deep links between production, perception, prediction, and social reward arising from repetition, synchronization, and harmonization of rhythms and pitches, and summarize empirical evidence for these links at the levels of brain networks, physiological mechanisms, and behaviors across cultures and across species. Finally, we address potential criticisms and make testable predictions for future research, including neurobiological bases of musicality and relationships between human music, language, animal song, and other domains. The music and social bonding hypothesis provides the most comprehensive theory to date of the biological and cultural evolution of music. (shrink)

We compare and contrast the 60 commentaries by 109 authors on the pair of target articles by Mehr et al. and ourselves. The commentators largely reject Mehr et al.'s fundamental definition of music and their attempts to refute (1) our social bonding hypothesis, (2) byproduct hypotheses, and (3) sexual selection hypotheses for the evolution of musicality. Instead, the commentators generally support our more inclusive proposal that social bonding and credible signaling mechanisms complement one another in explaining cooperation within and competition (...) between groups in a coevolutionary framework (albeit with some confusion regarding terminologies such as “byproduct” and “exaptation”). We discuss the proposed criticisms and extensions, with a focus on moving beyond adaptation/byproduct dichotomies and toward testing of cross-species, cross-cultural, and other empirical predictions. (shrink)

This volume will thus appeal to advanced students and scholars not just in the history of early modern philosophy but in epistemology and other core areas of ...

Foundational theories of the public sphere prioritize civic speech while distrusting forms of visuality. As a corrective to this model of the public sphere, rhetorical theorists have recently emphasized visuality as a constitutive mode of contemporary public culture, but they nevertheless tend to prioritize the civic actor over the civic spectator. A productive alternative would begin to distinguish an emerging shift from “deliberative publicity” to “photographic publicity.” The bourgeois public sphere innovated verbal communicative practices that produced a specifically deliberative publicity, (...) enabling one resolution to the core political problems of an earlier era. Likewise, contemporary publics utilize emerging digital technologies to produce a specifically photographic publicity, allowing them to address fundamental limitations of the bourgeois public sphere. Photographic publicity helps us rethink the problem of the public sphere in terms of theatricality and civic spectatorship. (shrink)

David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature is famous for its extreme skepticism. Louis Loeb argues that Hume's destructive conclusions have in fact obscured a constructive stage that Hume abandons prematurely. Working within a philosophical tradition that values tranquillity, Hume favors an epistemology that links justification with settled belief. Hume appeals to psychological stability to support his own epistemological assessments, both favorable regarding causal inference, and unfavorable regarding imaginative propensities. The theory's success in explaining Hume's epistemic distinctions gives way (...) to pessimism, since Hume contends that reflection on beliefs is deeply destabilizing. So much the worse, Hume concludes, for placing a premium on reflection. Hume endorses and defends the position that stable beliefs of unreflective persons are justified, though they would not survive reflection. At the same time, Hume relishes the paradox that unreflective beliefs enjoy a preferred epistemic status and strains to establish it. Loeb introduces a series of amendments to the Treatise that secures a more positive result for justified belief while maintaining Hume's fundamental principles. In his review of Hume's applications of his epistemology, Loeb uncovers a stratum of psychological doctrine beyond associationism, a theory of conditions in which beliefs are felt to conflict and of the resolution of this uneasiness or dissonance. This theory of mental conflict is also essential to Hume's strategy for integrating empiricism about meaning with his naturalism. However, Hume fails to provide a general account of the conditions in which conflicting beliefs lead to persisting instability, so his theory is incomplete. Loeb explores Hume's concern with stability in reference to his discussions of belief, education, the probability of causes, unphilosophical probability, the belief in body, sympathy and moral judgment, and the passions, among other topics. (shrink)

This paper offers a comparative study of abnormalities in the experience of space, time, and general atmosphere in three psychiatric conditions: schizophrenia, melancholia, and mania. It is a companion piece to our previous article entitled 'Varieties of Self- Experience'; here we focus on experiences of the world rather than of the self. As before, we are especially interested in similarities but also in some subtle distinctions in the forms of subjectivity associated with these three conditions. As before, we survey phenomenologicallyoriented (...) clinical and theoretical accounts as well as patient reports. Experiences involving forms of alienation from the practical and social world and a sense of uncanniness seem to be common in both schizophrenia and affective disorders. But despite some significant similarities, changes in schizophrenic subjectivity appear to be more pervasive and profound, involving experiences of fragmentation, meaninglessess, and ineffable strangeness that are rare or absent in the affective disorders. (shrink)

The distinguished philosopher Louis Loeb examines the epistemological framework of Scottish philosopher David Hume, as employed in his celebrated work A Treatise of Human Nature. Loeb's project is to advance an integrated interpretation of Hume's accounts of belief and justification. His thesis is that Hume, in his Treatise, has a "stability-based" theory of justification which posits that his belief is justified if it is the result of a belief producing mechanism that engenders stable beliefs. But Loeb argues that the (...) striking corollary to this theory is that no belief generating mechanism is fully stable - or fully justified - for a fully reflective person. This carefully argued and original interpretation of Hume makes sense of seemingly contradictory ideas and will provoke serious discussion among Hume scholars. (shrink)

The symposiasts press from a number of directions. Erin Kelly contends that Hume’s stability-based sentimentalist ethics cannot do justice to our considered normative moral judgements. Schmitt and Williams criticize my account of Hume’s epistemology proper. I will have to give ground: my book does overstate the extent to which Hume reaches a destructive result, in large part because I overlook significant variants of a stability account of justification. I make other concessions—in regard to the country gentlemen passage and Hume’s 1.3.9 (...) treatment of resemblance—but believe these have limited repercussions. (shrink)

This article explores the theological foundations of both classical and contemporary Jewish ethics, with special reference to biomedical issues. Traditional views concerning God's revelation to Israel are shown to underlie the methodological orientation of classical Jewish ethics, which is both legalistic and particularistic. Contemporary Jewish ethicists, by contrast, have tended to embrace more liberal views of revelation which have mitigated both the legalism and the particularism of their approach. Apart from methodological considerations, much of the content of Jewish medical ethics (...) has also been shaped by theological concerns. Specifically, a Jewish theology of creation provides basic norms and values which inform Jewish responses to a range of contemporary biomedical issues. Finally, it is suggested that the theological roots of this ethical tradition do not disqualify it from making a significant contribution to the wider discussion of biomedical issues in our secular, pluralistic society. Keywords: covenant, creation, halakha, Jewish ethics, relevation, Torah CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Since the mid-1970s, scholars have recognized that the skeptical interpretation of Hume’s central argument about induction is problematic. The science of human nature presupposes that inductive inference is justified and there are endorsements of induction throughout Treatise Book I. The recent suggestion that I.iii.6 is confined to the psychology of inductive inference cannot account for the epistemic flavor of its claims that neither a genuine demonstration nor a non-question-begging inductive argument can establish the uniformity principle. For Hume, that inductive inference (...) is justified is part of the data to be explained. Bad argument is therefore excluded as the cause of inductive inference; and there is no good argument to cause it. Does this reinstate the problem of induction, undermining Hume’s own assumption that induction is justified? It does so only if justification must derive from “reason”, from the availability of a cogent argument. Hume rejects this internalist thesis; induction’s favorable epistemic status derives from features of custom, the mechanism that generates inductive beliefs. Hume is attracted to this externalist posture because it provides a direct explanation of the epistemic achievements of children and non-human animals—creatures that must rely on custom unsupplemented by argument. (shrink)

The concept of forgiveness is analyzed as a moral gesture toward the offender designed to help restore that individual's moral standing. Jewish sources on the conditions under which forgiveness is obligatory are explored and two contrasting positions are presented: one in which the obligation to forgive is conditional on the repentance of the offender and another in which people are required to forgive unconditionally. These two positions are shown to represent different ways of framing the offending behavior that rest, in (...) turn, on different ways of balancing the need for justice and for mercy respectively. In the final analysis, Judaism's two contrasting attitudes toward forgiveness are rooted in different theological assumptions and different ways of construing the very goals of the moral life. The author points out the merits and shortcomings of both positions and concludes with the suggestion that the two complement each other in important ways. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Ethics and Morality Edited by Elliot N. Dorff and Jonathan K. CraneLouis E. NewmanThe Oxford Handbook of Jewish Ethics and Morality EDITED BY ELLIOT N. DORFF AND JONATHAN K. CRANE New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. 499 pp. $150The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Ethics and Morality addresses what has long been a major lacuna in the field of Jewish studies. No one who (...) studies the history of Judaism would deny that ethics has always occupied a central place in Jewish thought and practice. Yet the scope and range of Jewish ethical reflection, the variety of ethical theories that have animated this tradition, and the diversity of ethical viewpoints represented by major thinkers across the centuries remain far less widely understood than they should be. With the publication of this outstanding and highly readable collection of essays, however, Elliot Dorff and Jonathan Crane have given us the most definitive and encyclopedic presentation of Jewish ethics ever assembled.This latest addition to the Oxford Handbook series encompasses twenty-nine essays that span the history of Jewish ethics from biblical times to the present, but that also introduce readers to its applied and theoretical dimensions as well as the practitioners and scholars who collectively define the field of Jewish ethics. Part 1, “Jewish Ethical Theories,” which is more accurately a comprehensive history of Jewish ethics, includes insightful pieces on biblical, rabbinic, and medieval ethics, but also pieces on key figures in the modern period from Baruch Spinoza to Martin Buber, Abraham Isaac Kook, and Joseph B. Soloveitchik, among others. This section also includes important explications of the ethics of the various modern movements of Judaism (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist) as well as essays on specific events and theoretical perspectives that have shaped Jewish ethical discourse in the postwar period—the Holocaust, feminism, and postmodernism. What emerges from these short but remarkably focused and accessible essays is a rich tapestry in which the wide array of genres and methods that characterize the ethics of Judaism are on full display.The second half of the volume is devoted to applied ethics, and here again the diversity of Jewish ethics is showcased. The topics covered include bioethics, the ethics of speech, sexuality, business, the treatment of animals and the environment, politics (both in America and in Israel), criminal justice, and war. The topic of bioethics is wisely subdivided so that we find separate treatments of beginning and end of life, of access to health care, and of genetic technologies. [End Page 219] While some of these essays rehearse positions that will be familiar to those within the tradition, each is an original contribution designed to present the spectrum of positions on that issue that have been articulated by contemporary Jewish ethicists. Accordingly, this volume will now become the first place to look for broad, representative presentations on the most commonly discussed ethical issues of our time.The value of the whole collection is further enhanced by the editors’ introductions, which place the individual essays in context and explain their editorial decisions in selecting and arranging the contributions as they have. Each essay is accompanied by a substantial list of suggestions for further reading that will be valuable to readers in their own right. The entire volume is rounded out with a subject index and a list of references to classical Jewish literature. One could simply not ask for a more carefully constructed or broadly useful handbook on this subject.In any edited collection of this nature, the quality of the individual contributions will vary to some extent. In this instance, the overall quality is extremely high, which is a tribute both to the individual contributors and to the editorial guidance provided by Dorff and Crane. Still, one cannot help but notice that some essays in the second section of the book are more descriptive (e.g., Daniel Sinclair’s essay on end-of-life issues) while others are more ideologically driven (e.g., Arthur Waskow’s essay on environmental ethics). Similarly, while the essays average approximately fifteen to twenty pages each, a few are shorter and more cursory (e.g., Aaron Mackler’s essay on... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself, and: Maimonides and His HeritageLouis E. NewmanLove Thy Neighbor as Thyself Lenn E. Goodman New York: Oxford, 2008. 235 pp. $55.00.Maimonides and His Heritage Edited by Idit Dobbs-Weinstein, Lenn E. Goodman, and James Allen Grady Albany: SUNY, 2009. $24.95.Perhaps no principle is more central to Western religious ethics than that of “loving your neighbor as yourself.” It is at the heart of the (...) Hebrew Bible’s ethic [End Page 196] of caring for others, especially those most marginalized, both within and outside of the Israelite community. It is rooted in the belief that all humans are created in the divine image, and its implications extend to a myriad of specific injunctions designed to secure the rights of individuals as individuals as well as to ensure the just distribution of goods within society. It has been the subject of extended reflection by generations of Jewish and Christian philosophers (among many others), has spawned multiple versions of the Golden Rule, and has received modern philosophical expression in Kant’s categorical imperative. It should not surprise us, then, that any treatment of such a far-reaching religious–moral principle will require a scholar whose reach extends from the Bible to contemporary moral theory.Lenn Goodman demonstrates in this book that he is more than equal to the task. First given as two of the 2005 Gifford Lectures (the others that year were given by a Christian, a Muslim, and a secular philosopher), these chapters explore the ways in which love of neighbor is at the very heart of biblical ethics, as well as the theory of ethical obligation that it implies. Goodman’s erudition is on full display here as he moves easily from Aristotelian virtue ethics to medieval Jewish Bible commentators to contemporary natural law theorists.Following the long line of commentators who read “as thyself” as a gloss on “neighbor”—namely, that we love the other because she is a person, like oneself—Goodman writes that “our first obligation to one another is respect for subjecthood” (14). All other biblical injunctions with respect to moral behavior are merely corollaries of the notion that all persons are of equal worth insofar as they are equally created in God’s image and so entitled to equal consideration. Goodman takes pains to emphasize that this commandment, though, cannot be reduced to the sum total of positive injunctions; it aims to inculcate an attitude (“love”) that both motivates our moral behavior and extends its scope to encompass the infinite task of emulating God.The most philosophically interesting part of Goodman’s discussion comes in his treatment of monotheism’s contribution to ethics. After all, the command to love our neighbor is presented to us both as a command from God and as a command to love God by loving God’s creatures. How are our idea of God and our relationship with God correlated with our understanding of the nature of moral duty and the scope of moral life?As Goodman sees it, monotheism asserts that “God... is not just a judge but an ontic principle, the greatest reality, highest good and source of all goods, which are conceived as God’s work, expressions of his generosity and wisdom” (45). At the same time, he eschews any simple divine command theory of morality according to which the good is determined by God, either verbally or ontologically. For, “It’s not just that we know the right because we know God’s will. We also know God’s will because we know what is right” (51). This dialectical understanding of God and the good is best captured in Goodman’s claim that “we bring our moral notions, suasions, customs, instincts, attitudes [End Page 197] and intuition to the Law, and they enter into dialogue with what we read, informing our hermeneutic, as scripture itself and the conception of the God encountered in scripture, inform them in turn” (53).Goodman acknowledges that such a view runs headlong into the problem of divinely sanctioned mass murder (see the book of Joshua) and, most famously, the injunction to utterly destroy the Amalakites (Deut. 25:17... (shrink)

Since the mid-1970s, scholars have recognized that the skeptical interpretation of Hume's central argument about induction is problematic. The science of human nature presupposes that inductive inference is justified and there are endorsements of induction throughout "Treatise" Book I. The recent suggestion that I.iii.6 is confined to the psychology of inductive inference cannot account for the epistemic flavor of its claims that neither a genuine demonstration nor a non-question-begging inductive argument can establish the uniformity principle. For Hume, that inductive inference (...) is justified is part of the data to be explained. Bad argument is therefore excluded as the cause of inductive inference; and there is no good argument to cause it. Does this reinstate the problem of induction, undermining Hume's own assumption that induction is justified? It does so only if justification must derive from "reason", from the availability of a cogent argument. Hume rejects this internalist thesis; induction's favorable epistemic status derives from features of custom, the mechanism that generates inductive beliefs. Hume is attracted to this externalist posture because it provides a direct explanation of the epistemic achievements of children and non-human animals — creatures that must rely on custom unsupplemented by argument. (shrink)

Tristram Engelhardt provides an important set of reflections for bioethics in a secular context. Taking Engelhardt's work as its point of departure this article explores the challenges that Jewish ethicists face in contributing to bioethics in a secular context. The article explores how the Jewish tradition can address issues in bioethics in ways that are true to its tradition and at the same time accessible and relevant to "moral strangers" in a secular society. Keywords: bioethics, Engelhardt, Jewish tradition, moral strangers, (...) multicultural, natural law CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

What is the law of the law? What produces our craven subservience to linguistic norms, and our shocking indifference to the phenomenon of universal suffering? In a path-breaking new work of philosophy, Louis Wolcher seeks to answer these questions from the standpoint of Zen Buddhism. Bringing an Eastern sensibility into contact with three of the most important themes in Western philosophy, Beyond Transcendence in Law and Philosophy meticulously investigates three of the twentieth century's most important philosophers: Martin Heidegger - (...) on being, Emmanuel Levinas - on ethics, and Ludwig Wittgenstein - on language. In the context of the larger Western obsession with transcending the ordinary, Louis Wolcher argues that the yearning for transcendence is born of the illusion that there is a fundamental difference between the ordinary and the profound. Employing Zen koans and stories to advance a 'deflationary' view of language and knowledge, he goes on to argue that the norms of transcendence to which we cling are not eternal truths but artefacts of desperate minds adrift on a sea of impermanence. What used to seem so majestically True, Right and Just thus shows itself to be utterly mundane: as merely true, right and just. What is left, however, is not nihilism - for clinging to a view of 'nothingness' is just as deluded as clinging to a view of 'somethingness' - but rather a new beginning of compassionate concern for the suffering of others. Beyond Transcendence in Law and Philosophy is a strikingly original synthesis of Eastern and Western thought. It will enlighten philosophers and legal theorists, as well as those who are interested in or open to the insights of Zen Buddhism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume's Moral Sentiments and the Structure of the Treatise LOUIS E. LOEB ACCORDING TO NORMAN KEMP SMITH and Thomas Hearn, Hume classified moral sentiments as direct passions.' According to Pb.II A,rdal, Hume classified the basic moral sentiments of approval and disapproval of persons as indirect passions. if either of these interpretations is correct, there is an intimate connection between Books II and 111 of Hume's Treatise. This is (...) because the direct and indirect passions (together with the will) are the subject of Book 11 and moral sentiments are discussed in Book 111. So if moral sentiments are special cases of either direct or indirect passions, the treatment of passions in Book Ii is central to the understanding of Book 111. 1 contend, on the contrary, that Hume's moral sentiments are neither direct nor indirect passions. Consequently, the connection between Books 11 and 111 of the Treatise is much less intimate than A,rdal and Hearn have recently suggested.' i. Hume's Classification of the Impressions of Reflection In the four paragraphs of II, i, I Hume provides an exhaustive "Division of the Subject"--the "subject" being "all the perceptions of the mind. ''4 Nowhere else in the Treatise is a complete "division" to be found. As A,rdal points out, such introductory chapters "are likely to be written after the bulk of the book has been completed, or at least to be carefully revised in the light of the main arguments in the book. ''~ For these reasons, there is a strong presumption that the "division" in!I, i, 1should be taken as canonical. Hume's "division" is straightforward. In the first paragraph, perceptions are divided into ideas and impressions; in the first and second paragraphs, impressions are divided into those of sensation and those of reflection; in the third paragraph, impressions of reflection are divided into the calm and the violent; in the fourth (as I am indebted to Wdham Frankena, Ronald Glossop, and Peter Jones for their most helpful comments. ' Norman Kemp Smith, The Philosophy of David Hume (New York: St. Martm'~ Press, 1966), pp. 167-168; and Thomas K. Hearn, Jr., "Ardal on the Moral Sentiments in Hume's rreattse," Phtlosophy 48 (1973):290. z Passton and Value m Hume's "Treatise" (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1966), pp. I 1, 109-133. For a discussion heavily influenced by Ardal, see Stewart R. Sutherland, "Hume on Morality and the Emotions," Phllosophwal Quarterly 26 (1976) : 14-19 especially. ' See Ardal, pp. I-5, 109-133; and Hearn, pp. 288, 292. 9 A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888), p. 275; hereafter cited as T followed by page number. 9 Ardal, p. 94. 13951 396 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY indicated by the last sentence of the third), the violent impressions of reflection are divided into the direct and the indirect. The structure is of a genus-species sort, and none of the distinctions cut across each other: J calm i sense of beauty and deformity (T, 276), moral sentiments impressions of reflection = emotions (secondary impressions) violent = passions direct indirect desire, aversion, grief, joy, pride, humility, love, hope, fear (T, 277, 439) hatred (T, 276-277) This classification is based upon the only natural reading of paragraph three and the first sentence of paragraph four of II, i, I. I quote this material, adding my own emphasis and deleting Hume's: The reflective impressions may be divided into two kinds, viz. the calm and the violent. Of the first kind is the sense of beauty and deformity in action, composition, and external objects. Of the second are the passions of love and hatred, grief and joy, pride and humility. This division is far from being exact. The raptures of poetry and music frequently rise to the greatest height; while those other impressions, properly called passions, may decay into so soft an emotion, as to become, in a manner, imperceptible. But as in general the passions are more violent than the emotions arising from beauty and deformity, these impressions have been commonly distinguish'd from each other. The subject of the human mind being so copious and various, I shall here take... (shrink)

The founding premise of this book is that the nimbus of prestige which once surrounded the idea of justice has now been dimmed to such a degree that it is no longer sufficient to secure the possibility of a good conscience for those who undertake, in good faith, to make the world a better place in the spheres of politics and law. The many decent human beings who have noticed and experienced this diminishment of justice’s prestige find themselves in a (...) thoroughly disenchanted_ _existential situation. For them the attempt to do justice without the illusion of being grounded in something beyond the sheer facticity of their own performances is a distinctly ethical theme which cries out to be investigated in its own right. Heeding the cry, this book asks and attempts to answer the following fundamental ethical question_: Is a life in the law – even one spent in the pursuit of justice – worth living, and if so, how can a disenchanted person come to bear the living of it without constantly having to engage in self-deception?_ If Nietzsche is right that living without illusions is impossible for human beings, then the most important ethical implication of this essentially anthropological fact goes far beyond the question of what illusions we ought to choose. It must also include the question whether we should succumb to that most seductive and pernicious of all illusions: namely, the belief that exercising great care and responsibility in choosing our illusions – which we might then call our ‘principles of justice’ – excuses us ethically for what we do to others in their name. The culmination of a 10 year legal-philosophical project, this book will appeal to graduate students, scholars and curious non-academic intellectuals interested in continental philosophy, critical legal theory, postmodern theology, the philosophy of human rights, and the study of individual ethics in the context of law. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Some Context The Traditional Interpretation Disarming the Evidence for the Traditional Interpretation Evidence that Hume Considers Inductive Inference Justified The Traditional Interpretation Revisited Hume's Epistemic Options Applications to Extended Objects and Belief in God Limitations on Enumerative Induction Acknowledgments References.