Upon Scheler’s death in 1928, Martin Heidegger remarked that he was the most important force in philosophy at the time. Jose Ortega y Gasset called Scheler "the first man of the philosophical paradise." The Human Place in the Cosmos, the last of his works Scheler completed, is a pivotal piece in the development of his writing as a whole, marking a peculiar shift in his approach and thought. He had been asked to provide an initial sketch of his much larger (...) works on philosophical anthropology and metaphysics--works he was not able to complete because of his early demise. Frings' new translation of this key work allows us to read and understand Scheler's thought within current philosophical debates and interests. The book addresses two main questions: What is the human being? And what is the place of the human being in the universe? Scheler responds to these questions within contexts of said two projected much larger works but not without reference to scientific research. He covers various levels of being: inorganic reality, organic reality, all the way up to practical intelligence and the spiritual dimension of human beings, and touching upon the holy. Negotiating two intertwined levels of being, life-energy and "spirit," this work marks not only a critical moment in the development of his own philosophy but also a significant contribution to the current discussions of continental and analytic philosophers on the nature of the person. (shrink)

This article attempts to bridge the philosophical gap between Western music education philosophers and practicing Suzuki music teachers. Specifically addressed is Estelle Jorgensen's critique of Suzuki-trained educators who may rely too heavily on rote pedagogical methods without careful reflection of the philosophical principles underlying their approach. By first discussing the cultural relativity of philosophical expression, this article suggests that Suzuki's philosophy may be better (although differently) articulated than Western scholars give it credit. On the other hand, this article also invites (...) contemporary string pedagogues who use Suzuki's methods to candidly consider how much attention they pay to Suzuki's (and their own) educational philosophy as they teach. Finally, this article articulates Suzuki's philosophy of music education, named here "Music Education as Love Education" (a play on words with the familiar term "Music Education as Aesthetic Education," to reflect Suzuki's principal focus on the nurturing of students)—in order to offer a fresh look at a philosophy that may be often, though differently, disregarded by both sides of the debate. Suzuki's writings and interviews with individuals who worked with Suzuki are used to demonstrate his belief in the spiritual nature of musical tone, and the high priority he placed upon character development. (shrink)

This paper aims to examine how specific aspects of Bakhtin's theoretical perspective might inform our understanding of improvisation. Moreover, it outlines the possible educational implications of such a perspective. Specifically, a sketch of a Bakhtinian conception of improvisation is proposed, a sketch which emphasizes the cultivation of an attitude of consciousness that leads to an understanding of improvised music making as an obligation to explore the unknown, to search for freedom through the responsibility to attend to the uniqueness of irrevocable (...) musical acts. Moreover, emphasis is given to the potential of improvisation to create a music-making context that counters monologic musical discourses, providing a site of resistance to fixity and closure. It is argued that improvisation is dialogic exactly because it creates a very special sense of interaction, which is characterized by unfinalizability and openness. At the same time, improvisation is in need of temporary finalizations which occur through the presence of the audience and the musicians' struggle to raise their minds 'above' their playing, looking at their music from outside and getting 'back in' again. It is hoped that such a perspective might provide the necessary theoretical tools for re-thinking the role of improvisation in music education. A Bakhtinian view on the experience of improvisation would, it is suggested, be educationally valuable exactly because it regards improvisation not as a problem-solving method but a problem-positing approach: as a musical practice that involves children and young people in the experiential pursuit of freedom and the understanding of the "ought" of imagining ways forward, countering monologue by allowing the flourishing of a polyphony of unmerged voices, constituting a distinctive chronotope which provides the possibility of an enactment of everyday living in musical terms. The decision to improvise marks the initiation of a search for a public musical space which is marked by the absence of fear, where exploration of musical freedom is pursued, where everything might happen but not anything goes. (shrink)

A lengthy critique of Kant's apriorism precedes discussions on the ethical principles of eudaemonism, utilitarianism, pragmatism, and positivism.

The anchor of CBS evening news collects the best life tips from a host of accomplished leaders, thinkers, artists and more, including Chelsea Handler, Malcolm Gladwell, Mario Batali, Colin Powell, Ken Burns, Barbara Walters, Beyoncé, Google's Eric Schmidt, Mike Bloomberg and many more.

There is little more than a decade left before the bells allover the world will be ringing in the first hour of the twenty-first century, which will surely be an era of highly advanced technology. Looking back on the century that we live in, one can realize that generations of people who have already lived in it for the better parts of their lives have begun to ask the same question that also every individual person thinks about when he is (...) faced with the first signs of the end of his life. It is the question: "Why did everything in my life happen the way it did?" Or, "It would have been so easy to have channelled events into directions other than the way they went. " Or, "Why, in all the world, is my life coming to an end as it does, or, why must all of us face this kind of end of our century?" Whenever human beings take retrospective views of their lives and times - when they are faced with their own personal "fin du siecle" - there appears to be an increasing anxiety throughout the masses asso ciated with a somber feeling of pessimism, which may even be mixed with a slight degree of fatalism. There is quite another feeling with those persons who were born late in this century and who did not share all the events the older generation experi enced. (shrink)

This book is designed to fill a long-standing gap in the general literature of 20th century philosophy in that it offers a comprehensive view of the philosophy of Max Scheler (1874-1928) and opens up substantial discussions that have hitherto been largely overlooked. The book is solely based on the original texts of the German Collected Edition as well as posthumous and untranslated materials. References to English translations have been made whenever available. -- from back cover.

The central theme is a hitherto unknown explanation of the “temporality” of the person as proposed by the late Max Scheler. The first part deals with the meaning of “absolute time” in general. The second part shows how the temporality of the person is to be seen as “absolute” time on the basis of two opposing principles in man: the “life-center” or impulsion, and “mind” which, without the former, remains powerless, but conjoined with it “become” personal in absolute time.

Evil is a noticeably absent concept in modern and contemporary literature. The author protrays Scheler’s approach to the question of evil as that which has existence only in or on the substrate of person. Furthermore, this “dis-value” of evil, like the person, is a phenomeon of temporality.

It will be recalled that Mr. Mattick stated that Marxism does not derive its social theory from physical theory, and that any attempt to do so is an aberration from marxism. It is maintained that Marx is not a determinist or indeterminist in the ususal sense of these terms. Furthermore, it was argued that ideologies are no longer decisive weapons and that Marxists put little trust in the dialectical course of history.

Es sei an dieser Stelle Frau Maria Scheler für die von ihr er­ laubten Einblicke in den Nachlass ihres Mannes gedankt, ins­ besondere für die langen und eingehenden Gespräche, die mir für die Erkenntnis der wahren Intentionen Max Schelers unerlässlich gewesen sind. Ich danke nochmals Herrn Professor Dr. Martin Heidegger für die wertvollen Hinsweise bezüglich Max Schelers Aufnahme von Sein und Zeit. Für einige Berichtigungen in der deutschen Ausdrucksweise, die dem Verfasser durch seine langjährige Tätigkeit in Amerika einerseits, und durch (...) den deutschen Sprachgebrauch Max Schelers und Martin Heideggers andererseits, erschwert wurde, danke ich Herrn Professor Dr. Wilhelm Dupre, De Paul University, Chicago, und Frau Dr. Ingeborg Schüssler von der Universität Köln. Für einige technische Hilfe danke ich Herrn Professor Dr. Henry J. Koren, St. Leo College, Florida, und Herrn Professor Dr. K. H. Volkmann-Schluck, Universität Köln. Chicago, im Februar rg6g M.S.F. EINLEITUNG Das Nichtgesagte eines Fragmentes gehört zu dem, was es sagt. Zu dem, was das Fragment Sein und Zeit (SZ) sagt, gehört das Offenbleiben einer Reihe von Fragen. Eine dieser Fragen lautet: "Was besagt ontologisch Wert"? Auf dem Boden der materialen Wertethik versteht sich diese Frage als eine nach der sittlichen Seinsweise der Person. Dies nicht nur, weil die Person ein aus­ gezeichneter Träger von bestimmten Wertarten ist, sondern weil zum Menschen überhaupt - gleich wie man ihn ontologisch freilegt - personales Wertsein gehört. Jede Ontologie vom Menschen muss deshalb dem Personsein und seiner sittlichen Seinsart Rechnung tragen. (shrink)

Biomedical research funding bodies across Europe and North America increasingly encourage—and, in some cases, require—investigators to involve members of the public in funded research. Yet there remains a striking lack of clarity about what ‘good’ or ‘successful’ public involvement looks like. In an effort to provide guidance to investigators and research organisations, representatives of several key research funding bodies in the UK recently came together to develop the National Standards for Public Involvement in Research. The Standards have critical implications for (...) the future of biomedical research in the UK and in other countries as researchers and funders abroad look to the Standards as a model for their own policy development. We assess the Standards and find that despite offering useful suggestions for dealing with practical challenges associated with public involvement, the Standards fail to address fundamental questions about when, why and with whom public involvement should be undertaken in the first place. We show that presented without this justificatory context, many of the recommendations in the Standards are, at best, fragments that require substantial elaboration by those looking to apply the Standards in their own work and, at worst, subject to potentially harmful misapplication by well-meaning investigators. As funding bodies increasingly push for public involvement in research, the key lesson of our analysis is that future recommendations about how public involvement should be conducted cannot be coherently formulated without a clear sense of the underlying goals and rationales for public involvement. (shrink)

Evil is a noticeably absent concept in modern and contemporary literature. The author protrays Scheler’s approach to the question of evil as that which has existence only in or on the substrate of person. Furthermore, this “dis-value” of evil, like the person, is a phenomeon of temporality.

The philosopher Max Scheler was born August 22, 1874, in Munich. His mother was of Jewish extraction, his father Lutheran. He became a member of the Roman Catholic Church early in his youth, probably because of its concept of love. He studied medicine and philosophy in Munich and Berlin, and received his doctorate at Jena University in 1899 where he began teaching from 1900 to 1906. He then joined the fledgling phenomenological movement but, in his own phenomenological researches, he remained (...) independent of it. Due to a divorce in 1910, the predominantly Catholic University of Munich discontinued his contract. He remarried in 1912, but remained without a university affiliation until 1919 when he was hired by the University of Cologne as professor of philosophy and director of the Institute of Sociology. During this period he produced an unusual amount of work, which quickly drew attention throughout Germany. In 1924 he married Maria Scheu, who, after his demise on May 19, 1928, was the devoted curator of thousands of posthumous manuscripts. Scheler's work was suppressed by the German Nazi regime. (shrink)