Lange Zeit hat die Idee eines musikalischen Fortschritts gleichermassen fasziniert und polarisiert. Als zentraler Bestandteil der Diskurse um die Neue Musik verlangt sie nach einer differenzierten historischen Betrachtung. Anhand von reichhaltigem Textmaterial analysiert Julia Freund die zentralen Konzepte und Argumentationslinien und entwirft ein vielfältiges Panorama der Debatten der 1950er Jahre. Ausgangspunkt ist ein close reading der Schriften und Vorlesungen Theodor W. Adornos, dessen Fortschrittsbegriff im Rahmen seines philosophischen Projekts der Aufklärungskritik greifbar wird. In einem zweiten und dritten Schritt (...) nimmt die Autorin die Denkfiguren und Narrative der seriellen Komponisten (darunter K. Stockhausen und P. Boulez) sowie die Gegenentwürfe ihrer Kritiker (wie P. Hindemith oder Fr. Blume) in den Blick"--Back cover. (shrink)

This paper argues that we should distinguish two different kinds of imaginative vividness: vividness of mental images and vividness of imaginative experiences. Philosophy has focussed on mental images, but distinguishing more complex vivid imaginative experiences from vivid mental images can help us understand our intuitions concerning the notion as well as the explanatory power of vividness. In particular, it can help us understand the epistemic role imagination can play on the one hand and our emotional engagement with literary fiction on (...) the other hand. (shrink)

Metaphysics of Science is the philosophical study of key concepts that figure prominently in science and that, prima facie, stand in need of clarification. It is also concerned with the phenomena that correspond to these concepts. Exemplary topics within Metaphysics of Science include laws of nature, causation, dispositions, natural kinds, possibility and necessity, explanation, reduction, emergence, grounding, and space and time. Metaphysics of Science is a subfield of both metaphysics and the philosophy of science—that is, it can be allocated to (...) either, but it exhausts neither. Unlike metaphysics simpliciter, Metaphysics of Science is not primarily concerned with metaphysical questions that may already arise from everyday phenomena such as what makes a thing (a chair, a desk) the very thing it is, what its identity criteria are, out of which parts is it composed, whether it remains the same if we exchange a couple of its parts, and so forth. Nor is it concerned with the concrete entities (superstrings, molecules, genes, and so forth) postulated by specific sciences; these issues are the subject matter of the special philosophies of science (for example, of physics, of chemistry, of biology). Metaphysics of Science is concerned with more abstract and general concepts that inform all of these sciences. Many of these concepts are interwoven with each other. For example, metaphysicians of science inquire whether dispositionality, lawhood, and causation can be accounted for in nonmodal terms; whether laws of nature presuppose the existence of natural kinds; and whether the properties of macrolevel objects supervene on dispositional or nondispositional properties. This article surveys the scope (section 1), historical origin (section 2), exemplary subject matters (section 4), and methodology (section 5) of Metaphysics of Science, as well as the motivation that drives it (section 3). (shrink)

This paper argues that a crucial skill needed to empathize with others cannot be trained by reading fiction: the skill of reading the evidence for the other person’s state of mind and, thus, empath...

One of the most important developments in the past decades of scholarship on Kant's practical philosophy is a growing interest in his conception of moral character, especially in his conception of virtue. Focusing especially on his later works in moral philosophy, such as the Doctrine of Virtue in his Metaphysics of Morals, commentators have shown that Kant possesses a rich, elaborate account of moral virtue. This has brought partly unexpected aspects of Kantian moral philosophy to new light. We can no (...) longer reduce Kant's moral philosophy to a theory concerned with the moral status of individual actions and the decision procedure leading up to them. Nor can one uphold the view that emotions and sentiments play no... (shrink)

In recent years, philosophers have become increasingly interested in a Hegelian approach to Aristotelian non-reductive naturalism. This paper points out a challenge faced by naturalist readings of Hegel's conception of spirit. For Hegel, spirit and nature are essentially distinct and even related in an antagonistic way. It is difficult to do full justice to this thought while at the same time reading Hegel as a naturalist. The paper also seeks to suggest a response to this challenge. Drawing on Hegel's account (...) of mechanism in his philosophy of spirit, it shows that processes which can count as natural – such as mechanical processes – constitute for Hegel an integral and indispensable part of spiritual activity. Against this background, it is possible to develop a form of Hegelian naturalism which does not lose sight of the essential distinction, even opposition of spirit and nature. (shrink)

This article investigates whether investors consider the reliability of companies’ sustainability information when determining the companies’ market value. Specifically, we examine market reactions (in terms of abnormal returns) to events that increase the reliability of companies’ sustainability information but do not provide markets with additional sustainability information. Controlling for competing effects, we regard companies’ additions to an internationally important sustainability index as such events and consider possible determinants for market reactions. Our results suggest that first, investors take into account the (...) reliability of sustainability information when determining the market value of a company and second, the benefits of increased reliability of sustainability information vary cross-sectionally. More specifically, companies that carry higher risks for investors (e.g., higher systematic investment risk, higher financial leverage, and higher levels of opportunistic management behavior) react more strongly to an increase in the reliability of sustainability information. Finally, we show that the benefits of an increase in the reliability of sustainability information are higher in times of economic uncertainty (e.g., during economic downturns and generally high stock price volatilities). (shrink)

In this text, a variety of modal logics at the sentential, first-order, and second-order levels are developed with clarity, precision and philosophical insight.

Abstract: Hegel's theory of tragedy is often considered to be primarily a theory of the objective powers involved in tragic conflicts—for Hegel, these are paradigmatically competing ethical notions—and of the rationality which underlies and drives such conflicts. Such a view follows naturally from a close reading of Hegel's discussion of classical Greek tragedy in his Lectures on Aesthetics. However, this view gives rise to the question of whether Hegel's theory of tragedy can account for the significance of tragic experience, in (...) particular the experience of tragic suffering; it has been argued repeatedly that it cannot. In contrast, I want to suggest in this paper that a theory of tragic experience can be derived from Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. This Hegelian theory of tragic experience, I argue, should be understood as complementing rather than challenging Hegel's theory of objective tragic conflict. (shrink)

A large part of the current debate among virtue ethicists focuses on the role played by phronesis, or wise practical reasoning, in virtuous action. The paradigmatic case of an action expressing phronesis is one where an agent explicitly reflects and deliberates on all practical options in a given situation and eventually makes a wise choice. Habitual actions, by contrast, are typically performed automatically, that is, in the absence of preceding deliberation. Thus they would seem to fall outside of the primary (...) focus of the current virtue ethical debate. By contrast, Bill Pollard has recently suggested that all properly virtuous actions must be performed habitually and therefore automatically, i.e. in the absence of moral deliberation. In this paper, Pollard’s suggestion is interpreted as the thesis that habitual automaticity is constitutive of virtue or moral excellence. By constructing an argument in favor of it and discussing several objections, the paper ultimately seeks to defend a qualified version of this thesis. (shrink)

German theologian F. D. E. Schleiermacher's doctrine of God-the first to be developed in the post-Kantian era-fundamentally changed the course of Christian theology. The degree to which his doctrine of God was influenced by the philosophy of Benedict de Spinoza remains in dispute, however. This study examines the ways in which Schleiermacher actively adopted elements of Spinoza's thought in the development of his own theological doctrine of God. Julia Lamm's analysis of little-known but seminal essays by Schleiermacher reveals his (...) young creative genius in daring to go beyond the neo-Spinozism of Herder and the post-Kantianism of Fichte by developing his own post-Kantian Spinozism. Schleiermacher's unique simultaneous appropriation of Kant and Spinoza is characterized by four themes: an organic monism, an ethical determinism, a critical realism, and a nonanthropomorphic view of God, which Lamm traces through his two major theological works, On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers and The Christian Faith. Ultimately, Lamm finds that Schleiermacher departs from Spinoza in significant ways. Most notably, he talks about "the living God" who is best expressed through the divine attributes of love and wisdom. This living God is what Schleiermacher refers to as the "third alternative" to, on the one hand, the anthropomorphized God of orthodox Protestantism and, on the other hand, Spinoza's natura naturans. (shrink)

According to a major trend in Hegel scholarship, Hegel advocates a McDowell-style transformativist conception of the human mind. Central to this conception is a methodological dualism, according to which phenomena belonging to the rational mind, in contrast to those belonging to non-rational nature, must be accounted for from within the ‘space of reasons.’ In this paper I argue, by contrast, that Hegel rejects methodological dualism. For Hegel, a constitutive aspect of the rational mind is the activity of expression. I show (...) how Hegel’s philosophy of mind adequately accounts for low-level forms of expressivity without appealing to capacities connected to conceptual thought and judgment, and that he does so by drawing on methods similar to those employed within the empirical sciences of his time. Thus, for Hegel, the sphere of the rational mind is broader than the McDowellian space of reasons. (shrink)

In his Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences, Hegel states that the essential characteristic of spirit is to exhibit the structure of manifestation. This paper argues that for Hegel the structure of manifestation is actualized in habituated bodily actions, which sheds light on Hegel’s understanding of the relation between body and soul. Furthermore, the paper shows that there is an intrinsic relation between Hegel’s theory of habit and his aesthetics. Insofar as it exemplifies the structure of manifestation, habit has an expressive dimension (...) for Hegel, and is therefore essentially complemented by its portrayal in classical works of art by virtue of the specific relation between form and content that such works exhibit. According to the interpretation presented here, Hegel’s philosophy of mind and his philosophy of aesthetics mutually complement and illuminate each other. (shrink)

By bringing together influential critics of neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics and some of the strongest defenders of an Aristotelian approach, this collection provides a fresh assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of Aristotelian virtue ethics and its contemporary interpretations. Contributors critically discuss and re-assess the neo-Aristotelian paradigm which has been predominant in the philosophical discourse on virtue for the past 30 years.

In this commentary, we consider how Balcetis’s proposals may interface with the study of motivation and emotion in lifespan developmental psychology, pointing to open questions regarding the distance perception of long-term chronic goals as well as age-related shifts from informational to emotional goals.

Music is an inescapable part of social, cultural and political life, and has played a powerful role in mobilising support for popular movements demanding social justice. The impact of David Bowie, Prince and Bob Dylan, for example, on diversity awareness and legislative reform relating to sexuality, gender and racial equality respectively is still felt; with the latter receiving a Nobel Prize in 2016 for ‘having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition’. The influence of these composers and (...) performers reached far beyond the concert hall. Conversely, musical propaganda has been a common feature of many dictatorships, most notably Nazism’s Adolf Hitler and Communism’s Joseph Stalin, and is still instrumental in the election campaigns of political parties. US President Donald Trump’s winning retro classic rock campaign playlist conveyed an idealised version of the past which aligned with the tastes and interests of his core constituency, and evoked feelings of nationalistic pride and patriotism. The eclectic selection of upbeat music effectively masked the underlying capitalist initiatives, corporate greed and allegations of financial impropriety that characterised both the Democrat and Republican campaigns. Although unable to impart meaning with the same level of precision as language, music has a potentially broader semantic capacity due to its greater elasticity. It constitutes a common language which has the ability to create a community of people that sings, speaks, reasons, votes and even feels the same way. Accordingly, this article explores the symbiotic relationship between music and law, identity politics and social justice, via the lens of musical semiosis. (shrink)

A case has been made by various authors that the normative and processual notion of personhood found in African philosophy is discriminatory: it has been labelled as sexist, ableist and anti-queer. Within the anti-queer critique, one area that has not been specifically addressed in the literature is whether this notion of personhood is biased against people who identify as non-binary with respect to gender. This includes people who are gender fluid and gender neutral, among others. In this article, we argue (...) that the binary conception of gender is deeply connected to a colonial agenda, and does not accurately fit extra-colonial gender conceptions. Through an analysis of extra-colonial language and logic, read together with the flexibility inherent in the processual notion of personhood (on our reading), we argue that binaries do not sit comfortably with extra-colonial African thinking, and as such, processual and normative personhood can be understood in a way that embraces non-binary individuals. Further, the standards for achieving personhood are set by and achieved within the community, so a community which recognises and celebrates non-binary individuals can set up a framework for them to achieve personhood. Accordingly, normative personhood in African thought is found not to exclude those of non-binary gender. This reading saves the normative approach from some of the critiques levelled against it, as well as: i) enhancing consistency in an African world view; ii) strengthening the decolonial agenda; and iii) showing normative personhood to be fairer and more inclusive. (shrink)

Motivational and emotional changes across adulthood have a profound impact on cognition. In this registered report, we conducted an experimental investigation of motivational influence on remembering intentions after a delay (prospective memory; PM) in younger, middle-aged, and older adults, using gain- and loss-framing manipulations. The present study examined for the first time whether motivational framing in a PM task has different effects on younger and older adults’ PM performance (N = 180; age range: 18–85 years) in a controlled laboratory setting. (...) Based on lifespan theories of motivation, we assumed that the prevention of losses becomes more relevant with increasing age: We expected that older adults show relatively higher PM performance in a task with loss-related consequences following PM failure than in a task in which successful PM leads to gains. The opposite pattern of performance was expected for younger adults. The findings suggest that the relevance of reward and positive gain-related consequences for successful remembering appears to decrease with age. As hypothesised, a motivational framing × age interaction indicated that age differences in memory performance were smaller with loss-related than gain-related consequences, supporting a loss-prevention view on motivated cognition. (shrink)

Este artigo apresenta resultados de uma pesquisa sobre o Colégio Sagrado Coração de Jesus, localizado no Município de Bento Gonçalves/ RS, uma instituição educativa particular e católica. Como recorte temporal, contempla o período de 1956, data da criação do colégio, até 1972, ano em que a instituição apresentou interessantes mudanças em seu processo educativo, em virtude dos reflexos da Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação 5.692/1971. Esta investigação apresenta uma análise sobre a prática do ensino misto presente na cultura (...) escolar, a qual foi vivenciada pelos sujeitos no interior da escola e representada pelos seus modos de ser, de estar, de agir e de se relacionar em determinados tempo e espaço. Como metodologia, utilizamos fotografias e a História Oral, tendo como sujeitos da investigação os seguintes entrevistados: dois ex-alunos, uma ex-professora e dois moradores do Bairro Cidade Alta, região em que o colégio se constituiu dentro do município. Pelas análises produzidas a partir das fontes investigadas, concluímos que, embora o discurso para a comunidade estivesse voltado para uma educação compartilhada entre meninos e meninas, essa prática apresentou algumas divergências no interior da escola, como a própria separação dos gêneros em atividades do cotidiano escolar. As estratégias identificadas no espaço escolar, para unir ou separar meninos e meninas, apontam para uma reflexão em torno da prática do ensino misto no colégio e promovem diferentes interpretações para os sujeitos que participaram do processo de constituição dessa instituição educativa, bem como vivenciaram esses primeiros anos do ensino misto nesse colégio. Palavras-chave: Instituição educativa. Prática escolar. Cultura escolar. (shrink)

The question of form in Peirce’s early thought constitutes the starting point of his reflection on the connection models of the parts of continua. I will show how, interpreted as reason rather than as cause, form becomes a productive event. In this productive event the form, as “condition of possibility of the relation of the elementary parts of representation” becomes a modeling dynamic which, starting from interpretation, allows initiation of the process of the passage from substance to being. The problem (...) of this passage is the problem of a continuity that cannot be thought by the classical linear model of time. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2018 Heft: 225 Seiten: 229-244.

ABSTRACT:Biomedical and philosophical traditions postulate the experience of pain either as quantifiable or as sociocultural phenomena. This critical assessment offers a close reading of Lara Parker’s Vagina Problems: Endometriosis, Painful Sex, and Other Taboo Topics (2020) and Abby Norman’s Ask Me About My Uterus: A Quest to Make Doctors Believe in Women’s Pain (2018), analyzing the authors’ use of language as a tool to comprehend and communicate pain. Norman’s and Parker’s memoirs narrate the lived experience of endometriosis, a condition diagnosed (...) almost exclusively in women and characterized by chronic pain. The essay looks at how metaphors are employed in living and narrating endometriosis in medical, social, and cultural settings that are highly skeptical of women’s pain and trace a shift in the use of pain metaphors towards an acceptance of the pain experience, which is conceptualized as empowering by the climax of the narrative. (shrink)

According to so-called transformative theories of rationality, human nature is of a fundamentally different kind than the nature of non-human animals, because it is transformed by the possession of rational capacities. This is assumed tobe reflected in the fact that human nature and non-human nature require two fundamentally different forms of explanation: reason-based explanations on the one hand, explanations with reference to natural laws on the other. There is no continuity between these two forms of explanation, i.e. a transition from (...) one to the other is not intelligible. In this paper, I will draw on Hegel to sketch a counter-position to this kind of “continuity skepticism” (Dorit Bar-On, 2013). The central thesis is that Hegel’s project in his anthropology is to make the transition from one order of explanation to another intelligible by outlining an intermediate realm in which the phenomena under investigation are no longer entirely outside, and not yet entirely inside, the rational order of explanation. (shrink)

To a superficial consideration, art criticism might appear as a profession of a parasitic nature, nourishing itself on what is produced by others: by artists. In fact, however, the relation between artistic practice and its criticism is more adequately conceived of as a sort of symbiosis. For, while it is true that criticism depends on and presupposes the existence of its objects - that is, works of art - on the other hand nothing would prevent good art from being equated (...) with and contaminated by bad art if critics ceased to draw a distinction between the two. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article seeks to draw parallels between today’s transmodern reality and the events recounted in Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments and in The Handmaid’s Tale Hulu TV series, particularly Seasons 2 and 3. Addressing issues such as controlled reproduction, violence, corporeal subjection of women, and environmental injustice, I focus on the body as a site of social construction, vulnerability and control. Drawing on the work of various scholars, I argue that the body is simultaneously a site of vulnerability and of (...) resistance that exceeds totalitarian categories, thus allowing for empowering “modes of heterogeneity,” fluidity, diversity, environmental as well as transcorporeal. In Gilead, the totalitarian state where Atwood’s two novels are set, it is the body that is acted upon, with massive repression and violence, and it is the body that resists by forming alternative relations and practices, which eventually facilitate the fall of Gilead from within. Throughout my analysis, I draw on the transmodern concept, while widening it toward the corporeal enmeshment with others in order to demonstrate that it is the interdependence of vulnerability and empowerment that reveals transmodernity’s “new visions of justice.”. (shrink)

"À son décès, Julien Freund laissait parmi ses papiers un recueil de textes inédits, sous forme épistolaire, adressés à ses amis et collègues : les Lettres de la vallée. Dans ces méditations, rédigées en sa retraite vosgienne - qui n'est pas sans évoquer la Hütte de Heidegger, de l'autre côté du Rhin - et loin des servitudes propres aux écrits universitaires, l'auteur de L'Essence du politique s'exprime en toute liberté, à bâtons rompus, sur ses sujets de prédilection (le politique, (...) l'idéologie, la guerre, les totalitarismes, l'utopie, la décadence), mais également l'enseignement, le journalisme, la connaissance, le droit, la morale, la métaphysique, les limites... Ce livre forme la clef de voûte où se rejoignent les grands thèmes de sa pensée."--Page 4 de la couverture. (shrink)