In this essay I respond to the critical remarks made by Prof. Reppert in “Reply to Parsons and Lippard on the Argument from Reason” (present issue). I also provide a critique of Reppert’s original article, “The Argument from Reason,” in Philo vol. 2, no. 1 (Spring-Summer 1999).

"Hooray! Professor Lucy Green's classic text is now available, in its second edition, to a new generation. The first edition contributed to the development of a new field, the sociology of music education. But the argument is of wider interest, and has been useful to me in better understanding the mechanics of the professional life as applicable to the working player." Robert Fripp, King Crimson RESPONSES TO THE FIRST EDITION OF MUSIC ON DEAF EARS: "This is a fine book indeed. (...) The clarity of mind shining through the text is apparent, and the concern with music, musical experience and the development of children in our schools is self-evident.. Musicians and educators would do well to reflect upon these ideas and the inherent challenges to our comfortable but essentially problematic ways of thinking about and responding to music." Keith Swanwick, Music and Letters "The argument, necessarily simplified here, is powerfully and cogently made. It not only impinges on educational practice but is one of the best general discussions of musical meaning and ideology I have read." Richard Middleton, Popular Music "This analysis has considerable explanatory power, especially in regard to the response of school pupils to various musical styles.. I recommend this interesting and uncomfortable book not just to music teachers but to all those musicians and music lovers who think at all about the nature of their art." Christopher Small, British Journal of Music Education. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Musician and Teacher: An Orientation to Music EducationBrent GaultPatricia Shehan Campbell (with chapters contributed by Steven M. Demorest and Steven J. Morrison), Musician and Teacher: An Orientation to Music Education (New York, NY: W. W. Norton and Company, 2008)If one were to review the course content of undergraduate music education programs at various colleges and universities, an "Introduction to Music Education" or "Foundations of Music Education" course would (...) most likely be included. This course often serves a variety of functions for a given program. It can provide students with an overview of the various instructional settings found in the music education profession and introduce theoretical information regarding student development and learning. Foundation courses often review historical and philosophical information, allow students to develop their own justifications regarding why music should be part of a school program, and present information regarding practical issues in the music teaching profession including assessment, planning for instruction, use of technology, and working with diverse learning situations.Because the curricular content within given foundation courses can be quite varied, finding a text that is broad enough to cover the myriad of topics that might be addressed in this type of course yet detailed enough to make each topic meaningful is a true challenge. While no single text can truly meet all needs [End Page 213] that are unique to each instructional setting, Patricia Shehan Campbell's Musician and Teacher: An Orientation to Music Education is an example of a text that succeeds in both providing a broad view of the music education profession while also presenting specific and meaningful information related to each topic addressed within its pages.One of the unique aspects of this book is Campbell's attempt throughout the text to discuss music education from personal, theoretical, and global perspectives. Many of the chapters utilize case descriptions of music education students and practicing teachers to highlight the theoretical ideas discussed in the text. In addition, Campbell relates learning theories and instructional approaches not only to instructional settings within the United States but throughout the world so that the reader can see both similarities and differences in how music is experienced in each setting.The first six chapters of the text deal with general principles related to the music education profession. An opening chapter sets the stage by discussing the decision to become a music educator, relating this decision to the personal stories of five individuals, and describing the qualities that can lead to a successful career in music education. The second chapter, "Great Minds on Music Education," provides an overview of the philosophical arguments for music education. Campbell uses this chapter to relay the ideas of perennial figures commonly identified with music education philosophy including John Blacking, Christopher Small, Bennett Reimer, Keith Swanwick, David Elliott, and Estelle Jorgensen, and adds to this a description of the views of political leaders, scholars, and thinkers throughout the world. In addition to discussing the views of Plato, Aristotle, Boethius, and Lowell Mason, Campbell also includes the ideas of Hildegard von Bingen, Akbar the Great (India), Chulalongkorn (Thailand), and Nelson Mandela to provide a richer portrait of how members of cultural communities throughout the world experience and value music.Continuing with this global perspective, Campbell uses the third chapter to discuss the ways that communities transmit music via formal, nonformal, and natural learning. These three ways of transmitting knowledge are similar to the ideas she described related to Bateson (Learning I, II, and III) and Merriam (enculturation, training, and schooling) in Lessons from the World. 11 After defining these approaches to learning, Campbell describes several learning contexts both past (Medieval Europe) and present (West Africa) to illustrate how formal, nonformal, and/or natural learning is utilized. The cross cultural comparison continues in Chapter Four, as Campbell describes various systems of music education in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America to illustrate similarities and differences related to standards for education, goals for instruction, and allotment of instructional time and resources.After providing this global view related to approaches to learning and systems [End Page 214] of instruction, the fifth chapter attempts to personalize music education through vignettes of music programs... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Michael L. MarkPatrice Madura Ward-SteinmanI met Michael Mark at the first Philosophy of Music Education conference held at Indiana University in the summer of 1990. I was a doctoral student at IU then and had studied the writings of many of the conference presenters and so the experience of hearing and meeting them in person was a heady one, indeed. I will never forget those impressions of Phil Alperson, (...) Wayne Bowman, Allen Britton, David Elliott, Peter Kivy, Gerard Knieter, Thomas Regelski, Bennett Reimer, John Shepherd, Ann Stokes, Eleanor Stubley, Keith Swanwick, and many others.I was interested in meeting Michael after hearing his response to the presentation of one of my favorite IU professors of musicology, Austin Caswell. Caswell’s provocative paper, “How We Got into Canonicity and What it has Done to Us: An American Music Historian’s View of Music in Academia,” claimed that “the effect of canonicity on American musical life is destructive,” while Michael’s response was characterized by his style of writing that I came to recognize over the decades as distinct, calm, logical, methodical, and based in an extraordinarily wide and deep wealth of historical knowledge. While I greatly admired my rebellious and passionate professor’s views and temperament which were not unlike my own, I also appreciated hearing Michael’s measured and thoughtful response. Thus began my friendship with Michael, who, I learned, was not only a professor [End Page 92] and dean at Towson State University but also an avid big band woodwind doubler who showed interest in my doctoral research in the art of vocal jazz improvisation. That friendship lasted for almost twenty-eight years and we enjoyed memorable reunions at other conferences. For example, there was the ISPME conference held at UCLA where he invited me to dinner with his good friend and connoisseur of fine wines, Bennett Reimer, and the ISPME conference in Helsinki where, after I tripped and severely broke my ankle, requiring surgery, Michael, Estelle Jorgensen, Iris Yob, and two then-doctoral students (Kasia Bugaj and Leonard Tan) visited me in the Helsinki hospital.When I began teaching at the University of Southern California in 1995, it was fortuitous that Michael’s brother, Brian, lived in the Los Angeles area. His frequent visits allowed him to make several guest lectures to my graduate research methods classes, very welcome opportunities. After one of those lectures, I relayed the history of my family’s ballroom in the Chicago area that was open for business with big band music from 1929 until 1967. He asked if I had any artifacts from Madura’s Danceland, and when I mentioned my father’s stacks of dusty record books, newsletters, photos, and posters in our basement, he became very enthusiastic and told me that I had a “gold mine” of an archive with which to write a book about the place! As a trained quantitative researcher, I began to explore the record books to analyze trends in band pay over the Depression and World War II years.1 Over the next ten years, with help from Michael’s regular prodding and encouragement, I organized the large archive into the history of Madura’s Danceland.2 I owe this personally important accomplishment to Michael Mark.Michael invited me (in his endearing way which I could not refuse) to coauthor a music education textbook with him3 and our writing partnership went so smoothly that he invited me to co-author the 4th edition of his Contemporary Music Education.4 Although our writing styles and areas of expertise were very different, I learned much from his narrative approach which included illustrative scenarios, interviews, and the informal use of contractions, a style of writing that was not second nature for me. We wrote both books without meeting in person, except to celebrate the publication of the first at the Metropolitan Art Museum café in New York with our beloved spouses, Lois Mark and David Ward-Steinman.Dr. Michael L. Mark will long be remembered for his many books, chapters, and articles on the history of music education and his many symposium presentations; for his university teaching and administrative achievements; and for his... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Musician and Teacher: An Orientation to Music EducationBrent GaultPatricia Shehan Campbell (with chapters contributed by Steven M. Demorest and Steven J. Morrison), Musician and Teacher: An Orientation to Music Education (New York, NY: W. W. Norton and Company, 2008)If one were to review the course content of undergraduate music education programs at various colleges and universities, an "Introduction to Music Education" or "Foundations of Music Education" course would (...) most likely be included. This course often serves a variety of functions for a given program. It can provide students with an overview of the various instructional settings found in the music education profession and introduce theoretical information regarding student development and learning. Foundation courses often review historical and philosophical information, allow students to develop their own justifications regarding why music should be part of a school program, and present information regarding practical issues in the music teaching profession including assessment, planning for instruction, use of technology, and working with diverse learning situations.Because the curricular content within given foundation courses can be quite varied, finding a text that is broad enough to cover the myriad of topics that might be addressed in this type of course yet detailed enough to make each topic meaningful is a true challenge. While no single text can truly meet all needs [End Page 213] that are unique to each instructional setting, Patricia Shehan Campbell's Musician and Teacher: An Orientation to Music Education is an example of a text that succeeds in both providing a broad view of the music education profession while also presenting specific and meaningful information related to each topic addressed within its pages.One of the unique aspects of this book is Campbell's attempt throughout the text to discuss music education from personal, theoretical, and global perspectives. Many of the chapters utilize case descriptions of music education students and practicing teachers to highlight the theoretical ideas discussed in the text. In addition, Campbell relates learning theories and instructional approaches not only to instructional settings within the United States but throughout the world so that the reader can see both similarities and differences in how music is experienced in each setting.The first six chapters of the text deal with general principles related to the music education profession. An opening chapter sets the stage by discussing the decision to become a music educator, relating this decision to the personal stories of five individuals, and describing the qualities that can lead to a successful career in music education. The second chapter, "Great Minds on Music Education," provides an overview of the philosophical arguments for music education. Campbell uses this chapter to relay the ideas of perennial figures commonly identified with music education philosophy including John Blacking, Christopher Small, Bennett Reimer, Keith Swanwick, David Elliott, and Estelle Jorgensen, and adds to this a description of the views of political leaders, scholars, and thinkers throughout the world. In addition to discussing the views of Plato, Aristotle, Boethius, and Lowell Mason, Campbell also includes the ideas of Hildegard von Bingen, Akbar the Great (India), Chulalongkorn (Thailand), and Nelson Mandela to provide a richer portrait of how members of cultural communities throughout the world experience and value music.Continuing with this global perspective, Campbell uses the third chapter to discuss the ways that communities transmit music via formal, nonformal, and natural learning. These three ways of transmitting knowledge are similar to the ideas she described related to Bateson (Learning I, II, and III) and Merriam (enculturation, training, and schooling) in Lessons from the World. 11 After defining these approaches to learning, Campbell describes several learning contexts both past (Medieval Europe) and present (West Africa) to illustrate how formal, nonformal, and/or natural learning is utilized. The cross cultural comparison continues in Chapter Four, as Campbell describes various systems of music education in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America to illustrate similarities and differences related to standards for education, goals for instruction, and allotment of instructional time and resources.After providing this global view related to approaches to learning and systems [End Page 214] of instruction, the fifth chapter attempts to personalize music education through vignettes of music programs... (shrink)

Belief in conspiracy theories is often taken to be a paradigm of epistemic irrationality. Yet, as I argue in the first half of this paper, standard criticisms of conspiracy theorising fail to demonstrate that the practice is invariably irrational. Perhaps for this reason, many scholars have taken a relatively charitable attitude toward conspiracy theorists and conspiracy theorising in recent years. Still, it would be a mistake to conclude from the defence of conspiracy theorising offered here that belief in conspiracy theories (...) is on an epistemic par with belief in other theories. I argue that a range of epistemic errors are pervasive among conspiracy theorists. First, the refusal of conspiracy theorists to accept the official account of some target event often seems to be due to the exercise of a probabilistic, and fallacious, extension ofmodus tollens. Additionally, conspiracy theorists tend to be inconsistent in their intellectual attention insofar as the effort they expend on uncovering the truth excludes attention to their own capacities for biased or otherwise erroneous reasoning. Finally, the scepticism with which conspiracy theorists tend to view common sources of information leaves little room for conspiracy theorists to attain positive warrant for their preferred explanations of target events. (shrink)

This edition's postscript includes further reflections on these themes and others, and relates them to recent writings of other philosophers and computer ...

Presentations of the extended mind thesis are often ambiguous between two versions of that thesis. According to the first, the extension of mind consists in the supervenience base of human individuals’ mental states extending beyond the skull and into artifacts in the outside world. According to a second interpretation, human individuals sometimes participate in broader cognitive systems that are themselves the subjects of extended mental states. This ambiguity, I suggest, contributes to several of the most serious criticisms of the extended (...) mind thesis, for these criticisms only apply to the first interpretation of the thesis. In what follows, I argue that several significant objections to the extended mind thesis fail to undermine the latter interpretation of that thesis. Having defended the second interpretation, I argue that the extension of mind does not involve the extension of self. Consequently, the subject of extended mental states is not the same individual whose causal coupling with external artifacts gives rise to extended mentality. (shrink)

Objective We sought to understand ethics and education needs of emergency nurses and physicians in paediatric and adult emergency departments in order to build ethics capacity and provide a foundation for the development of an ethics education programme. Methods This was a prospective cross-sectional survey of all staff nurses and physicians in three tertiary care EDs. The survey tool, called Clinical Ethics Needs Assessment Survey, was pilot tested on a similar target audience for question content and clarity. Results Of the (...) 123 participants surveyed, 72% and 84% of nurses and physicians fully/somewhat agreed with an overall positive ethical climate, respectively. 69% of participants reported encountering daily or weekly ethical challenges. Participants expressed the greatest need for additional support to address moral distress, conflict management with patients or families and resource issues. Of the 23 reported occurrences of moral distress, 61% were associated with paediatric mental health cases. When asked how the ethics consultation service could be used in the ED, providing education to teams was the most desired method. Conclusions Nurses report a greater need for ethics education and resources compared with their physician colleagues. Ethical challenges in paediatric EDs are more prevalent than adult EDs and nurses voice specific moral distress that are different than adult EDs. These results highlight the need for a suitable educational strategy, which can be developed in collaboration with the leadership of each ED and team of hospital ethicists. (shrink)

Contemporary virtue ethics was revolutionized by Alasdair MacIntyre’s reconfiguration using practices as the starting point for understanding virtues. However, MacIntyre has very pointedly excluded the professions of the financial world from the reformulation. He does not count these professions as practices, and further charges that virtue would actually hinder or even rule out one’s pursuit of these professions. This paper addresses three tasks, in regard to the financial profession of investment advising. First, the paper lays out MacIntyre’s soon-to-be-published charges against (...) the investment world, as specified to this profession. Second, it sets forth the role function of investment advising and shows that it does possess internal goods—the crucial aspect of practices disputed by MacIntyre in this case—including goods of production and goods of performance. Third, it demonstrates that this function, and the goods tied to it, cannot be achieved apart from the virtuous pursuit of the profession, thereby showing that MacIntyre’s charges are mistaken. Investment advising is shown to be a virtue-based practice, and the groundwork is laid for showing that other financial professions are so, as well. (shrink)

I dedicate this essay to the memory of the late Wolfgang Mommsen—the subject would have been congenial to him. It is one of a series of offshoots from a central project: a scholarly edition of Max Weber's Protestant Ethic with commentary. When I first told Prof. Mommsen of my plan in 1994 he looked me full in the face and gave a characteristic growl: “All that work!” Here was a man who knew what he was about. My thanks to (...) Ross McKibbin and Keith Tribe for reading this paper in draft. The article begins by examining Max Weber's relations with Lujo Brentano, much the most important “precursor” to Weber in the field of economics. In particular, Brentano conducted a form of parallel inquiry into the rise of ‘the spirit of capital’ in England 35 years before Weber looked for the origins of “spirit” of capitalism there, and the contrast between these two ideas casts much light both on Brentano and on Weber's Protestant Ethic. This personal history leads into a broader history of the transition in German economic thought between the 1860s – the formative decade for Brentano but also the era of Marx's Capital – and that of Weber's generation coming to maturity c.1890. Marx and Weber remain the two great canonical thinkers and original minds; but any authentic historical comparison between Marx and Weber must take in Brentano. The essence of the contrast between the generations is that between Weber's novel conception of an ethical ‘capitalism’, and the materialism and naturalism underpinning Brentano's and Marx's ‘capital’, although Weber and Brentano are alike as liberals, democrats and bourgeois. ☆ Some abbreviations for Weber: AfSS for Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik; GARS for Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie (Tübingen, 1920) vol. i; WL for Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre (Tübingen, 1968); Grundriss for Grundriss zu den Vorlesungen über Allgemeine (“theoretische”) Nationalökonomie [1898], repr. Tübingen, 1990; MWG for Max Weber Gesamtausgabe ed. Horst Baier et al. (Tübingen, 1984); Briefe for letters by Weber in this edition; ‘Nachlaß Max Weber’ for unpublished letters from the Geheimes Staatsarchiv, Berlin-Dahlem, VI. HA Nachlaß Max Weber. Lebensbild for Marianne Weber, Max Weber: Ein Lebensbild (Tübingen, 1926); Zohn for idem, Max Weber. A Biography (New Brunswick, 1988) tr. Harry Zohn. For Brentano: Der wirtschaftende Mensch for Der wirtschaftende Mensch in der Geschichte (Leipzig, 1923); Konkrete Grundbedingungen for Konkrete Grundbedingungen der Volkswirtschaft (Leipzig, 1924); Der tätige Mensch for Der tätige Mensch und die Wissenschaft von der Wirtschaft (Marburg, 2006) ed. R. Bräu, H.G. Nutzinger. ‘Die Entwickelung der Wertlehre’ for ‘Die Entwickelung der Wertlehre’, Sitzungsberichte der Königlich Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-philologische und historische Klassen. Jahrgang 1908, 3. Abhandlung (15 Feb. 1908), 1–84; ‘Theorie der Bedürfnisse’ for ‘Versuch einer Theorie der Bedürfmisse’, ibid., 10. Abhandlung (5 Dec. 1908), 1–79; ‘Die Malthussche Lehre’ for ‘Die Malthussche Lehre und die Bevölkerungsbewegung der letzten Decennien’ [1909], Abhandlungen der historischen Klasse der Königlich Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften XXIV (1906–1909), 565–625, 1*–39*. (shrink)

Interpretation is the process whereby a hearer reasons to an interpretation of a speaker's discourse. The hearer normally adopts a credulous attitude to the discourse, at least for the purposes of interpreting it. That is to say the hearer tries to accommodate the truth of all the speaker's utterances in deriving an intended model. We present a nonmonotonic logical model of this process which defines unique minimal preferred models and efficiently simulates a kind of closed-world reasoning of particular interest for (...) human cognition. Byrne's “suppression” data (Byrne, 1989) are used to illustrate how variants on this logic can capture and motivate subtly different interpretative stances which different subjects adopt, thus indicating where more fine-grained empirical data are required to understand what subjects are doing in this task. We then show that this logical competence model can be implemented in spreading activation network models. A one pass process interprets the textual input by constructing a network which then computes minimal preferred models for (3-valued) valuations of the set of propositions of the text. The neural implementation distinguishes easy forward reasoning from more complex backward reasoning in a way that may be useful in explaining directionality in human reasoning. (shrink)

I will be concerned with only one problem about truth which is raised by the diversity of religions which exist in the world. The problem is this: many religions claim to state truths about the nature of the universe and human destiny which are important or even necessary for human salvation and ultimate well-being. Many of these truths seem to he incompatible; yet there is no agreed method for deciding which are to he accepted; and equally intelligent, informed, virtuous and (...) holy people belong to different faiths. It seems, therefore, that a believing member of any one tradition is compelled to regard all other traditions as holding false beliefs and therefore as not leading to salvation. Since each faith forms a minority of the world's population, all religious believers thus seem committed to saying that most intelligent, virtuous and spiritually devoted people cannot know the truth or attain salvation. This is a problem, because it is in tension with the belief, held by many traditions, that the supremely real being is concerned for the salvation of all rational creatures. How can this he so if, through no fault of their own, most creatures cannot come to know the truth and thereby attain salvation? (shrink)

David Hume’s arguments against believing reports of miracles are shown to be very weak. Laws of nature, I suggest, are best seen not as exceptionless rules but as context-dependent realizations of natural powers. In that context miracles transcend the natural order not as "violations" but as intelligible realizations of a divine supernatural purpose. Miracles are not parts of scientific theory but can be parts of a web of rational belief fully consistent with science. (edited).

IN L'Homme machine La Mettrie at one point discusses the possibility of teaching an ape to speak, and later he suggests that just as the inventor Vaucanson had made a mechanical flute player and a mechanical duck, it might be possible some day for ‘another Prometheus’ to make a mechanical man which could talk.

Harry G. Frankfurt has presented a case of a counterfactual intervener CI with knowledge and power to control an agent so he will do A. He concludes that if the agent prefers to do A and there is no intervention by CI, the agent has acted of his own free will and is morally responsible for doing A, though he lacked an alternative possibility. I consider the consequences for freedom and moral responsibility of CI having a complete plan P for (...) all actions of an agent, Lucky, who luckily has preferences that accord with P, and I extend the argument to all citizens of a land, Luckyland, who are like Lucky. I argue the citizens of Luckyland have free will but lack moral responsibility because of the connection between moral responsibility, reactive attitudes and future action. Furthermore, the presence of CI and his plan P may allow free will but is incompatible with freedom of preference. Preference concerns alternatives excluded by CI. I argue that a special higher order preference for the preference structure, a power preference, ends the regress of higher order preference and explains the first order preference. Causal determinism is compatible with freedom of preference explained by a power preference when a power preference would also explain an alternative preference. The remoteness argument for incompatibility fails because of a lack of transitivity causal explanation. The power preference is the self-explained source of freedom of preference. That basic freedom may be limited by government knowledge of our preferences, even if, like Lucky, our preferences do not provoke intervention and we conform of our own free will. (shrink)

The monograph explains how knowledge requires the capacity to justify or defend the target claim of knowledge. Defensibility is based on a background system. Lehrer argues that reflection on experience yields a self-referential exemplar representation.This is the novel contribution of his new book to truth about the perceptual world.

Externalism holds, and internalism denies, that the individuation of many of an individual’s mental states (e.g., thoughts about the physical world) depends necessarily on relations that individual bears to the physical and/or social environment. Many philosophers, externalists and internalists alike, believe that introspection yields knowledge of the contents of our thoughts that is direct and authoritative. It is not obvious, however, that the metaphysical claims of externalism are compatible with this epistemological thesis. Some (e.g., Burge, 1988; Falvey and Owens (F&O), (...) 1994) have sought to dispel the worry that there is a conflict, though they admit that if such a contlict exists, it spells trouble for externalism (see, e.g., F&O, 1994, p. 108). Boghossian has argued that there is indeed a conflict between externalism and introspective knowledge of content. Surprisingly, however, he also argues that there is a conflict between internalism and introspective knowledge of content. I will defend Boghossian’s claim that there is a conflict between externalism and knowledge of content, but criticize his claim that there is a conflict between internalism and knowledge of content. (shrink)

Transposable elements (TEs) are powerful facilitators of genome evolution, and hence of phenotypic diversity as they can cause genetic changes of great magnitude and variety. TEs are ubiquitous and extremely ancient, and although harmful to some individuals, they can be very beneficial to lineages. TEs can build, sculpt, and reformat genomes by both active and passive means. Lineages with active TEs or with abundant homogeneous inactive populations of TEs that can act passively by causing ectopic recombination are potentially fecund, adaptable, (...) and taxonate readily. Conversely, taxa deficient in TEs or possessing heterogeneous populations of inactive TEs may be well adapted in their niche, but tend to prolonged stasis and may risk extinction by lacking the capacity to adapt to change, or diversify. Because of recurring intermittent waves of TE infestation, available data indicate a compatibility with punctuated equilibrium, in keeping with widely accepted interpretations of evidence from the fossil record. We propose a general and holistic synthesis on how the presence of TEs within genomes makes them flexible and dynamic, so that genomes themselves are powerful facilitators of their own evolution. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 3, March 2020, Page 75-77.

Art and Art-Attempts by Christy Mag Uidhir is an excellent book about the philosophy of art.1 It is full of insight. It is brilliantly precise. Indeed, it is a model of analytic precision. This discussion will be concerned with the role of the intention of the artist in art, which is central to the book, and Mag Uidhir’s discussion of abstracta and instantiation. I shall argue that intention should be replaced with choice and that abstracta should be replaced with exemplar (...) representation to improve his account. I conclude that choice in art and focus on exemplars play a special role in aesthetic education.Here is the basic idea of the role of intention of the artist in the book:Taking intention-dependence seriously... (shrink)

From epic to limerick, novel to anecdote, literary narratives engage and entertain us. From autobiography and biography to accounts of familial generations, narratives define communities. Myths and histories loom large in religious traditions as well. Recently, the importance of narrative to ethics and religion has become a pervasive theme in several scholarly disciplines. In the essays presented here, a distinguished roster of scholars addresses a range of issues associated with this theme, focusing especially on questions concerning narrative's contribution to knowledge.

The claim is that some collective entities can be thought of as part of the moral realm by virtue of their status as objects of moral concern. Collectivities are defined in terms of irreducibly corporate action and distinctive conditions of persisting identity. Their lack of sentience does not preclude moral concern, and their raison d'être may render moral concern for them appropriate. Recent attempts by Pettit, McMahon, and Broome to limit the moral realm to individuals are considered. They are rebutted (...) on the grounds that they rest heavily on pre-existing moral intuitions; they ascribe a stronger thesis than is necessary to the sponsors of the moral significance of non-individuals; and they wrongly assume that what has value for individuals must have value because it has value for individuals. Collectivities can have moral importance even if they lack the intrinsic moral importance attaching to human beings, and substantial consequences follow from that fact. In particular, routine appeals to the distinctness of persons become more problematic when collectivities, themselves composed entirely of persons, have independent moral significance which needs to be taken into account. That will affect both assessment of moral consequences and the process of moral decision-making. (shrink)