For some time there has been debate about differing perspectives on musical gift and musical intelligence. One view is that musical gift is innate: that it is present in certain individuals from birth and that the task of the teacher is to develop the potential which is there. A second view is that musical gift is a complex concept which includes responses from individuals to different environments and communities. This then raises the possibility that musical excellence can be taught. We (...) have already explored this idea with practising musicians. Our research has now expanded to include music teachers in formation, and, in this paper, we look at the influences in their musical development which have either ‘crystallised’ or ‘paralysed’ the musical talent which they possess. Our research has a comparative dimension, being carried out in Scotland and in Australia. We conclude that there are several key influences in the musical development of the individual, including home and community support, school opportunities and teaching styles and that there may be education and culture‐specific elements to these influences. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Music Education for the New Millennium: Theory and Practice Futures for Music Teaching and LearningSean PenderelMusic Education for the New Millennium: Theory and Practice Futures for Music Teaching and Learning, edited by David K. Lines. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005, 150 pp., $34.95 paper.Music Education for the New Millennium is a 150-page collection of essays focused mainly upon philosophical introspection into the current condition of the profession. Within (...) this volume there are eight philosophic essays and one quantitative research article, by Alastair McPhee, Peter Stollery, and Ros McMillan. Other essays, beyond the work of the editor, were contributed by Thomas Regelski, Wayne Bowman, Robert Davis, Lucy Green, David Elliott, Constantijn Koopman, and Janet Mansfield. This collection contributes to our contemporary quandaries about aesthetics and praxialism in addition to adding pertinent questions for both philosophy and music education.The overall purpose of this volume is to stimulate thinking in ways not accounted for in the classroom or studio environments and expand upon the broader discourses impacting the profession and society (3). Given that Lines organized this volume as a collection about a specified theme, I will approach this review threefold. First, I will examine overall features that were promising and those that were disappointing. Second, each chapter's contributions will be examined in light of the aim of the volume. Lastly, each essay will also be examined for its contributions apart from the volume, due to the fact that all of the works can stand alone.Within this framework, six themes continually emerged throughout the essays. These themes involved the use and abuse of musical meaning; the construction of musical meaning and understanding; language used within advocacy; the difficulties presented by both aesthetics and praxialism; the problems posed by our focus upon psychology; and lastly, the "what works" mentality of efficient systems. These themes are incredibly relevant to the contemporary discussion surrounding music education in addition to benefiting the whole of the profession. In some fashion or another, each author confronts one to many of these issues efficiently and effectively, to the point that the volume and its aim is solidified within Bowman's essay, "Music Education in Nihilistic Times." As a negative point, however, an internal organization around these themes never seems to appear, and without this the volume lacks a certain flow; each chapter stands alone. Although internal organization is petty globally for this volume, it does affect its readability.Regelski's essay appears first and critiques both traditional aesthetics and praxial philosophy. Interestingly, he weighs the potential dangers posed by both and drifts toward the notion of praxis while maintaining a certain aesthetic influence within his philosophy. Through music education's abuse of aesthetics, Regelski chronicles the elevation of experience beyond societal values of participation, production, and the process of music creation. Due to this, the profession has been subject to a certain dependency upon the positive aesthetic experience rather than on the participatory process of education. Furthermore, he notes that aesthetics, when stretched to its philosophic extreme, has had a tendency to become exclusive and elitist. I liken [End Page 117] this to the Gnostic practices within early Christianity. This sect valued a spiritual/aesthetic experience and its resulting "enlightenment," which occurred during a state of ecstasy, to the point of elevating those who had experienced this moment beyond those who had not.To curb this movement, Regelski suggests redefining aesthetics in the tradition of Dewey and Wittgenstein rather than that of Kant. In the former, the aesthetics are tied directly to the using of the object, or the practice of doing and creating. In contrast, in the Kantian tradition, which has dominated music philosophy, the experience becomes removed from the practice and is elevated to a position of esteem, beyond that of understanding. Likewise, praxialism, when taken to its extreme, has the potential to suffer from breadth without depth, which may result in a loss of content and depth of understanding. Regelski suggests that what needs to occur is a balance of depth and breadth with a focus on the development of musicianship. If this occurs then the experience will become valued as a result of participation in the... (shrink)

One of the currently popular dogmata of anti-consequentialism is that consequentialism doesn't respect, recognize, or in some important way account for what is referred to as the The charge is often made, but rarely explained in any detail, much less argued for. In this paper I explain what I take to be the most plausible interpretation of the separateness of persons charge. I argue that the charge itself can be deconstructed into at least two further objections to consequentialist theories. These (...) objections amount to (i) the rejection of axiological aggregation, and (ii) the rejection of deontic aggregation. Of these two objections, I argue that the first one, though often made, is untenable. I also argue that the second objection, in its various forms, relies on distinctions whose moral significance is vigorously denied by almost all consequentialist theorists. I thus argue that the separateness of persons objection poses no special threat to consequentialism. (shrink)

Healthcare Ethics, Law and Professionalism: Essays on the Works of Alastair V Campbell features 15 original essays on bioethics, and healthcare ethics specifically. The volume is in honour of Professor Alastair V Campbell, who was the founding editor of the internationally-renowned Journal of Medical Ethics, and the founding director of three internationally leading centres in bioethics, in Otago, New Zealand, Bristol, UK, and Singapore. Campbell was trained in theology and philosophy and throughout his career worked with colleagues from (...) various disciplines, including law and various branches of healthcare. The diversity of topics and depth of contributors' insights reflect the breadth and impact of Campbell's philosophical work and policy contributions to healthcare ethics. Throughout his long academic career, Campbell's emphasis on healthcare ethics being practice-oriented, yet driven by critical reflection, has shaped the field in vital ways. The chapters are authored by leading scholars in healthcare ethics and law. Directly engaging with Campbell's work and influence, the essays discuss essential questions in healthcare ethics relating to its methodology and teaching, its intersection with law and policy, medical professionalism, religion, and its translation in different cultural settings. Chapters also grapple with specific enduring topics, such as the doctor-patient relationship, justice in health and biomedical research, and treatment of the human body and the dead. (shrink)

This book defends a radical new theory of contingency as a physical phenomenon. Drawing on the many-worlds approach to quantum theory and cutting-edge metaphysics and philosophy of science, it argues that quantum theories are best understood as telling us about the space of genuine possibilities, rather than as telling us solely about actuality. When quantum physics is taken seriously in the way first proposed by Hugh Everett III, it provides the resources for a new systematic metaphysical framework encompassing possibility, necessity, (...) actuality, chance, counterfactuals, and a host of related modal notions. -/- Rationalist metaphysicians argue that the metaphysics of modality is strictly prior to any scientific investigation; metaphysics establishes which worlds are possible, and physics merely checks which of these worlds is actual. Naturalistic metaphysicians respond that science may discover new possibilities and new impossibilities. This book's quantum theory of contingency takes naturalistic metaphysics one step further, allowing that science may discover what it is to be possible. As electromagnetism revealed the nature of light, as acoustics revealed the nature of sound, as statistical mechanics revealed the nature of heat, so quantum physics reveals the nature of contingency. (shrink)

There is a systematic and suggestive analogy between grounding and causation. In my view, this analogy is no coincidence. Grounding and causation are alike because grounding is a type of causation: metaphysical causation. In this paper I defend the identification of grounding with metaphysical causation, drawing on the causation literature to explore systematic connections between grounding and metaphysical dependence counterfactuals, and I outline a non-reductive counterfactual theory of grounding along interventionist lines.

Alastair Norcross argues that the basic judgments of morality are essentially comparative: alternatives are judged to be better or worse than each other. Notions such as right and wrong are not part of the fundamental subject matter of moral theory, but are constructed in a context-relative fashion out of the basic comparative judgments.

Quantum physics is believed to be the fundamental theory underlying our understanding of the physical universe. However, it is based on concepts and principles that have always been difficult to understand and controversial in their interpretation. This book aims to explain these issues using a minimum of technical language and mathematics. After a brief introduction to the ideas of quantum physics, the problems of interpretation are identified and explained. The rest of the book surveys, describes and criticises a range of (...) suggestions that have been made with the aim of resolving these problems; these include the traditional, or 'Copenhagen' interpretation, the possible role of the conscious mind in measurement, and the postulate of parallel universes. This new edition has been revised throughout to take into account developments in this field over the past fifteen years, including the idea of 'consistent histories' to which a completely new chapter is devoted. (shrink)

Dispositions can combine as vector sums. Recent authors on dispositions, such as George Molnar and Stephen Mumford, have responded to this feature of dispositions by introducing a distinction between effects and contributions to effects, and by identifying disposition-manifestations with the latter. But some have been sceptical of the reality or knowability of component vectors; Jennifer McKitrick (forthcoming) presses these concerns against the conception of manifestations as contributions to effects. In this paper, I aim to respond to McKitrick's arguments and to (...) defend the metaphysical and epistemological propriety of component vectors. My strategy appeals to varying kinematic frames of reference. By transforming to the appropriate non-inertial frame, component acceleration vectors can be transformed into resultant acceleration vectors, and in such frames they become directly observable. Being a component acceleration vector and being a resultant acceleration vector are both frame-dependent properties of properties; they are not to be thought of as intrinsic or fundamental properties of an acceleration vector, but as artefacts of our frame-dependent notation for representing vector quantities. To conclude the paper, I defend the view proposed against two styles of objection. The first objection resurrects scepticism about component vectors as scepticism about fundamental component vectors. The second objection questions the need for reference frames in the explanation by invoking a 'counterfactual' theory of contributions. (shrink)

Critical thinking is often nominated as a graduate attribute, a learning outcome, and is even offered as a discrete subject in schools and universities. Therefore, it is important to gain clarity about the fundamental goal or purpose of critical thinking education. What should instructors be aiming at when they seek to instil critical thinking in their students? In this paper, we argue that the aim of critical thinking is the achievement and maintenance of intellectual autonomy. In setting out our argument (...) for this conclusion, we investigate the three most plausible candidates for the goal of critical thinking practice. The first such candidate is successful inquiry: inquiry that succeeds in obtaining epistemic goods such as knowledge, true belief, or empirically adequate explanation. The second candidate is epistemically virtuous inquiry, i.e. inquiry that exhibits the full range of epistemic virtues, including the skills and capacities needed to support them. The third candidate is intellectual autonomy. We develop an account of intellectual autonomy as a form of self-respect attached to one’s epistemic and intellectual life and argue that only intellectual autonomy in this sense does full justice to the practice of critical thinking. (shrink)

Darren Bradley has recently appealed to observation selection effects to argue that conditionalization presents no special problem for Everettian quantum mechanics, and to defend the ‘halfer’ answer to the puzzle of Sleeping Beauty. I assess Bradley’s arguments and conclude that while he is right about confirmation in Everettian quantum mechanics, he is wrong about Sleeping Beauty. This result is doubly good news for Everettians: they can endorse Bayesian confirmation theory without qualification, but they are not thereby compelled to adopt the (...) unpopular ‘halfer’ answer in Sleeping Beauty. These considerations suggest that objective chance is playing an important and under-appreciated role in Sleeping Beauty. 1 Introduction2 Confirmation in Everettian Quantum Mechanics3 Sleeping Beauty4 The Selection Model5 Bradley’s Argument6 The Right Route to ⅓7 The Breakdown of the Analogy8 Alternative Diagnoses9 God’s Gambling Game10 Non-chancy Sleeping Beauty Cases11 Conclusion. (shrink)

Distinctions in fundamentality between different levels of description are central to the viability of contemporary decoherence-based Everettian quantum mechanics (EQM). This approach to quantum theory characteristically combines a determinate fundamental reality (one universal wave function) with an indeterminate emergent reality (multiple decoherent worlds). In this chapter I explore how the Everettian appeal to fundamentality and emergence can be understood within existing metaphysical frameworks, identify grounding and concept fundamentality as promising theoretical tools, and use them to characterize a system of explanatory (...) levels (with associated laws of nature) for EQM. This Everettian level structure encompasses and extends the ‘classical’ levels structure. The ‘classical’ levels of physics, chemistry, biology, etc. are recovered, but they are emergent in character and potentially variable across Everett worlds. EQM invokes an additional fundamental level, not present in the classical levels picture, and a novel potential role for self-location in interlevel metaphysics. When given a modal realist interpretation, EQM also makes trouble for supervenience-based approaches to levels. (shrink)

I am saddened to draw to the attention of readers the death from cancer of Dorothy Mitchell Lawson (née Smith) at the early age of 57. Dorothy was technical editor of the journal ….

The Deleuzian model and the masochistic contract -- Masochism, feminine "goodness" and sacrifice -- Self-mutilation and (a)signification -- Transgressive reconfigurations -- Heterocosms, spectres and the world remade -- Postscrip.

Peu de généralisations concernant la Révolution française ont été répétées avec plus de certitude que celle qui soutient qu’elle a constitué un tournant critique dans la rhétorique et la pratique de la domesticité et de la vie privée. Des historiens féministes ont soutenu que, malgré l’action politique des femmes radicales en 1789-1793, la transition entre l’absolutisme – sous lequel tout le monde était sujet du roi – et une fraternité républicaine de citoyens a abouti finalement à renforcer...

There is much to admire in this book. As a rigorous and systematic physics-oriented presentation of an austere empiricist fundamental metaphysics, it has no real rivals. The clarity with which the overall vision is presented will provide a valuable stalking-horse for those who would defend less austere approaches in the future. Esfeld and Deckert never shy away from the radical consequences of their approach, or try to disguise its revisionary nature. I also found several points of agreement with Esfeld and (...) Deckert’s metaphysical outlook. In particular, I thought their form of structural realism sophisticated and plausible and their application of it to contemporary physics salutary. Fundamental metaphysics would be a more respectable discipline if all of its exponents felt the need to show how their preferred ontology plays out in the context of real physics. These points of agreement noted, I will concentrate in these comments on points where I disagree with Esfeld and Deckert. From my perspective, the metaphysical project of the book is subject to two serious objections: firstly, it remains insufficiently naturalistic and overly a prioristic, and secondly, it drains much of the explanatory power out of fundamental physics. (shrink)

How should we respond to cases of disagreement where two epistemic agents have the same evidence but come to different conclusions? Adam Elga has provided a Bayesian framework for addressing this question. In this paper, I shall highlight two unfortunate consequences of this framework, which Elga does not anticipate. Both problems derive from a failure of commutativity between application of the equal weight view and updating in the light of other evidence.

This paper outlines a non-reductive counterfactual account of grounding along interventionist lines, and uses the account to argue that taking grounding seriously requires ascribing non-trivial truth-conditions to a range of counterpossible counterfactuals. This result allows for a diagnosis of a route to scepticism about grounding, as deriving at least in part from scepticism about non-trivial counterpossible truth and falsity.

In On the Plurality of Worlds (Lewis 1986), David Lewis imposes a condition on realist theories of modality which he calls ‘plenitude’. Lewis apparently assigns this condition considerable importance, and uses it to motivate his Humean principle of recombination, but he never says exactly what plenitude amounts to. This chapter first sets aside some obvious ways of reconstructing the plenitude criterion which do not fit with the textual evidence. An objection to modal realism due to John Divers and Joseph Melia (...) (Divers and Melia 2002) is diagnosed as equivocating between an overly-demanding plenitude constraint and a weaker constraint which fails to establish their conclusion. An alternative deflationary interpretation of the plenitude condition has it following from an application of standard theoretical virtues to a modal realist’s total theory; Lewis’ correspondence provides new evidence in support of this interpretation. The deflationary plenitude criterion also has broader application, beyond Lewisian modal realism. (shrink)

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This article explores three ways in which physics may involve counterpossible reasoning. The first way arises when evaluating false theories: to say what the world would be like if the theory were true, we need to evaluate counterfactuals with physically impossible antecedents. The second way relates to the role of counterfactuals in characterizing causal structure: to say what causes what in physics, we need to make reference to physically impossible scenarios. The third way is novel: to model metaphysical dependence in (...) physics, we need to consider counterfactual consequences of metaphysical impossibilities. Physics accordingly bears substantial and surprising counterpossible commitments. (shrink)

Frances Kamm's aptly titled Intricate Ethics is a tour de force of what Peter Unger calls the ‘preservationist’ approach to ethical theory. Here is some of what she says about her methodology: Consider as many case-based judgments of yours as prove necessary. Do not ignore some case-based judgments, assuming they are errors, just because they conflict with simple or intuitively plausible principles that account for some subset of your case-based judgments. Work on the assumption that a different principle can account (...) for all of the judgments. Be prepared to be surprised at what this principle is . . . . I say, consider your case-based judgments, rather than a survey of everyone's judgments. This is because I believe that much more is accomplished when one person considers her judgments and then tries to analyze and justify their grounds than if we do mere surveys. (shrink)

In ‘Quiddistic Knowledge’ (Schaffer in Philos Stud 123:1–32, 2005), Jonathan Schaffer argued influentially against the view that the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary. In this reply I aim to show how a coherent and well-motivated form of necessitarianism can withstand his critique. Modal necessitarianism—the view that the actual laws are the laws of all possible worlds—can do justice to some intuitive motivations for necessitarianism, and it has the resources to respond to all of Schaffer’s objections. It also has certain (...) advantages over contingentism in the domain of modal epistemology. I conclude that necessitarianism about laws remains a live option. (shrink)

How, if at all, can scientific progress improve our view of the modal facts? According to rationalist approaches to modal epistemology, science has no substantive role: a priori reflection reveals the structure of modal space, and a posteriori science merely locates us within that modal space, by identifying the actual properties and structures instantiated at our world. According to modal naturalist approaches, science provides evidence about the structure of the underlying modal space. In this paper I distinguish four versions of (...) modal naturalism, with science playing an increasingly robust evidential role, and discuss their plausibility. (shrink)

In his attempt at a renewal of the concept of reification, Axel Honneth has referred to reification as a kind of forgetting. He uses an epigraph from Adorno and Horkheimer’s work to introduce this theme. This article considers the different accounts that are given by Honneth, on the one hand, and Adorno and Horkheimer, on the other, as to the way that reification is a forgetting of core experiential capacities of intersubjective human relations. It argues that Honneth’s account relies too (...) much on a foundational and undifferentiated notion of ‘empathetic engagement’, and that in order to articulate the damage done by reification, we need to contend with the more radical notion of forgetting that is outlined in Adorno and Horkheimer’s work. (shrink)

Marxists should reconsider their usual attitude to universal human rights. On the Jewish Question did not reject the entire French Declaration of 1791. In 1843 Marx and Engels were close to Babouvism, the continuation of French rights. Nor was their view that the 1791 Declaration must be completed by economic and social rights; rather, their criticism concerned the reduction of universal rights to citizen rights because it left the state the final arbiter of justice, denying the ‘voice from below’. The (...) source of human rights cannot be the state or its hegemonic rule of law. The article concludes that a politics of human rights would return justice to individuals and create a counter-hegemony. (shrink)