Culture can be defined as “group typical behaviour patterns shared by members of a community that rely on socially learned and transmitted information”. Once thought to be a distinguishing characteristic of humans relative to other animals it is now generally accepted to exist more widely, with especially abundant evidence in non-human primates, cetaceans, and birds. More recently, cumulative cultural evolution has taken on this distinguishing role. CCE, it is argued, allows humans, uniquely, to ratchet up the complexity or efficiency of (...) cultural traits over time. This “ratchet effect” gives the capacity to accumulate beneficial modifications over time beyond the capacities of a single individual. Mesoudi and Thornton define a core set of criteria for identifying CCE in humans and non-human animals that places emphasis on some performance measure of traits increasing over time. They suggest this emphasis is also pertinent to cultural products in the aesthetic domain, but is this the case? Music, art and dance evolve over time, but can we say they gain beneficial modifications that increase their aesthetic value? Here we bring together perspectives from philosophy, musicology and biology to build a conceptual analysis of this question. We summarise current thinking on cumulative culture and aesthetics across fields to determine how aesthetic culture fits into the concept of CCE. We argue that this concept is problematic to reconcile with dominant views of aesthetics in philosophical analysis and struggles to characterise aesthetic cultures that evolve over time. We suggest that a tension arises from fundamental differences between cultural evolution in aesthetic and technological domains. Furthermore, this tension contributes to current debates between reconstructive and preservative theories of cultural evolution. (shrink)

Review of Why Music Moves Us by Jeanette Bicknell.

(2000). Federal world government at the dawn of the third millennium: Old challenges and new opportunities. World Futures: Vol. 56, No. 1, pp. 41-106.

(1994). The rhetoric of science and the challenge of post‐liberal democracy. Social Epistemology: Vol. 8, Public Indifference to Population Issues, pp. 261-271.

James Mark Baldwin left a legacy that has yet to be fully examined, one with profound implications for science and the humanities. In some sense it paralleled that of his friend Charles Sanders Peirce, whose semiotics became understood only a century later. Baldwin was trying to make sense of complex biological and social processes that only now have come into the limelight as biological sciences have re-emerged in psychology. Baldwin's focus on development, based on the observation of his own (...) children and extrapolated to his general theoretical scheme, is fully in line with where contemporary biological sciences are heading. This is exemplified by the bounded flexibility of the work of the genetic system. The general principle of persistent exploration of the environment with the result of creating novelty, which was the core of Baldwin's theoretical system, has since the 1960s become the guiding idea in genetics. Contemporary developmental science is rooted in Baldwin's thinking. In his new introduction, Jaan Valsiner shows that Baldwin's Genetic Theory of Reality demonstrates how human beings are in their nature social beings, establishes an alternative conceptualization of evolutionary theory, and formulates a system of developmental logic, all of which serve as the foundation for developmental psychology as a whole. This is a work of social science rediscovery long overdue. (shrink)

Animals are usually considered to lack the status of autonomous agents. Nevertheless, they do appear to make ostensible choices. This article considers whether, and how, I should respect animals' choices. I propose a concept of volitionality which can be respected if, and insofar as, doing so is in the best interests of the animal. Applying that concept, I will argue that an animals' choices be respected when the relevant human decision maker's capacities to decide are potentially challenged or compromised. For (...) example, it will be best to respect the animals' choice when the human decision maker: lacks accurate knowledge of the animal's subjective experiences; does not know what will lead to desirable experiences or allow for the avoidance of undesirable ones; is biased; is less aware of the animal's specific situation; cannot appreciate all elements comprehensively, including considering any value to the animal being allowed to make and implement a choice, such as where a lack of control or liberty would be unpleasant or where an animal would usefully learn from the process of choice-making; and when the animal's choice is achievable. This additionally suggests that we may often beneficially choose to set up situations that empower animals to make better choices. (shrink)

Hume and the problem of theory and practice in philosophy and political theory -- Hume's naturalism and skepticism in the treatise and his appeal from theory to practice -- The systematic theory of theory of the treatise of human nature -- The behaviorist theory of practice of the treatise -- The practical philosophies of skepticism and commercial humanism -- The common sense theory of theory of the enquiries, essays, and history of England -- The common sense theory of practice of (...) the later works -- Hume, theory, and practice today. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Nordic Wittgenstein Review Jahrgang: 2 Heft: 1 Seiten: 131-160.

This article explores some issues associated with Philip Kitcher's unificationist theory of explanation, including the contrast between epistemic and ontic approaches to explanation, and the implications of Kitcher’s theory for the autonomy of the special sciences.

This article argues that Jeremy Bentham put forward a distinctive and original theory of representative democracy which can be helpfully analysed through his concept of the ‘deputy’. A deputy, Bentham argued, evoked a specific political relationship between governors and the governed – a relationship that was functionally different to that between the people and a ‘representative’ or a ‘delegate’. Whereas a representative was suggestive of too great a degree of governmental independence from the people and a delegate implied an excessive (...) dependency of governors upon the governed, a deputy for Bentham best described the relationship between the rulers and the ruled that should subsist in a representative democracy. A political form based on deputies, who were to be relatively free to conduct the business of government yet simultaneously accountable to their sovereign electors, was the only way in his eyes to guarantee the promotion of utility in politics and the security of the people from being misruled. (shrink)

Argues that the Holocaust has caused a mutation of the world. Our new world is Planet Auschwitz, an unworld with satellites separate and incommunicable. In this new world, the forces of nihilism are at work - e.g. terrorism, mass murder. Face-to-face with this destruction process, its administrators, and its survivors, we mutations must rewrite everything that has been projectively written about us in the old world. The tendency to repression keeps us from thinking, binding us to cynicism and nostalgia. The (...) response to this new world condition must be to remember the Holocaust - repression leads to indifference and destruction. (shrink)

This research assessed the impact of the participants’ personal value orientation preferences and level of principled moral reasoning when comparing undergraduate business students with undergraduate pharmacy students before and after students completed a professional ethics course. Overall there was little significant change in the students’ value orientations and principled moral reasoning after completing a professional ethics course, yet some important findings emerged when comparing business to pharmacy students.

Even though Slavoj Žižek has written many words about music without really saying much about it, his work nevertheless contains much that for the philosophically minded musicologist, or for the musically minded philosopher, can stimulate thinking. For the author of this article, for example, some of the ideas presented in Žižek’s 2006 The Parallax View have stimulated thinking about the possibilities of taking a comparable approach—that is, a metaphorically ‘parallax’ approach that involves considering an object of attention alternately from more (...) than one perspective—not just to music but to sounds in general. Along with summarizing Žižek’s views on music per se, “Focused Listening: The Aesthetics of Parallax” explores various ways in which persons in the presence of a single ‘sound object’ might listen to, and thus perceive and hear, that sonic phenomenon. (shrink)

In The Market Experience, Robert Lane restates the central criticism of economic views of human satisfaction?namely, that they define welfare as utility and, in practice if not in theory, use money as the measure of utility, while in reality utility (or welfare) ought to be defined as happiness. In exploring the implications of this noneconomic definition for our assessment of markets, Lane summarizes the evidence about how people assess their own happiness more successfully than he clarifies the meaning of that (...) word. Since increases in income above a certain minimum do not increase happiness, work must be made more meaningful. (shrink)

Drawing upon the experiences and insights of a diverse group of notable contributors, this volume is perhaps the most complete study available on clergy ethics. The topics discussed include the separation of church and state, clergy professionalization, ethical pastoral care, and many more.

This book presents a comprehensive, accessible survey of Western philosophy of music from Pythagoras to the present. Its narrative traces themes and schools through history, in a sequence of five chapters that survey the ancient, medieval, early modern, modern and contemporary periods. Its wide-ranging coverage includes medieval Islamic thinkers, Continental and analytic thinkers, and neglected female thinkers such as Vernon Lee (Violet Paget). All aspects of the philosophy of music are discussed, including music and the cosmos, music's value, music's relation (...) to the other arts, the problem of opera, the origins of musical genius, music's emotional impact, the moral effects of music, the ontology of musical works, and the relevance of music's historical context. The volume will be valuable for students and scholars in philosophy and musicology, and all who are interested in the ways in which philosophers throughout history have thought about music. (shrink)