Guy Rohrbaugh (2003) and Allan Hazlett (2012) have argued against the identification of musical works with sound-pattern types by arguing that musical works are.

A complex approach to Martin Buber’s oeuvre requires a consideration of both his dialogical and pre-dialogical writings. The latter include in some cases emphases that differ substantially from the emphases promulgated in Ich und Du. I will focus on three essays from the final stage of Buber’s pre-dialogical period which contain reflections on the fighting individual. The comparison with Ernst Jünger’s reflections on the same motif will show the intellectual proximity between the two authors and will help us understand how (...) Buber’s thought was positioned shortly before his dialogical turn. While after this turn Buber and Jünger could be easily seen as polar opposites, this is not the case when we juxtapose their early reflections on the fighting individual in World War I. There are striking similarities which I denote as a homology, as there is no evidence of influence in either direction. The presented analysis provides an insight into Buber’s controversial pre-dialogical positions as well as into the more general processing of the World War I experience in Germanophone philosophy. (shrink)

Between innocence and commitment: speculation and experience -- Reasonable commitment -- Some comparisons -- Commitment to reason and to scientific realism -- Humanist commitment -- Humanism and the cosmic agent -- Commitment to God -- Corollaries.

Adamson and Ganeri present a lively introduction to one of the world's richest intellectual traditions: the philosophy of classical India. They guide us through such famous works as the Vedas and the Upaniṣads, and tell the stories of how Buddhism and Jainism developed. Anyone curious about South Asian philosophy can start here.

The latest in the series based on the popular History of Philosophy podcast, this volume presents the first full history of philosophy in the Islamic world for a broad readership. It takes an approach unprecedented among introductions to this subject, by providing full coverage of Jewish and Christian thinkers as well as Muslims, and by taking the story of philosophy from its beginnings in the world of early Islam all the way through to the twentieth century. Major figures like Avicenna, (...) Averroes, and Maimonides are covered in great detail, but the book also looks at less familiar thinkers, including women philosophers. Attention is also given to the philosophical relevance of Islamic theology (kalam) and mysticism--the Sufi tradition within Islam, and Kabbalah among Jews--and to science, with chapters on disciplines like optics and astronomy. The book is divided into three sections, with the first looking at the first blossoming of Islamic theology and responses to the Greek philosophical tradition in the world of Arabic learning. This 'formative period' culminates with the work of Avicenna, the pivotal figure to whom most later thinkers feel they must respond. The second part of the book discusses philosophy in Muslim Spain (Andalusia), where Jewish philosophers come to the fore, though this is also the setting for such thinkers as Averroes and Ibn Arabi. Finally, a third section looks in unusual detail at later developments, touching on philosophy in the Ottoman, Mughal, and Safavid empires and showing how thinkers in the nineteenth to the twentieth century were still concerned to respond to the ideas that had animated philosophy in the Islamic world for centuries, while also responding to political and intellectual challenges from the European colonial powers. (shrink)

In physics, the temporal dimension has units of infinitesimally brief duration. Given this, how is it possible to perceive things, such as motion, music, and vibrotactile stimulation, that involve extension across many units of time? To address this problem, it is proposed that there is what is termed an “information construct of happening” (ICOH), a simultaneous representation of recent, temporally differentiated perceptual information on the millisecond time scale. The main features of the ICOH are (i) time marking, semantic labeling of (...) all information in the ICOH with ordinal temporal information and distance from what is informationally identified as the present moment, (ii) vector informational features that specify kind, direction, and rate of change for every feature in a percept, and (iii) connectives, information relating vector informational features at adjacent temporal locations in the ICOH. The ICOH integrates products of perceptual processing with recent historical information in sensory memory on the subsecond time scale. Perceptual information about happening in informational sensory memory is encoded in semantic form that preserves connected semantic trails of vector and timing information. The basic properties of the ICOH must be supported by a general and widespread timing mechanism that generates ordinal and interval timing information and it is suggested that state‐dependent networks may suffice for that purpose. Happening, therefore, is perceived at a moment and is constituted by an information structure of connected recent historical information. (shrink)

The historian Ibn Khaldūn (d. 1406) is most often treated by historians of philosophy as part of the story of political philosophy in the Islamic world. While this is perfectly legitimate, it may be misleading when it comes to the question of the method he proposes for the historian. This paper argues that that method is in fact based on a different branch of (Aristotelian) science: natural philosophy. After rendering this proposition initially plausible by noting frequent references to "nature" in (...) the _Muqaddima_, the paper discusses a number of parallels between natural philosophy and history as Ibn Khaldūn conceives it. Ultimately it is suggested that this method is legitimated insofar as history is for Ibn Khaldūn a study of human nature. (shrink)

Early Greek philosophy -- Socrates and Plato -- Aristotle.

In Thinking with Assent: Renewing a Traditional Account of Knowledge and Belief, Maria Rosa Antognazza offers a historical narrative of pre-modern epistemology. She argues that until very recently, philosophers generally held that “knowing and believing are distinct in kind in the strong sense that they are mutually exclusive mental states”. This paper tests, and ultimately confirms, that account by applying it two thinkers of the Islamic world, al-Fārābī (d.950 CE) and Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna, d.1037 CE). It is shown that both (...) of them used the term ‘assent (taṣdīq)’ as an umbrella term covering two very different states, knowledge and belief. In the case of Ibn Sīnā, this contrast is ultimately tied to his sharp distinction between immaterial intellective thinking and embodied thinking that uses a physical organ. (shrink)

Adamsom offers a lively and accessible tour through 600 years of intellectual history, offering a feast of new ideas in every area of philosophy. He introduces us to some of the greatest thinkers of the Western tradition including Abelard, Anselm, Aquinas, Hildegard of Bingen, and Julian of Norwich.

A central notion in Benjamin Lipscomb's narrative of the rise of the ‘Wartime Quartet’—Anscombe, Foot, Midgley, and Murdoch—is that of philosophical pictures (e.

In this major study, Peter Zarrow examines how textbooks published for the Chinese school system played a major role in shaping new social, cultural, and political trends, the ways in which schools conveyed traditional and 'new style' knowledge and how they sought to socialize students in a rapidly changing society in the first decades of the twentieth century. Focusing on language, morality and civics, history, and geography, Zarrow shows that textbooks were quick to reflect the changing views of Chinese (...) elites during this period. Officials and educators wanted children to understand the physical and human worlds, including the evolution of society, the institutions of the economy, and the foundations of the nation-state. Through textbooks, Chinese elites sought ways to link these abstractions to the concrete lives of children, conveying a variety of interpretations of enlightenment, citizenship, and nationalism that would shape a generation as modern citizens of a new China. (shrink)

Everett (2005) has argued that fictional realism runs into insuperable difficulties when faced with fictional stories in which there are indeterminate identities. By appeal to a principle linking the individuation of characters within stories and without, Everett argues that such stories entail that there are indeterminate identities outside of fiction on the fictional realist picture. And although indeterminate identities are perfectly acceptable within fiction, they are intolerable in the (nonfictional) world itself. In this paper, I develop the “extended-game” model of (...) fiction according to which fictional characters are props—and, hence, potential objects of reference—in authorized games of make-believe for fictional works in which they appear but do not originate but are neither props nor potential objects of reference in authorized games for works in which they do originate. And I argue that this entails that Everett’s linking principle, on which his argument depends, simply fails to apply. (shrink)

Assumptions about the tirocinium fori are based on claims by Joachim Marquardt that it was a form of training for young elite Romans at about the age of 16, that it lasted for one year, and that it consisted of mentorship by a distinguished elder. Though there is little evidence to support these claims, the theory of a tirocinium fori continues to influence discussions of oratory in the age of Cicero, where it gives a false picture of the process by (...) which aspiring young orators made the transition from the school of rhetoric to practice in the courts. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop a novel account of musical works according which they are situated heir lines, consisting of actual and possible work-versions that are situated in specific musical-historical contexts. And I argue that this account offers a better explanation of three core phonenomena - musical multiplicity, musical flexibility, and musical audibility - than its competitors. Finally, I introduce the broader category of musical lineages - sequences of work-versions each of which has evolved in certain ways from its predecessors (...) - and argue that musical works can be viewed as lineages that are initiated by the requisite sorts of compositional intentions and whose constituent work-versions must satisfy standards of similarity from their original contexts of composition. (shrink)

This paper is devoted to a fascinating passage in Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 1210), in which he argues that non-human animals have rational souls. It is found in his Mulaḫḫaṣ fī l-manṭiq wa-l-ḥikma (Epitome on Philosophy and Logic). Following a discussion of the afterlife, Faḫr al-Dīn suggests that animals should, like humans, be capable of grasping universals, and that they are aware of their own identity over time. Furthermore, animal behavior shows that they are capable of rational planning and problem-solving. (...) We contextualize these arguments with reference to Faḫr al-Dīn’s other philosophical works, and also compare the considerations he raises to ideas found in modern-day animal ethics, drawing here especially on the work of Mark Rowlands. The paper concludes with a translation of the passage. (shrink)

Three years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, this article reviews the question of the lasting socio-political significance of the appearance of the virus, much and controversially debated at the beginning. We can see now – maybe rather unsurprisingly – that the expectations of rapid pandemic-related social change, whether positive or negative, were widely exaggerated. Rather, the pandemic has now entered into an interpretation of the global socio-political constellation as marked by a sequence of crises, including the financial crisis (...) of 2008 and after, climate change, COVID-19 and now the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Thus, the task can be rephrased as asking whether these crises push into a similar direction, namely a re-appreciation of authoritative collective action against the laissez-faire view of extending global commerce and communication and, if so, what the consequences of such a re-appreciation may be. (shrink)

Ancient India is famous as a home for the ethical concept of ahimsa, meaning ‘non-violence’. Among other things, this moral principle demanded avoiding cruelty towards animals and led to the widespread adoption of vegetarianism. In this article, it is argued that the reasoning which led the ancient Indians to avoid violence towards animals might actually provide a more powerful rationale for vegetarianism than the utilitarian rationale that is more prevalent among animal rights activists nowadays.

This article focuses on opinions of 185 Flemish members of Parliament on the functioning of Parliament, the position of Parliament in the decision making process and their task as a member of Parliament. For that purpose, members of Parliament were not interviewed, hut other sources were used, such as papers, papers of political parties and parliamentary documents. They all were situated in the period 1977-1987.The study shows that members of Parliament do not wish to affect a revaluation of Parliament because (...) of different opinions of opposition and majority members conceming its position in the decision making process. Nevertheless, they extensively discussed this theme. In this way they want to express their concern for the functioning of parliamentary democracy, in which Parliament constitutionally is focused in the center. (shrink)

This volume of the classic series is devoted to the claims, arguments, and perspectives of the New Atheists. The volume collects original work on these topics of leading thinkers in the philosophy of religion, epistemology, and metaphysics, and philosophy of science. These studies are punctuated by an original short story by a leading novelist.

Church leadership plays an important and irreplaceable role in the planting and the configuration of the missional congregation. The key to the formation of missional communities is their leadership. In that regard, this article explores Classical Ghanaian Pentecostal Churches’ leadership and leadership formation from a missiological perspective. This was done through an exposition on their leadership system. It was argued that Classical Ghanaian Pentecostal Churches’ leadership is based on the Fivefold Ministry. These leadership functions were therefore discussed in the light (...) of their missiological implication. The conclusion arrived at is that it is not enough to discover one’s spiritual gift or calling; these gifts should be developed and nurtured through mentoring and proper theological education, with the ultimate purpose being to participate in the Missio Dei. (shrink)

Many strands of research by different groups, starting from teratocarcinomas in the laboratory mouse, later moving the corresponding human tumors, contributed to the isolation and description of human pluripotent stem cells (PSCs). In this review, I highlight the contributions from my own research, particularly at the Wistar Institute during the 1980s, when with my colleagues we characterized one of the first clonal lines of pluripotent human embryonal carcinoma (EC) cells, the stem cells of teratocarcinomas, and identified key features including cell (...) surface antigen markers that have since found a place in the study and exploitation of human PSC. Much of this research depended upon close teamwork with colleagues, many in other laboratories, who contributed different expertise and experience. It was also often driven by circumstance and chance rather than pursuit of a grand design. (shrink)

Commentators have argued that disjunctivism, from a phenomenological perspective, is the most coherent response to certain skeptical concerns. They find two phenomenological beliefs in tension: that intentionality is transcendent and that perceptions and hallucinations have a similar intentional content. While not ruling out a disjunctivist phenomenology, I show that phenomenologists are not forced into disjunctivism in order to avoid skeptical problems posed by hallucination. Instead, Merleau-Ponty's approach to the horizonal structure of experience supports a novel nondisjunctivist solution: first, by distinguishing (...) proximate from ultimate objects of experience; second, by showing how every experience “belongs” to the world. (shrink)

The question of the extent to which a natural philosopher like Robert Boyle was influenced by the reformers has a great deal of intrinsic interest. That Boyle was a Protestant and was well versed in the current theological issues of his day is beyond dispute. But the central question to be explored in this paper is the extent to which he was influenced either directly by the reformers themselves or indirectly by Calvinist theology. This in turn has implications for the (...) broader historiographical question of the relation between the Reformation and the Scientific Revolution. Thus a subsidiary aim of this paper is to use Boyle as a case study to test the broader historiographical claim that the Reformation played a significant, even indispensable, role in the rise of the Scientific Revolution. On this latter question my researches are only a small brick in a much larger edifice. What is true of Boyle may or may noet be usefully generalised across other Protestant natural philosophers of the early modern period. Yet Boyle, perhaps more than any other Protestant natural philosopher of this period, has been the focus of claims affirming such a connection and any case for or against them must deal with him. (shrink)

This two-part article includes the following: (1) excerpts from Peter H. Plesch’s essay originally published in Journal of Polymer Science, Part A (2004) 42, 7: 1537-1546 which reflects on Plesch’s research with Polanyi; (2) Plesch’s short account titled “Michael Polanyi and the Paranormal” which complements his original article’s discussion of his work with Polanyi. Together these two pieces provide interesting insights into P'olanyi’s work as a research scientist as weIl as reflections on the nature of scientific discovery.

Philosophy has long been transmitted using different media: oral speech, papyrus rolls, parchment and paper codices, strips of bark and bamboo, and, in modern times, radio and television programs. It is only in this century, though, that one of the most popular methods ever of disseminating philosophy has emerged: podcasts. Podcasting is quietly transforming the field itself and the way that the field connects to the wider world. For all the variety of form, one constant is that philosophy podcasts are (...) fundamentally about the spoken word, even if they integrate music or sound effects. While the word diversity inevitably brings with it the sort of political and cultural issues just discussed, there is also a sense in which philosophy podcasts can be “diverse” simply by covering topics that students, and even professionals, might not usually encounter. (shrink)