Music and philosophical naturalism

<p>The philosophical and scientific explication of music is a cutting-edge field in contemporary academia. This thesis develops a naturalistic framework for theorising about music. The following novel philosophical positions are motivated and defended: a polysemy analysis of “sound”, conceptual pluralism about music, a pluralistic framework for approaching the science of music, and a fictionalist account of Western musical artworks. The adaptation/ by-product framework for couching discussion about the evolution of music is critiqued. A novel, co-evolutionary, niche construction model of the foundations of musicality and the origins, expansion and stabilisation of music is developed, couched in the general context of hominin evolution and prehistory. Conceptual and methodological reflection accompanies the evolutionary scenario developed.</p>

Music and philosophical naturalism

<p>The philosophical and scientific explication of music is a cutting-edge field in contemporary academia. This thesis develops a naturalistic framework for theorising about music. The following novel philosophical positions are motivated and defended: a polysemy analysis of “sound”, conceptual pluralism about music, a pluralistic framework for approaching the science of music, and a fictionalist account of Western musical artworks. The adaptation/ by-product framework for couching discussion about the evolution of music is critiqued. A novel, co-evolutionary, niche construction model of the foundations of musicality and the origins, expansion and stabilisation of music is developed, couched in the general context of hominin evolution and prehistory. Conceptual and methodological reflection accompanies the evolutionary scenario developed.</p>

Misconceptions, conceptual pluralism, and conceptual toolkits: bringing the philosophy of science to the teaching of evolution

This paper explores how work in the philosophy of science can be used when teaching scientific content to science students and when training future science teachers. I examine the debate on the concept of fitness in biology and in the philosophy of biology to show how conceptual pluralism constitutes a problem for the conceptual change model, and how philosophical work on conceptual clarification can be used to address that problem. The case of fitness exemplifies how the philosophy of science offers tools to resolve teaching difficulties and make the teaching of scientific concepts more adequate to the actual state of affairs in science.

Conceptual pluralism in foreign philosophy and sociology of law: history and modernity

This article analyzes conceptual representations of the prominent foreign philosophers of law as a reality of social existence and a form of collective consciousness, which are traditionally attributed to philosophy and sociology of law. The goal of this research consists in the following: 1) assess the attitude of analytical jurisprudence towards theoretical integration of various aspects of law by analogy with the sociology of law; 2) follow the correlation between philosophical and sociological approaches towards interpretation of socio-legal meanings of modernity; 3) analyze the dependence of development of the philosophy of law, which was often searching for explanations in distinct underlying logic inherent to practice of law, on the sociology of law, which tends to comprehend&nbsp; law in relation to various aspects of organization of social life (including professional legal and administrative practice). The novelty of this of this work is defined by the following aspects. The article makes an attempt of comprehensive analyze of various approaches and theories, as well as assesses feasibility of examination of questions of social and legal nature in the context of sociology of law. Attention is given to the experience of Western law, which in the author&rsquo;s opinion virtually implies national state law, i.e. what British philosopher, the founder of legal positivism John Austin, called independent political societies. The article reveals the question of critical potential of sociology of law, which criticized the assumption that nature of the social is not a problem for legal theory

Alternative Conventions, Alternative Logics

Logical conventionalism leads to logical pluralism. The chapter discusses various arguments for pluralism, based on more and less demanding principles of translation. The crucial problem case of a tonk language is discussed in detail and related to various philosophical points and distinctions from the previous chapters. The chapter also provides a general account of logical and conceptual pluralism in terms of structural inferential role or semantic counterparts. This machinery is then applied to give a conventionalist-friendly account of equivalence between logics. The chapter closes by distinguishing between different types of disagreements in the philosophy of logic – descriptive disputes, normative disputes, and metaphysical disputes. Together chapters 3, 4, and 5 constitute a full development of an inferentialist-conventionalist theory of logic.

Conceptual Theories of Law and the Challenges of Global Legal Pluralism

One of the perennial discussions in legal philosophy is: What is law? Theories that elucidate the concept of law and provide definitions may be called conceptual theories of law. For such conceptual theories, global legal pluralism presents at least four major challenges. First, it recognizes a wide variety of types of law. Second, it recognizes a wide variety of law-producing actors. Third, it accepts that legal orders may gradually emerge. Fourth, legal orders overlap and are intertwined in many ways. We may discern three different strategies to deal with these challenges: monist, relativist, and pluralist. This chapter defends a pluralist approach, namely legal interactionism. It builds on American pragmatism, especially on the work of Lon Fuller and Philip Selznick. Legal interactionism recognizes interactional law as a source for legal obligations, but also accepts that contract and enacted law may constitute relatively autonomous legal orders in their own right. This chapter focuses on how it implies conceptual pluralism and definitional pluralism, and then discusses how this enables it to deal adequately with the four challenges global legal pluralism presents. Legal interactionism emphasizes that the concept of law is plural in character and can best be analyzed in terms of a dynamic family resemblance. If there is not one unified concept of law, but a plurality of defensible, partly incompatible conceptions, there cannot be one general definition of law.

Hegel’s Pluralism as a Comedy of Action

Our reception of Hegel’s theory of action faces a fundamental difficulty: on the one hand, that theory is quite clearly embedded in a social theory of modern life, but on the other hand most of the features of the society that gave that embedding its specific content have become almost inscrutably strange to us (e.g., the estates and the monarchy). Thus we find ourselves in the awkward position of stressing the theory’s sociality even as we scramble backwards to distance ourselves from the particular social institutions that gave conceptualized form to such sociality in Hegel’s own opinion. My attempt in this article is to make our position less awkward by giving us at least one social-ontological leg to stand on. Specifically, I want to defend a principled and conceptual pluralism as forming the heart of Hegel’s theory of action. If this view can be made out, then we will have a social-ontological structure that might be filled out in different ways in Hegel’s time and our own while simultaneously giving real teeth to the notion that Hegel’s theory of action is essentially social.

Co-creating services—conceptual clarification, forms and outcomes

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to assess, clarify and consolidate the terminology around the co-creation of services, establish its forms and identify its outcomes, to resolve the conceptual pluralism in service co-creation literature. Design/methodology/approach A focused literature review screened the articles published in five major service research journals to determine relevant contributions on the concept of co-creation of services. Then, a thematic analysis identifies the forms, themes and outcomes of co-creating services in the set of 80 qualifying articles. Findings The study reduces conceptual pluralism by establishing different forms of co-creating services and developing an explicit definition of co-creation in services. The authors develop an integrative framework that recognizes involvement, engagement and participation as prerequisites for co-creation. Relating to the different phases of the service process, the specific co-creation forms of co-ideation, co-valuation, co-design, co-testing and co-launching are classified as regenerative co-creation, while the specific co-creation forms of co-production and co-consumption are recognized as operative co-creation. Both beneficial and counterproductive outcomes of co-creation are identified and arranged into a typology. Research limitations/implications The integrative framework illustrates that service providers and customers are involved, engaged and participate in co-creating services, which manifests in specific forms of co-creation; they attain beneficial and counterproductive outcomes (personal, social, hedonic, cognitive, economic and pragmatic); and are influenced by a contextual multi-actor network. Practical implications Co-creation in services is actionable; the typology of outcomes suggests service managers ways to motivate customers and employees to participate in co-creating services. Originality/value This paper defines and establishes the conceptual forms of co-creating services and the identified outcomes, and develops an integrative framework of co-creation in services.