Music’s original philosophical problem is ontological: what is it? In this paper, I argue that music has a better philosophical beginning; philosophical accounts of music should begin as philosophical accounts of listening to music. What distinguishes listening to music from hearing sound? My aim is to give a philosophical account of music by means of a description of a particular kind of interactive relationship we sometimes have to sound. Music, I shall argue, is not distinguished from sound because it has (...) a special metaphysical status or because of the psychological reactions it produces in us; musical sound is distinctive because we listen to it in a certain way. I explore some of the ontological implications of my account, both for music broadly speaking and for the ontology of musical works. (shrink)

Nous défendons ici l’hypothèse que l’irruption de la langue du vouloir ( uelle ) chez Sénèque n’est pas sans effet sur la représentation stoïcienne du telos, contre un certain nombre d’interprétations qui dénient à cette innovation lexicale la moindre originalité par rapport à la psychologie stoïcienne hellénistique. Le telos est réinscrit dans la perspective de la traversée de la conflictualité psychique dont le vouloir ( uelle ), dans sa constance, constitue la résolution. C’est dire combien la subjectivation engage le destin (...) du désir, celui d’un conflit porté par la uoluntas, envisagée donc dans toute son historicité, et à ce titre devenue principe d’identité personnelle. Le telos fait apparaître plus explicitement qu’avant un sujet du vouloir, tout à la fois comme principe et comme effet du processus de subjectivation. (shrink)

The academic dominance of cultural studies and the increasing interest and significance of cultural conflict in our world has encouraged various theories of culture, the most pervasive being theories of transculture and hybrid cultural forms and entities. In this guest column, Bourbon argues that all such trans theories are fundamentally flawed and distort the very idea of culture. His essay analyzes the concept of transobjects and transcultures, looking both at the assumptions supporting such objects and ideas and at their (...) explanatory uses. This discussion leads to one on the relationship between texts and contexts. Most cultural theories, and all transcultural theories, confuse the relationship between texts and contexts, specifically misusing the idea of the conditions of possibility, while relying on various forms of personification. Bourbon both criticizes these ideas and also offers a more modest idea of culture, along with specific suggestions on how to study and understand what we call “products of culture,” including fictions and ourselves. (shrink)

Approaching the study of literature as a unique form of the philosophy of language and mind--as a study of how we produce nonsense and imagine it as sense--this ...

Marion Bourbon Que l’activité philosophique chez la plupart des philosophes antiques ait prétendu disposer d’une fonction thérapeutique, psychothérapeutique, nous le savons bien, tant cette dernière s’est explicitement pensée sur le modèle médical. Il ne faut néanmoins pas oublier qu’alors, dans le même temps, c’est la médecine elle-même qui s’est trouvée apparentée à la philosophie en ce qu’elle suppose intrinsèquement un usage du logos, ce que Platon le premier pose sans ambages. Cette métaphore de la philosophie comme thérapie a aussi (...) ressurgi plus récemment en philosophie analytique, sous la plume de Wittgenstein pour lequel « la philosophie traite une question comme une maladie ». Mais jusqu’à quel point s’agit-il de dire la même chose? (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Wittgenstein’s PrefaceBrett BourbonIn his preface to Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein admits his failure to make his book anything more than an interrelated collection of remarks: "After several unsuccessful attempts to weld my results together into... a whole, I realized that I should never succeed. The best I could write would never be more than philosophical remarks." The fragmented character of Investigations is matched by its other formal oddities and difficulties: (...) its metaphors, its cryptic evocative obscurity about some things and its linguistic precision about others, its dramatization of philosophical positions in stories, in hypothetical worlds, and in the role of the interlocutor(s). Our initial and continual problem in reading Investigations is to understand the reason for its form, and to justify this form relative to its philosophical concerns and methods. I will argue that the justification of the form of Investigations comes down to a single question: how do we take up Wittgenstein's example—in thinking and in confusion—without mimicking him?IThe justification pursued in the preface bears affinities with theological justification, defined as our becoming righteous relative to God, as Calvin characterizes it, "an acceptation, whereby God receiving us into [End Page 428] favour, taketh us for righteous" (Institutes III. xi. §2).1 Righteousness as a mark of acceptation, the very tone of "righteousness" and God's power of acceptation, have no direct counterparts in Wittgenstein's philosophy. Philosophical justification does not have a doctrinal foundation that would establish any particular content nor any special relation between the pursuit of that justification (through philosophy) and its fulfillment, even hypothetically, in some possible acknowledgment of righteousness. The seriousness betrayed by Investigations need for justification, however, is expressed in the moral fervor of Wittgenstein's philosophizing. It is also his philosophical goal to encourage a kind of acceptation that the ground of our involvement in the world, in what constrains and confuses us, is no more than how we live and what we are: "Instead of the unanalyzsable, specific, indefinable; the fact that we act in such-and-such ways, e.g. punish certain actions, establish the state of affairs thus and so, give orders, render accounts, describe colours, take an interest in other's feelings. What has to be accepted, the given—it might be said—are facts of living" (Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, §630; c.f. PI, p. 226d).2 The translators comment in a footnote that a variant for "facts of living" in Wittgenstein's manuscript is "forms of life." What has to be accepted are forms of life.The form of Investigations is justified as part of a discovery, with or without a supporting theology, of how to move ourselves toward some greater form of perfection (although not to reach it). The Protestant cast of this justification, in Wittgenstein's case, is just (and I wouldn't want to extend it further) that while this justification is achieved by virtue of our effort, it is not effort towards the world, but towards our intransigent will, and that the grace that might enable our work is less a gift, than a condition within which we can struggle.3 Thus, "what has to be overcome," in philosophy, "is not the difficulty of the understanding but of the will" (CV, p.17).4 Philosophy for Wittgenstein is a form of self-education. One works on the will in order to see differently: but the will is neither a thing nor a faculty. Working on the will is not a psychological project of self-reform, but a reconstitution of our attitude toward what we take as necessary. We can describe such attitudes with the vocabulary of the passions by which express or curb our will: devotion, derision, hope, fear, confidence, indignation, pride, repentance, emulation, gratitude, consternation, daring, timidity, and so on. And thus "philosophy is a work on the will" is kind of maxim to help us remember a kind of attitude, purpose, and justification.I will derive an agnostic notion of justification from its Protestant [End Page 429] theological form, retaining its moral force and claim on our person, but without psychologizing it, with minimal doctrinal content, and without God. This is... (shrink)

This paper focuses on the materialistic account of the blending and the way it shapes an original organism model. I aim to shed light on the threads of connections we can gather between the Presocratic and the Stoic views on the physical krasis of the body. The Stoics share with Parmenides and Empedocles the idea of a single material cosmic continuum in which thought and perception depend on the various blendings of the physical constituents of the body. Both of these (...) naturalistic traditions are committed to the view that substance is continuous and undergoes constant and qualitative change. My point is to underline how this view of a sympathetic cosmos presupposes a model of the individuality that is radically open. Thus, by taking off the notion of the krasis, the Stoics take off a problem – namely, that of the organism – that is first fleshed out by the Presocratics – Parmenides and Empedocles in particular – philosophers. In this respect, the Stoic view of relational identity indebts to the Presocratic account, beyond and against the Aristotelian one. (shrink)

Jane Austen and the powers of description. Disciplines of description -- Reading ignorance into sense -- Elizabeth Bennet, the Socrates of descriptive reason -- Frank and impertinent: paradiastolic descriptions -- An excursus on Richard Rorty and Lady Catherine -- Fanny's garden thoughts -- Reasoning by description -- Coda: "Part hawk, part man" -- The apprehension of power and life. The cook and the count: a psychological anthropology of tyranny -- Is power coercive? -- A parable of action and event -- (...) The afflictions of life: Montale's poetic description of flux -- What is a life? -- A concluding postscript. (shrink)

A poem is not particular in the way a painting is particular. A copy of a poem is still the poem, while a copy of a painting is not the painting. But a poem is still particular, since it seems to be constituted by a specific set of words in a specific order such that to alter that order or any of those words is to make a new poem. Marianne Moore begins her poem “An Egyptian Pulled Glass Bottle in (...) the Shape of a Fish” in the following way: She might have revised this and replaced “perpendicularity” with “verticality.” This says the same thing, but it is not the same poem. The particularity of a poem, relative to the words that make it up, constitutes a... (shrink)

This book has several very positive qualities; but its project raises certain important questions, which are not wholly addressed by the book itself. First, and most fundamentally: what is the subject? The title cites two notions: individuality and subjectivity, both of which are quite complex. The first idea, ‘individuality’, can denote ‘unique personal identity’ (as distinct from the identity of any other person); and Stoic versions of this idea play a prominent role at certain stages of th...

La publication des lettres d’Isabelle de Bourbon-Parme à sa belle-sœur l’archiduchesse Marie-Christine est un événement important. Pas seulement parce que nous avons affaire à un écrit intime d’une « princesse philosophe », dont l’intelligence et l’ouverture d’esprit sont en soi dignes de notre intérêt. Mais parce qu’il s’agit de lettres d’amour à une femme, comme nous en avons peu d’exemples au xviiie siècle, et même après. Il se pourrait même que nous ayons affaire au premier écrit de cette...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Everyday Poetics: Logic, Love, and Ethics by Brett BourbonKatie PelkeyEveryday Poetics: Logic, Love, and Ethics by Brett Bourbon; 200 pp. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022.In Everyday Poetics: Logic, Love, and Ethics, Brett Bourbon probes the nature of poetry and its centrality in our everyday lives, working from the ordinary-language philosophical framework associated with Ludwig Wittgenstein, J. L. Austin, W. V. O. Quine, and Stanley Cavell. Bourbon's (...) ideas contribute new dimensions to the elusive concept of poetry and pivots the reader's attention inward: how can we recognize poetry in our day-to-day and why should we? At sentence level, his claims are clear and compelling to readers across disciplines with varying knowledge of philosophy and poetry. This book is thus addressed to "poets, literary scholars, philosophers, and students of religion, and anyone who cares about the ethics of everyday life, about the surprises that punctuate and give our lives form" (p. ix).Poems themselves are such "events of form," Bourbon emphasizes, which live among us and need not be constituted by words. Wordless poems can be uncovered and embraced through the development of a "poetic vulnerability" to ordinary experiences that are not necessarily wedded to one's aesthetic reaction. Bourbon designates the alphabet as one such example of what he calls a "primal everyday poem"; the alphabet is wordless and consists of a patterned order whose mere form does not encompass its meaning. The ordinary expression "I love you" also falls under this classification; the phrase is a performative poem whose intricate connotation is simplified by common language, yet is not the equivalent of its mere words. Bourbon asserts that, like the phrase "I love you," poems of the everyday cannot be reduced to mere language, conditions, or creative modes.Of the ineffable nature of poetry, Bourbon claims, "Poetry, like death, is that which we can only know by analogy—by examples—but it has a scope beyond all our examples" (p. 108). In terms of examples, he draws from poignant personal experiences to reinforce his arguments and provide insight into his keen sensibility. In chapter 1 ("Poems of the Everyday"), Bourbon recounts his own dismissal as a young boy of poetry's worthiness until one day while watching an old film, he in fact was struck by the phrase "I love you." This ordinary phrase allowed him to reconsider the parameters of what constitutes poetry and acknowledge the dichotomy of the phrase's formal power constituted by trivial symbols.Chapter 4 ("Epithalamion") is also rooted in personal experience. Bourbon opens with the flat assertion, "I have never liked weddings" (p. 43), but he notes a difference between a "marriage of forms" and "marriage of intimacy and stability": his distaste is for the former. He believes that a successful marriage can become a poem of the everyday—an event of power and "linguistic surrogacy"—where the event itself fosters more meaning than the words alone [End Page 475] can carry. Marriage can be a poem of discovery that arises from the action of learning what it means to love. But in the objects of the wedding and all its trite, heart-shaped symbols, Bourbon remarks, no poems are to be found.Bourbon dedicates chapter 5 ("Is a Poem the Same as Its Words?") to his claim that what a poem is cannot be bound by its words entirely or by meaning alone. If one finds each line of a poem intelligible, that does not indicate that the poem's meaning is consequentially understood. Conversely, a reader may not know a poem's meaning with complete certainty; what is said may not illuminate what is meant. In Bourbon's explanation of the sentence as a model for how particular words construct a poem, he says that one must determine how such a sentence-poem would be meaningful through our own reading. He claims that a poem is more than its words and cannot be simplified into sets of sentences or phrases. "A poem, if it is a sentence, is always more than that sentence; otherwise, a poem would not be a poem but a sentence" (p. 67).Bourbon's latest publication challenges traditional, long... (shrink)

Dans ce livre original et provocant, le linge n’est pas qu’une métaphore. On y trouvera beaucoup de matérialité : « les rideaux, les étoffes et tissus, les linges du corps et les uniformes », entre autres choses. Mais le linge y est aussi une métaphore, aux développements insoupçonnés : Le linge est le rappel du faste, du drapé, des brocarts. Linge de maison, il est le rappel des heures et des jours, des ordonnancements quotidiens, des servitudes du privé et du (...) public, des pratiques de l’int... (shrink)

En utilisant des exemples tirés d’une famille esclave de la Réunion et de l’île Maurice, cet article analyse comment le choix des prénoms ainsi que des noms de famille a marqué le statut de ses membres et a signalé ou bien dissimulé leurs relations de parenté. Selon le droit colonial français, les pères esclaves ne disposaient pas du statut de pères, mais les noms des esclaves et de leurs descendants conservaient les traces de leur ascendance maternelle en portant le nom (...) de famille de leur mère. Comme le statut des enfants esclaves était déterminé par la condition de leur mère, les archives coloniales préservaient souvent la trace de l’ascendance maternelle en effaçant la mémoire de leurs pères – esclaves ou libres. Quand le nombre des affranchis et de leurs descendants a augmenté pendant la première moitié du xixe siècle, la pratique d’adopter le prénom de la mère comme nom de famille est devenue commune. C’est ainsi que la féminisation des noms de famille des descendants d’esclaves les a marqués insidieusement et a favorisé leur discrimination officieuse jusqu’à présent. (shrink)

En utilisant des exemples tirés d’une famille esclave de la Réunion et de l’île Maurice, cet article analyse comment le choix des prénoms ainsi que des noms de famille a marqué le statut de ses membres et a signalé ou bien dissimulé leurs relations de parenté. Selon le droit colonial français, les pères esclaves ne disposaient pas du statut de pères, mais les noms des esclaves et de leurs descendants conservaient les traces de leur ascendance maternelle en portant le nom (...) de famille de leur mère. Comme le statut des enfants esclaves était déterminé par la condition de leur mère, les archives coloniales préservaient souvent la trace de l’ascendance maternelle en effaçant la mémoire de leurs pères – esclaves ou libres. Quand le nombre des affranchis et de leurs descendants a augmenté pendant la première moitié du xixe siècle, la pratique d’adopter le prénom de la mère comme nom de famille est devenue commune. C’est ainsi que la féminisation des noms de famille des descendants d’esclaves les a marqués insidieusement et a favorisé leur discrimination officieuse jusqu’à présent. (shrink)

Arguments analogous to those found in the late medieval theory of the king’s two bodies, popularized by Ernst Kantorowicz, were resurrected in early nineteenth-century constitutional theories of the moderating powers of monarchy. Post-revolutionary French liberal thought, echoed by its Portuguese counterpart, rediscovered the virtues of the institution of royalty, notably the immaterial and immortal body of the king. This rediscovery was prompted by the uncertainties of different national political contexts which made many contemporaries believe it desirable to integrate restored monarchies (...) within modern constitutional models for state stability. This first occurred with the Bourbons’ return to post-Napoleonic France and the restoration of the monarchy in 1814, and then with the Braganza royal family’s return to Portugal in 1821 after thirteen years of rule from Brazil. Using arguments similar to those previously made in late medieval European political and legal thought, French and Portuguese liberals developed a theory of the king’s two powers, according to which the monarch at once exercised a moderating power, defined by the abstract institutional nature of the king’s person, and an executive power, embodied within his physical person. This conceptualization of royal duality was intended to make it possible to delegate executive power to ministers, leaving the king only the attributes of a largely symbolic power. Liberals thereby hoped to confine the monarch to his purely institutional body in a de-politicized constitutional role. (shrink)

Building on recent literature on the history of political economy and Spanish imperial history, the article reconstructs the ideas that supported the colonial development of the meat industry in the Río de la Plata. Archival and printed sources are employed to illustrate the different arguments revolving around colonial economic development and imperial rule, in the words and practices of merchants, explorers, administrators and ministers. This way, it is possible to disclose the multiple imperial visions circulating in the Spanish Atlantic. The (...) analysis suggests that economic reformism was not only a European intellectual and political movement but was shared and appropriated by Spanish Americans. They employed arguments in political economy to foster their agenda, namely the economic improvement of their territory in the broader context of the Spanish commercial empire. If a shared consensus around imperial political economy between Spanish and Spanish American vassals provided arguments supporting this colonial industry, the diverging economic interests, imperial rivalries, and the different geographical spaces of enunciation determined a variable dialectic between projects for the expansion of salted meat production and their realisation. (shrink)

The first English translation of the major political works of Benjamin Constant (1767-1830), one of the most important of the French political figures in the aftermath of the revolution of 1789, and a leading member of the liberal opposition to Napoleon and later to the restored Bourbon monarchy. The texts included in this volume are widely regarded as one of the classic formulations of modern liberal doctrine.

Beginning with Engels, Marxist historiography viewed the absolute monarchy in France as mediating between the nobility and the emergent capitalist bourgeoisie. More recent Marxist accounts stress that the absolute monarchy reflected the interests of the nobility. Revisionist Marxist historians have taken this perspective to an extreme arguing that, at the height of the Bourbon monarchy in the seventeenth century, a capitalist bourgeoisie did not exist. This paper argues that, in taking such a view, these historians have ignored the ongoing (...) dialectical opposition between the forces of rent and profit in the early-modern period. As a result, they have severed the connection between the ancien régime and the Revolution of 1789. Despite being thrown on the defensive by the advance of rent and the crystallisation of the absolutist state, a capitalist bourgeoisie that emerged in sixteenth-century France survived and persevered during the seventeenth century. It resumed the initiative in the succeeding period of the Enlightenment. (shrink)

From the Back Cover "After decades of cut-and-paste offerings on the subject, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in whisky—whether single malt, bourbon, or anything else—and all that makes it truly unique." —Jim McEwan, Production Director, Bruichladdich Distillery "Does being a philosopher require an appreciation of good whiskey or does having an appreciation of good whiskey make one philosophical? Whichever is the case, Whiskey & Philosophy makes for a thought-provoking and thirst-inducing read. Cheers!" —Chris Morris, Master Distiller, (...) Woodford Reserve Distillery "Whiskey & Philosophy contains a panacea of spiritual pleasure waiting to be enjoyed and shared. Many books have been written about whiskey, but few take you as deep into its inner world. It is an enlightening journey, and one that crosses boundaries and opens new doors. This is indeed a book that unlocks a treasure chest of pure liquid gold to the whiskey enthusiast." —Richard Paterson, Master Blender, Whyte and Mackay Ltd. Whiskey & Philosophy explores the heart and soul of this heady potation in a lively collection of essays from philosophers, other academics, and whiskey writers. From the first reference to Scotch in 1494 in the records of King James IV of Scotland to Hillary Clinton tossing back that famous shot of Crown Royal during the 2008 campaign, this spirited book captures the history of whiskey, its various forms, and associated philosophical issues. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The French Atlantic Triangle: Literature and Culture of the Slave TradeStephen Auerbach (bio)Christopher L. Miller. The French Atlantic Triangle: Literature and Culture of the Slave Trade. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2008. xvi + 571 pp.Over the last decade scholars have shown a new interest in reconstructing the history of the French slave trade and slaveholding Atlantic. A scholarly consensus is slowly emerging around the notion that the history (...) of French slavery and colonialism is central to any understanding of the larger themes in French and Francophone history from the seventeenth century to the present. Christopher Miller’s The French Atlantic Triangle is a welcome contribution to this important subject. Miller rightly argues that France, Africa, and the Caribbean are tied together in a shared history of colonialism, slavery, and the slave trade. His goal in The French Atlantic Triangle is to reconstruct this history and illuminate its impact on modern French and Francophone cultural life.The French Atlantic Triangle is a fascinating example of research that combines methods employed in history and Francophone literary studies in order to discuss the triangular slave trade that condemned 2 million Africans to slavery on France’s Caribbean sugar islands and an untold number to their deaths during the Middle Passage. Miller’s central interest here is exploring the ways in which the slave trade and its afterlife were represented in literature and in film from the eighteenth to the twentieth century in France, Africa, and the Caribbean. In the absence of any extant Francophone slave narratives, Miller persuasively argues that fiction and later film allowed writers and filmmakers to pour their “speculations and reflections” (92) into that void. French and Francophone writers separated by thousands of miles and hundreds of years were united by the desire to construct slave narratives and stories that played on the reader’s sense of pity and shame, or desire for adventure, or to convey a powerful longing for home. The result is an ambitious and substantive work. Miller clearly succeeds in demonstrating a legacy of slavery and the slave trade in France and Francophone literature, yet the picture that emerges is a muddled one; the reader is left to make sense of competing, diverse, and sometimes divergent claims. In the end, The French Atlantic Triangle is more suggestive than persuasive.The book is organized into fourteen chapters, divided into four sections, arranged chronologically and geographically. Part 1 (chaps. 1–4) is largely synthesis. Drawing heavily on the work of historians of slavery and the slave trade, Miller outlines the details of the triangular trade from its inception in the mid-seventeenth century to its first abolition in 1794, and final suppression in 1848. Chapters 1 and 2 will be a review for anyone familiar with the history of this period. Chapter 3 focuses on the Enlightenment and the slave trade. Miller rightly notes that the Enlightenment coincided with the height of French slaving activity. Examining works by Montesquieu, Rousseau, and [End Page 59] Voltaire, Miller argues that the philosophes were never much interested in the plight of African slaves, and when they did speak out on the issue it was with heavy irony or wit that only diluted their message. Miller’s analysis is convincing, though he seems unjustified in suggesting that Voltaire remained mostly quiet on the issue because he was heavily invested in the slave trade. There is no evidence for that assertion.Part 2 (chaps. 5–8) covers the period from the French Revolution to the Bourbon Restoration during which time France experienced complete upheaval from the slave rebellions in Martinique in 1789 and Saint Domingue in 1791, to the abolition of slavery in 1794 and its reimposition under Napoleon. Focusing on the writings of Olympe de Gouges, Germaine de Staël, and Claire de Duras, Miller labels the three as abolitionists because in their works they created sympathetic black characters, critiqued racial prejudice, and instilled pity in their readers. Miller brings a fresh analytical eye to well-known texts like Duras’ Ourika, and shines new light on little-known (or unknown) works like Gouge’s play Zamore et Mirza.Miller’s task here is not only to demonstrate the... (shrink)

Resumen: El artículo tiene por objeto describir las causas que permitieron la permanencia de la lengua mapuche en Chillwe pese a la dominación española, y analizar el proceso de su desaparición. Se propone que el vuelco demográfico que opera a partir de fines del siglo XVIII, con la minorización de la población williche, es una de esas causas, aunque de por sí no decisiva. El segundo factor, quizás más determinante, son las reformas borbónicas, en particular aquellas que apuntan a la (...) unificación lingüística de los dominios españoles mediante la imposición del castellano. Esta política de asimilación lingüística será profundizada con la anexión de Chillwe al naciente Estado nación chileno.: The aim of this article is to describe the causes that made it possible for the Mapuche language to remain firm in Chillwe, in spite of the Spanish domination, and analyse the process of its disappearance. Although it is not a decisive factor, it is proposed that one of the causes is the demographic change that started by the end of the 18th century with the diminution of the Williche population. The second factor, and perhaps the most defining, are the Bourbonic reforms, particularly those that aim at the linguistic unification of the Spanish domains by imposing the Castilian language. This policy of linguistic assimilation will be further developed with the annexation of Chillwe to the rise Chilean State nation. (shrink)