Faculty Publications: Recent submissions
Now showing items 21-40 of 73
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A Different Tenor: Songs of Love and Sorrow--Re-Engaging the Social Ethics of MusicThe question of how music relates to our existence as ethical beings has not always elicited the same response. For much of the twentieth century, the relation between music and ethics was addressed from the angle of music's autonomy. Music was fenced off from society so that it might better fulfill its own internal demands. Thus, in answer to the question whether music has, or should have, an ethical dimension, the predominating philosophical answer of the twentieth century was solidly negative. The article that follows, a response to this negative point of view, reproduces a panel discussion that took place in April 2010 during a conference entitled "Songs of Love and Sorrow: Re-Engaging the Social Ethics of Music." Co-organized by the Institute for Christian Studies, the Toronto School of Theology, and the Royal Conservatory of Music, the conference attempted to bring to the musical arts a concern to re-evaluate the social significance of artistic experience and practice. Though not argued like an essay, the article highlights significant themes about the relationship of music to ethics, including the innately social character of music, its possible effect on our behaviour, the potential social content of sound itself, the positive social effect of music's ambiguity, the need to break down the barriers between music practitioners and interpreters, the role communities might play in sponsoring the work of musicians, and the possible compatibility between music's formal requirements and its potential for social engagement.
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Dooyeweerd's Conception of Truth: Exposition and CritiqueA transformed idea of truth is central to the project of reformational philosophy. This essay lays groundwork for such an idea by proposing a critical retrieval of Herman Dooyeweerd's conception of truth. First it summarizes relevant passages in Dooyeweerd's New Critique. Then it demonstrates several problems in his conception: he misconstrues religious truth, misconceives its relation to theoretical truth, and overlooks central questions of epistemology and truth theory. By addressing these problems, reformational philosophers can find new ways to think about truth that retain the holism, normativity, and radicalness of Dooyeweerd’s conception.
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Religion in Public: Passages From Hegel's Philosophy of RightThis article argues that religion is a public matter. The discussion proceeds in two stages. First I give a normative account of religion, the state, and their dialectical relationship. After proposing a new account of "religious truth," I suggest that religion has both critical and utopian roles toward the state. Then the essay examines the political and economic roles of religion in civil society, where religion both incubates civil-societal organizations and disturbs civil-societal patterns. I conclude that religious truth, properly understood, is not incompatible with democratic communication. Contra Richard Rorty, religion is not a "conversation-stopper."
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The Development of Curriculum With Relation to the Philosophy of the Cosmonomic IdeaThis thesis is concerned primarily with the philosophical foundations, and particularly the epistemological foundations, of a Christian approach to the school curriculum: we will construct a theoretical model of knowledge which may fruitfully inform the selection of goals and the establishment of criteria for the obedient progress of Christian education.
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Cultural Paths and Aesthetic Signs: A Critical Hermeneutics of Aesthetic ValidityContemporary philosophical stances toward ‘artistic truth’ derive from Kant’s aesthetics. Whereas philosophers who share Kant’s emphasis on aesthetic validity discount art’s capacity for truth, philosophers who share Hegel’s critique of Kant render artistic truth inaccessible. This essay proposes a critical hermeneutic account of aesthetic validity that supports a non-esoteric notion of artistic truth. Using Gadamer and Adorno to read Kant through Hegelian eyes, I reconstruct the aesthetic dimension from three polarities in modern Western societies. Then I describe aesthetic validity as an horizon of imaginative cogency governing the exploration, presentation and creative interpretation of aesthetic signs. The essay argues that aesthetic processes, so construed, are crucial to cultural pathfinding, and that aesthetic validity-claims in art talk contribute significantly to this pursuit. Aesthetic validity, cultural orientation and art talk constitute the hermeneutical matrix from which questions of artistic truth emerge.