The Transitive Multiverse of Charles Ives's “Concord” Sonata

2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 166-194
Author(s):  
Christopher Bruhn
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Human Brain ◽  
William James ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Aesthetic Theory ◽  
Piano Sonata ◽  
American Philosophy ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
Multiple Levels

The philosophy of William James can be useful in the interpretation of works of art, although James himself never specifically set forth an aesthetic theory. As an example, a Jamesian view of consciousness is enacted on multiple levels in Charles Ives's Piano Sonata No. 2, “Concord, Mass., 1840–60,” and the accompanying Essays before a Sonata. James's metaphor for the working of the human mind—a view widely circulated in Ives's day—as a “stream of thought,” the largely transitory movement of which James likened to a bird's flights and perchings; the value James finds in vagueness; and his treatment of the nature of truth as fundamentally mutable and provisional all find musical expression in the “Concord” Sonata. Additionally, the complex genealogy of the sonata and its connection to related works, notably the Fourth and Universe Symphonies, can be interpreted as reflecting James's cosmological vision of a pluralistic universe or “multiverse.” Reading the sonata through a Jamesian lens provides new insights into the behavior of Ives's music by relating it to turn-of-the-century thinking about the functioning of the human brain as well as early-twentieth-century American philosophy and cosmology.

Royce, Josiah (1855–1916)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert W. Burch
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
William James ◽  
Gold Rush ◽  
Philosophical Naturalism ◽  
American Philosophy ◽  
History Of ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Classical American Philosophy ◽  
Intellectual Environment

Josiah Royce rose from a humble background in the California of the Gold Rush period to become Professor of the History of Philosophy at Harvard University and one of the most influential American philosophers of the so-called ‘period of classical American philosophy’ from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century. He was also (along with F.H. Bradley) one of the two most important English-speaking philosophers of the period who defended philosophical idealism: the doctrine that in some sense or other all things either are minds or else are the contents of minds. Royce remained loyal to his own idealist commitments throughout his life, despite the fact that his friend and Harvard colleague William James was extremely hostile to idealism, and that his intellectual environment was increasingly dominated by the ‘pragmatism’ of which James was an outspoken champion. In later years, however, under the influence of another pragmatist, Charles S. Peirce, Royce gave the themes of his idealist thought a naturalistic social foundation rather than the abstract metaphysical foundation of his earliest writings. Royce’s entire corpus is perhaps best seen as representing a bridge from the German world of Neo-Kantianism and various varieties of philosophical idealism to the American world of pragmatism and of philosophical naturalism.

American Philosophy: ‘Scotch’ or ‘Teutonic’?

Philosophy ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 77 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-329
Author(s):  
John Haldane
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
William James ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
American Philosophical Association ◽  
American Philosophy ◽  
World Power ◽  
The Us

Given as an address to the American Philosophical Association on the occasion of its centennial, this paper examines the character and standing of American philosophy now and at the outset of the twentieth century as seen (then and now) from a British point of view. A century ago Britain was itself the unquestioned leader of Anglo-Saxon thought. Now, however, as in so many areas, the US is the pre-eminent world power. This status brings prestige and various benefits but it also carries responsibilities. In considering the latter I recall some virtues of an earlier generation of American philosophers, especially as they were possessed by William James.

The Arrival of the Zarzuela in Budapest El rey que rabió by Ruperto Chapí

2020 ◽  
Vol 60 (1-4) ◽  
pp. 243-262
Author(s):  
Gloria A. Rodríguez-Lorenzo
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
String Quartets ◽  
Musical Theatre ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Going Public ◽  
Spanish Music ◽  
Written Performance

The appearance of zarzuela in Hungary is entirely unknown in musicology. In the present study, I discuss the currently unchartered reception of the zarzuela El rey que rabió (first performed in Spain in 1891) by Ruperto Chapí (1851-1909), a Spanish composer of over one hundred stage pieces and four string quartets. Premièred as Az unatkozó király in Budapest seven years later in 1898, Chapí’s zarzuela met with resounding success in the Hungarian press, a fervour which reverberated into the early decades of the twentieth century. Emil Szalai and Sándor Hevesi’s skilful Hungarian translation, together with Izsó Barna’s appropriate adjustments and reorchestration, accordingly catered the work to Budapest audiences. Through analysis of hand-written performance materials of Az unatkozó király (preserved in the National Széchényi Library), alongside a detailed study of the Hungarian reception, the profound interest in Spanish music–particularly in relation to musical theatre–amongst the turn-of-the-century Hungarian theatre-going public is revealed. This paper explores how Az unatkozó király became a success in Hungary.

Firearms and Princely Power in Ethiopia in the Nineteenth Century

1972 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 609-630 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. A. Caulk
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Imperial Authority ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
National Leadership ◽  
Local Leaders

Several centuries after firearms had been introduced, they were still of little importance in Ethiopia, where cavalry continued to dominate warfare until the second half of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, they were much sought after by local leaders ambitious to secure their autonomy or to grasp supreme authority. The first of these warlords to make himself emperor, Tēwodros (1855–68), owed nothing to firearms. However, his successors, Yohannis IV (1872–89) and Minīlik (d. 1913), did. Both excelled in their mastery of the new technology and acquired large quantities of quick-firing weapons. By the last quarter of the nineteenth century, possession of firearms — principally the breech loading rifle — had become a precondition for successfully contending for national leadership. Yet the wider revolution associated (as in Egypt) with the establishment of a European-style army did not follow. Nor was rearmament restricted to the following of the emperor. Despite the revival of imperial authority effected by Yohannis and Minīlik, rifles and even machine-guns were widely enough spread at the turn of the century to reinforce the fragmentation of power long characteristic of the Ethiopian state. Into the early twentieth century, it remained uncertain if the peculiar advantages of the capital in the import of arms would be made to serve centralization.

American philosophy in the twentieth century

Daedalus ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 135 (2) ◽  
pp. 116-126
Author(s):  
Dagfinn Føllesdal ◽  
Michael Friedman
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
American Philosophy

Towards a Psyche for Psychiatry

2003 ◽  
Vol 37 (6) ◽  
pp. 689-695 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell Meares
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
World War I ◽  
William James ◽  
Human Consciousness ◽  
Inner Life ◽  
World War ◽  
The Core

Objective: To draw attention to the absence of a concept of personal existence in standard psychiatric approaches to mental illness. Method: To sketch a shift in Western consciousness which occurred suddenly before World War I, involving a banishment of such notions as self and the awareness of inner life from the discourse of psychiatry, psychology and philosophy, leaving a fundamental vacancy at the heart of these disciplines. Results and Conclusion: The positivist–behaviourist hegemony of the twentieth century involved an implicit devaluation of that which is essentially human. The influence of this tradition brings with it the risk of an understanding and treatment of mental illness which leaves out issues at the core of humanity. I suggest we need to recover something of the manner of thinking of the great figures in psychological thought who were writing before the rise of behaviourism and who were contributing to the origins of dynamic psychiatry. A study of the phenomena of human consciousness was central to their work. Main figures mentioned include: Hughlings Jackson, the great neurologist who considered a career in philosophy; Pierre Janet, a philosopher turned psychiatrist; and William James, a physiologist who became a psychologist and philosopher.

Voltaire, Philosopher of Human Progress

PMLA ◽  
1959 ◽  
Vol 74 (4-Part1) ◽  
pp. 356-364
Author(s):  
Virgil W. Topazio
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
The Other ◽  
Single Addition ◽  
The One ◽  
Natural Philosophers ◽  
Popular Consent ◽  
Positive Knowledge ◽  
Separate Discipline

With the emergence of philosophy in the nineteenth century as a separate discipline which stressed primarily questions insoluble by empirical or formal methods, Voltaire's reputation as a philosopher has gone into gradual eclipse. It has become unfashionable and degrading for philosophers to concern themselves with the practical aspects of philosophical enquiry. In eighteenth-century France, on the other hand, the identification of philosophy with science, which by twentieth-century standards had vitiated philosophical thought, produced the “philosophes” or natural philosophers who were on the whole more interested in human progress than in the progress of the human mind. And Voltaire was by popular consent the leader of this “philosophe” group, the one who had unquestionably contributed the most in the struggle to make man a happier and freer member of society. Yet, ironically, despite a lifelong effort in behalf of humanity, Voltaire's reputation as a destructive thinker has steadily grown even as the critics have pejoratively classified him as a “practical” rather than a “real” philosopher. Typical of this criticism of Voltaire is Macaulay's statement: “Voltaire could not build: he could only pull down: he was the very Vitruvius of ruin. He has bequeathed to us not a single doctrine to be called by his name, not a single addition to the stock of our positive knowledge.”

Ludwig Binswanger’s Comments on Hermann Rorschach’s Psychodiagnostik

2021 ◽  
pp. 0957154X2110625
Author(s):  
Marvin W Acklin ◽  
Peter Tokofsky ◽  
Reneau Kennedy ◽  
Peter Tokofsky ◽  
Marvin W Acklin
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Critical Review ◽  
Experimental Psychology ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Test Theory ◽  
Philosophical Foundations ◽  
Professional Colleague

This article presents an introduction to Ludwig Binswanger’s Comments on Hermann Rorschach’s Psychodiagnostik, published in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis in 1923, after Rorschach’s death in 1922. Binswanger, one of the most distinguished psychiatrists of the twentieth century and a close professional colleague and compatriot in the Swiss Psychiatric and Psychoanalytic Societies, was blazing new trails by incorporating turn-of-the-century phenomenology and experimental psychology into Swiss psychiatry. His comments, which have been noted for over 100 years but never before translated, are a critical review of Rorschach’s monograph, highlighting the undeveloped status of the test theory and philosophical foundations. Binswanger’s comments illuminate philosophical, conceptual and scientific pathways not taken in the development of the test following Rorschach’s untimely demise.

On History in Southwest Archaeology

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Severin Fowles ◽  
Barbara Mills
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Resource Management ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Southwest Archaeology ◽  
American Military ◽  
Archaeological Practice ◽  
History Of Research ◽  
Historical Turn ◽  
History Of

As an introduction to the Handbook, this chapter examines the question of history in Southwest archaeology in two senses. First, it traces the intellectual history of research in the region: from the nineteenth-century inauguration of Southwest archaeology as an extension of American military conquest, to the museum-oriented expeditions of the turn of the century, to the scientific advances and the growth of culture resource management during the twentieth century, to the impacts of Indigenous critiques and the development of collaborative approaches most recently. Second, the chapter explores the shifting status of “history” as a central goal of archaeological practice. How have archaeologists constructed—or resisted—narratives to account for the contingent unfolding of Indigenous and colonial societies in the region? What bodies of method and theory have guided these efforts? In addressing these questions, the chapter marks and participates in a growing historical turn in Southwest archaeology.

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