_Winner of the Fabian Dorsch ESA Essay Prize._ Julian Dodd defends the view that, in musical work-performance practice, interpretive authenticity is a more fundamental value than score compliance authenticity. According to him, compliance with a work’s score can be sacrificed in cases where it conflicts with interpretative authenticity. Stephen Davies and Andrew Kania reject this view, arguing that, if a performer intentionally departs from a work’s score, she is not properly instantiating that work and hence not producing an authentic performance (...) of it. I argue that this objection fails. A detailed analysis of work-performance practice reveals, first, that the normative scope of interpretive authenticity encompasses the practice of composing musical versions and that, second, when performers sacrifice score compliance to maximize interpretive authenticity, they are performing the target work by means of performing a version of it. By means of the nested types theory, I then show how performances produced in this way can be properly formed instances, and hence authentic performances, of their target work. (shrink)

The relationship between 1. recipes, 2. ingredients and 3. dishes may be understood in analogy to the relationship between elements in the performing arts: for example, in music, 1. musical works, 2. ‘musical ingredients’ and 3. performances. The recipe’s inventor is a ‘composer’ and the cook is a ‘performer’. As I will argue, both in musical performances and in the preparation of dishes, the application of norms requires ‘creative’ adaptation to the concrete specific situation and the final product (...) emerges from practical interactions that involve transformations of their own normative bases. Hence, both in culinary practices and performing arts like music, the improvisational case is paramount for understanding how their normativity, as paradigmatic of the normativity of human practices in general, works. (shrink)

What are musical works? Are they discovered or created? Can recordings substitute faithfully for live performances? This book considers these and other intriguing questions. It first outlines the nature of musical works, their relation to performances, and their notational specification; it then considers authenticity in performance, musical traditions, and recordings. Comprehensive and original, the volume discusses many kinds of music, applying its conclusions to issues as diverse as the authentic performance movement, the cultural integrity of ethnic music, and (...) the implications of the dominance of recorded over live music. (shrink)

This paper argues that historians of ideas must, when seeking to reconstruct webs of beliefs, interpret texts as though they were performances. As this is particularly the case with dialogic texts, the paper focuses on Plato's dialogues to show that the arguments expressed therein cannot be taken as expressions of Plato's beliefs. Rather, such arguments seek to prompt thought in their readers and thus reveal beliefs indirectly. We must therefore revise Mark Bevir's account of the reconstruction of webs of (...) beliefs so that we construct a consistent web and then assume that to be the web of the author in question, rather than assuming that the web we construct is a consistent one. Consideration of Leo Strauss's argument that philosophers have often had to hide their meaning for fear of persecution, the paper concludes that its argument may apply to treatise-based writing as well as to dialogues. All texts include an element of the performative. (shrink)

Volume 23, Issue 3-4, November - December 2024, Page 219-244.

Given the coterie of philosophers focused on everyday aesthetics, it's fascinating that gift reception has heretofore managed to escape their scrutiny. To enact a gift, recipients begin by imagining its use. On this level, gifts serve as a litmus test. In luring us, we're taken out of our normal ways of being to experience a different side of ourselves. Enacting a gift is thus a kind of performance, whose value depends on the donee’s interpretation, just as exhibitions, concerts, staged plays (...) or books are performances of visual art, scores, scripts or texts, whose interpretations demonstrate their aesthetic value. To develop the relationship between enacting gifts and performing artworks, I begin by surveying junctures along the gift-event’s arc: reply, imagination, trust, recognition, transformation and memory. Transformations arising from agonistic gifts strike me as significant because they characterise the way gifts challenge our beliefs, eventually altering our values. That we grow to love gifts, which we originally rejected out of hand, casts doubt on self-knowledge. Enacted gifts handily challenge self-knowledge’s twin features: authority and transparency. As this paper indicates, gift reception helps both to understand ourselves better and to remove the obstacles to what Quassim Cassim calls Substantive Self-Knowledge. (shrink)

Tuning might be the figure best suited to joining this pair of apparently incongruous texts, tuning in the sense defined by David Antin as “a negotiated concord or agreement based on vernacular physical actions with visible outcomes like walking together,” as opposed to understanding, which is predicated, Antin contends, “on a geometrical notion of congruence.”.

This article claims that there is no in principle aesthetic difference between a live performance and a recording of that performance, and as such, performance individuation ought to be revised to reflect this. We ought to regard performances as types able to be instantiated both by live performances and by recordings of those performances, or we ought to abandon performances qua aesthetic objects.

Presentation of self (via Goffman) is becoming increasingly popular as a means for explaining differences in meaning and activity of online participation. This article argues that self-presentation can be split into performances, which take place in synchronous “situations,” and artifacts, which take place in asynchronous “exhibitions.” Goffman’s dramaturgical approach (including the notions of front and back stage) focuses on situations. Social media, on the other hand, frequently employs exhibitions, such as lists of status updates and sets of photos, alongside (...) situational activities, such as chatting. A key difference in exhibitions is the virtual “curator” that manages and redistributes this digital content. This article introduces the exhibitional approach and the curator and suggests ways in which this approach can extend present work concerning online presentation of self. It introduces a theory of “lowest common denominator” culture employing the exhibitional approach. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the relations between musical works, performances, and recordings, are significantly different in the three traditions of Western classical, rock, and jazz music. In classical music the work of art – the enduring primary focus of critical attention – is a piece that receives various different performances. Classical recordings are best conceived of as giving the listener access to performances of works, or perhaps as performances in their own right. In rock, (...) however, recordings are at the centre of the tradition. The work of art in rock is not a piece for performance, but the track itself, as in classical electronic music. Tracks do manifest songs which may be performed live, but these are not the primary focus of critical attention in rock. In jazz, there are no works of art. This is because the primary focus of critical attention in jazz is the performance, and the relation between standard on which the performance is based and the performance itself is too dissimilar from the model of classical work-performance. Jazz recordings, however, like classical recordings, are best thought of as providing access to performances. These ontological issues are important in part because of their implications for evaluation and musical practice. If rock works are ontologically like classical electronic works, then criticism of them should focus not just on their formal harmonic structures, but on their use of timbral and spatial effects. Since classical recordings endure, but live performances do not, performers should ideally take a different attitude to work-interpretation in those two spheres. (shrink)

A humanoid robot named ‘Sophia’ has sparked controversy since it has been given citizenship and has done media performances all over the world. The company that made the robot, Hanson Robotics, has touted Sophia as the future of artificial intelligence. Robot scientists and philosophers have been more pessimistic about its capabilities, describing Sophia as a sophisticated puppet or chatbot. Looking behind the rhetoric about Sophia’s citizenship and intelligence and going beyond recent discussions on the moral status or legal personhood (...) of AI robots, we analyse the performativity of Sophia from the perspective of what we call ‘political choreography’: drawing on phenomenological approaches to performance-oriented philosophy of technology. This paper proposes to interpret and discuss the world tour of Sophia as a political choreography that boosts the rise of the social robot market, rather than a statement about robot citizenship or artificial intelligence. We argue that the media performances of the Sophia robot were choreographed to advance specific political interests. We illustrate our philosophical discussion with media material of the Sophia performance, which helps us to explore the mechanisms through which the media spectacle functions hand in hand with advancing the economic interests of technology industries and their governmental promotors. Using a phenomenological approach and attending to the movement of robots, we also criticize the notion of ‘embodied intelligence’ used in the context of social robotics and AI. In this way, we put the discussions about the robot’s rights or citizenship in the context of AI politics and economics. (shrink)

In the performing arts, such as music and dance performances, people actively interact with each other and show their exciting performances. Some studies have proposed that this interaction is a social origin of the performing arts. Some have further investigated this phenomenon based on the synchronization and coordination theory. Though the majority of these studies have focused on the collaborative context, several genres of the performing arts, such as jazz sessions and breakdance battles, have a competitive context. Several (...) studies have suggested that, in this competitive context, performers actively interact with each other and construct some correspondence. Moreover, a few recent studies focusing on competitive conversations, such as debates, have shown that, compared to people's interactions in collaborative conversations, people in competitive contexts frequently coordinate their behaviors in complicated ways. However, the interaction and coordination among performers in these competitive contexts have not been sufficiently investigated. Therefore, we investigated the coordination of expert breakdancers in battle scenes and measured their rhythmic movements using a motion capture system. We calculated the relative phase of the rhythmic movements between two dancers to investigate their coordination. The results showed that the dancers' rhythmic movements tended to synchronize in an anti-phase fashion, which means that there were similarities as well as differences between the two dancers' rhythmic movements. Furthermore, this pattern of coordination changed dynamically as time elapsed, from an in-phase synchronization or leader-follower relationships to an anti-phase synchronization and then leader-follower relationships. (shrink)

For decades, African senior club and national soccer teams, involved in world competitions, have failed to perform beyond mere honorable appearances. In this paper, we explore two of the fundamental causes underlying these disappointing performances. First, we examine the dilemma which forces almost all the African federations to overlook the Africa-based players in favor of those based outside the continent. Second, we show that the roots of the poor performances of the African teams go far beyond this crippling (...) dilemma. Indeed, we argue, the persistent underperformances of African teams appear to be rather consistent with the fate of postcolonial Africa itself, a continent marred in an acute identity crisis. In fact, this crisis essentially stems from the relentless brain drain inflicted on the African soccer world which has so far dispersed its best talents all across Europe and beyond through the naturalization of its soccer diaspora. In addition, Africa has shown no ability to offer any type of attractive alternatives to the talented sons and daughters of its diaspora as well as to any other world class players. This ineptitude, coupled with Africa’s inability to leave behind its nostalgic Senghorian soccer essentialism, condemns the continent to perpetual poor performances. Therefore, we suggest that the African national federations and their respective governments move away from their deeply held soccer essentialism in order to begin to move toward some kind of soccer existentialism alongside such European countries as France, Germany, Switzerland, and The Netherlands which appear to acknowledge, perhaps reluctantly, the invaluable contributions made by the African diaspora to the success of not only their local and national leagues but also their national teams. (shrink)

Developing novices’ proficiency in skilful activities is central to the reproduction of human societies. The interactional practices through which instruction is accomplished have provided a rich focus for ethnomethodological and conversation analytic studies examining classroom settings, and, more recently, non-classroom environments of instruction in practical and manual skills. This paper examines the work of instruction in basketball training and in particular the correction of player performances, which are a ubiquitous and central feature of instruction in basketball training sessions. A (...) central part of this instructional action relies on the coach observing training activities to determine players’ competencies and to extract relevant correctables from the players’ embodied displays, which are in turn embedded within complex arrangements of rapidly moving bodies situated in material environments. In this paper we examine the visual-analytic work involved in both organizing and observing a basketball training activity, demonstrating the sequential layering of multiple membership categorization devices drawn upon in producing and recognizing actions in this setting. We argue that the coach deploys spatial orientations which function analogously to membership categorization devices, with players’ bodily positions relative to one another and the material structure of the surround generating category-like sets of rights, responsibilities, and sequential relevancies. As we demonstrate, these orientations provide crucial resources for the identification of players’ errors and thereby for the organization of instruction in interaction in this setting. (shrink)

In In Praise of Theatre, an interview with Alain Badiou held by Nicolas Truong, Badiou answers questions about his ideas on the value and purpose of theatre. He explains that he takes ‘real theatre’ to be theatre that consists of performances that aim at making the members of the audience to reflect critically on what they have just heard or seen and, more importantly, the possibilities that were only implied by the performance. Contrary to disciplines such as philosophy, politics (...) and literature, Badiou argues, theatre is uniquely suited for this purpose, because it takes place in a ‘here and now’ that is shared by performers and audience, which places the audience in a position to ‘grasp the relation between immanence and transcendence from the view of the idea’. In addition, it uses an indirect mode of representation, instead of a direct mode of teaching. While accepting Badiou’s claim that theatre performances form a valuable means to question social conventions by communicating and transforming subjectivity, in this article I will argue that Badiou’s enthusiasm about the possibilities of theatre lead him to exaggerate its uniqueness in relation to philosophy, politics and literature. That is to say, he stretches the differences between these disciplines too far by portraying them as opposites or even rivals. In what follows, I will show for each of the comparisons that Badiou makes between theatre and these other disciplines, that they are founded on a misunderstanding of theatre’s unique position when it comes to transforming subjectivity through communication. (shrink)

… our faults do not allow our qualities to show themselves to best effect. That is why, at the moment, Brazilians are a people of intermittent qualities and permanent faults.Mário de Andrade, Essai sur la musique brésilienne, 1928This paper sets out to discuss the use and power of music in representing social identities, concentrating on the more specific case of the Brazilian nation, which has made itself a complex and all-embracing socio-political unit in spite of the great diversity and the (...) great inequalities to be found within its borders. It is well known that what appears to be its most uniform feature, the use of a dominant language, is actually quite fragmented, due to the influence of various co-existing systems of production, cultural models and social hierarchies, which change on a daily basis. Although this diversity seems to be underwritten by daily practice and independent of debate and official encouragement, the same cannot be said of the search for national unity. It is obvious in the case of most of the action undertaken with this end in mind, that questions such as exclusion and the imbalance and arbitrariness of power have been eliminated. Besides, certain alert individuals are wary of this insistence on the construction of a nation, since the role of the old national states throughout the world seems to be disintegrating in the face of the proliferation and growing importance of social, economic and cultural relations at a supranational level. It is therefore hardly surprising that the twentieth century is considered to be a milestone in both the rise and fall of efforts to achieve Brazilian national unity. Amongst these efforts, music has played a prominent role, as I shall endeavour to show. (shrink)

Much modern scholarship on Delphic oracles has revolved around the question of authenticity, where authenticity implies it is a fact that there was a consultation of the Delphic oracle, that a response was given and that the account of these events reports the occasion of the consultation and the response verbatim. This article challenges the usefulness and validity of this definition on two grounds. First, there is ample evidence that most Delphic oracles circulated orally for at least a generation before (...) being recorded in writing. Therefore, Delphic oracles should be examined through what we know about orality from Homeric studies. Second, all six hundred or so oracles attributed to Delphi are fulfilled. This observation suggests that Delphic tales are religious testimonia and should be read for what they tell us about the beliefs, though not necessarily the facts and details, of the communities who circulated them. This article, then, both provides an alternate definition of authenticity that takes into account the oral transmission of these tales by communities of believers and comments on the nature of the historical evidence these tales provide. (shrink)

En los más disímiles contextos universitarios, se generan hoy programas para mejorar los desempeños de los docentes en el proceso formativo; pero, infortunadamente estos no siempre resultan en un mejoramiento de la práctica cotidiana de las universidades, sobre todo en la calidad de la formación de los profesionales. De este hecho, el propósito del presente artículo está dado en realizar una valoración de las principales influencias epistemológicas en lo relativo a la profesionalización del docente universitario y develar aquellos desempeños idóneos (...) esenciales que deben poseer en este nivel de educación como expresión de las competencias que deben desarrollar. Today, in most diverse university contexts, programs are developed to improve the performance of professors in the educational process; but unfortunately, they do not always result in improving the daily practice of universities, especially in the quality of professionals training. Of this fact, the purpose of the present article is to carry out a valuation of the main epistemological influences related to the professionalization of universities` professors; and to determine the main essential suitable performances these professionals should have as an expression of the competences they must develop. (shrink)

The ability to recover from official match-play across a single and multiple matches is often considered a key factor in subsequent performance for modern professional basketball. The aims of this study were to: explore the differences in match performances between different match congestion cycles ; and identify the key performance indicators discriminating between winning and losing during different match congestion cycles. The current study indicated that scoring close to or very far away was significantly greater for winning matches separated (...) by 1- and 2-days of rest compared to consecutive matches. Additionally, shooting efficiency, and attaining Defensive Rebounds and Steals, were significant offensive and defensive KPIs that differentiated winning and losing teams. Similarly, opponent quality and match pace were important situational variables that affected match outcome during different match congestion cycles. While match location had an impact on winning following 1- and 2-days of rest, it had no impact for back-to-back matches. The current results will support coaches' offensive, defensive and recovery strategies during various match congestion cycles for a greater probability of winning NBA matches. (shrink)