DKJ's MCLA Syllabi

Philosophy of Music

2011-09-04T18:18:00.000-04:00

Philosophy of Music

Fall, 2011

HONR 301:03 & PHIL 385:01
MWF 11-11:50
Bowman 215

Professor: Dr. David Kenneth Johnson
Department: Philosophy, Interdisciplinary Studies, and Modern Languages
Office: Office #2, 100 Porter Street
Office Hours: MWF 1:30-2:30
Phone: (413) 662-5448
Email: d.johnson@mcla.edu
Blog: http://www.critojazz.blogspot.com

Required Text: Andy Hamilton, Aesthetics and Music (all other readings online or in handout form)

Focus of Course

This seminar addresses essentially philosophical (rather than psychological, historical, pedagogical, musicological, etc.) questions about the metaphysical, epistemological, and axiological status of music, such as:

What is music?
What is the meaning/value/significance of a musical work?
How ought we to distinguish musical works from their performances?
How ought we to understand the relations between improvisation and composition?
Is music essentially an abstract or humanistic/bodily/performance art?
How is music related to the emotions?
Is music a kind of language?
Does music represent or refer to some part of the world?

Online Activities

My main weblog listed above contains links to all supporting course handouts and assignments, including a noninteractive blog-page devoted to this course and its accompanying documents (“Q&A’s: Philosophy of Music”). I encourage students to visit regularly all student blogs related to this class (see writing option 1b below) and leave civil, productive, and engaging comments. Also, since I prefer to devote class-time to the exposition and analysis of student and textual positions, I typically reserve my own frequently evolving and tentative views for this online medium.

Class Policies and Expectations

Carefully review Handout CP (included, as are all of my handouts, in “DKJ’s MCLA Handouts” in the left-hand margin of my blog) and the honors Director’s short essay, designed for honors students but to my mind applicable across the curriculum, “What Makes Honors Students Honorable?” in Thesis XII Online (http://thesisxii.blogspot.com)

Cancellations

I will attempt to email the entire class using First Class to warn of any unanticipated cancellations.

Laptop Policy

Like a concert hall or theatre, our classroom is reserved for face-to-face interaction. Thus, barring special needs or circumstances, you may bring but not use your laptop during class. The same policy applies to cell phones, IPods, and all other distracting gadgets. Please print out in advance any electronic material required for class.

Examinations

There will be no examinations in this course, unless poor attendance and/or participation demand it.

Q & A’s, Student Blogs, Research Essays, Book Reviews, and Thesis XII

Good thinkers are good writers (and vice versa). Therefore, consider this also a writing course. Grading divides into three categories (1-3): 1. Either (a) one highly polished and thoughtful 10-12 page multi-stage persuasive research essay (see Handout RE) or (b) regular and substantive entries to a course-based blog (see Handout WB); 2. Weekly “Q&A’s” (see Handout QA); and 3. A book review and presentation due at the close of the semester (see Handout BR). Finally, any student who writes an essay which I accept for publication in Thesis XII (the Philosophy Department’s semiannual Philosophical Review) will receive 5 points toward his or her final average for the course.

Final grades will be determined as follows (see also Handout CP, “grading”):

1. Blog (two separate and equal grading periods)
(or) Multi-Stage Persuasive Research Essay = 45%
2. Q&A’s = 45%
3. Book Review and presentation 10%
________________
= 100%

Art and Philosophy (Honors Section)

2011-01-18T20:55:00.002-05:00

Art and Philosophy - Honors

Fall, 2011

PHIL 120H:01
MWF 9-9:50
Bowman 209
Professor: Dr. David Kenneth Johnson
Department: Philosophy, Interdisciplinary Studies, and Modern Languages
Office: Office #2, 100 Porter Street
Office Hours: MWF 1:30-2:30
Phone: (413) 662-5448
Email: d.johnson@mcla.edu
Blog: http://www.critojazz.blogspot.com

TA: Jacob Wheeler
Email: jw5076@mcla.edu
Blog: http://www.aestheticaesthesia.blogspot.com/

Required Text: Aesthetics: A Comprehensive Anthology, Cahn and Meskin, Eds.

Focus of Class

This is an introductory (yet rigorous) seminar in the philosophy of art (often called “aesthetics”) for honors students. In the context of a philosophical (essentially theoretical, rather than a more narrowly historical, psychological, or sociological, etc.) approach to the products and processes of human artistic efforts, this course surveys and employs a variety of traditional and contemporary concepts for describing accurately our experience, understanding, and appreciation of all forms of art.

Our philosophical inquiries will set out from two central questions of aesthetics: “What is art/the aesthetic?” and “What is art’s unique value?” We will then take up several related, domain-specific, or applied questions such as:

How is beauty/ugliness related to the arts? What are the significant connections between artists and their audiences, society, history, politics, and the so-called “art-world”? What is the nature of artistic innovation and/or creativity? How are emotions/feelings, knowledge, truth, taste, and interpretation related to the arts?

Online Activities

My main weblog listed above contains links to all supporting course handouts and assignments, including a noninteractive blog-page that lists weekly writing assignments for this course (“Q&A’s: Art and Philosophy”). I encourage all students – whether blogging or not -- to visit regularly all blogs related to this class (see writing option 1b below) and leave civil, productive, and engaging comments. Jacob Wheeler, a senior philosophy major well versed in aesthetics and the art of effective blogging, will serve as Teaching Assistant for this course. Also, since I prefer to devote class-time to the exposition and analysis of student and textual positions, I typically reserve my own frequently evolving and tentative views for this online medium.

Class Policies and Expectations

Carefully review Handout CP (included in “DKJ’s MCLA Handouts”) and the honors Director’s short essay, designed for honors students but to my mind applicable to the best students across the curriculum, “What Makes Honors Students Honorable?” in Thesis XII Online (http://thesisxii.blogspot.com)

Cancellations

I will attempt to email the entire class using First Class to warn of any unanticipated cancellations.

Laptop Policy

Like a concert hall or theatre, our classroom is reserved for face-to-face interaction. Thus, barring special needs or circumstances, you may bring but not use your laptop during class. The same policy applies to cell phones, IPods, and all other distracting gadgets. Please print out in advance any electronic material required for class.

Examinations

There will be no examinations in this course, unless poor attendance and/or participation demand it.

Q & A’s, Student Blogs, Research Essays, Book Reviews, and Thesis XII

Good thinkers are good writers (and vice versa). Therefore, consider this also a writing course. Grading divides into three categories (1-3): 1. Either (a) one highly polished and thoughtful multi-stage persuasive research essay (see Handout RE) or (b) regular (2 x week) and substantive entries to a course-based blog (see Handout WB); 2. Weekly “Q&A’s” (see Handout QA); and 3. A book review and presentation due at the close of the semester (see Handout BR). Finally, any student who writes an essay accepted for publication in Thesis XII (the Philosophy Department’s semiannual Philosophical Review) will receive 5 points toward his or her final average for the course.

Final grades will be determined as follows (see also Handout CP, “grading”):

1. Blog (two separate but equal grading periods)
(or) Multi-Stage Persuasive Research Essay = 45%
2. Q&A’s = 45%
3. Book Review and presentation 10%
________________
= 100%

Art and Philosophy (Non-Honors section)

2011-01-18T20:53:00.002-05:00

Art and Philosophy

Fall, 2011

PHIL 120:01
MWF 10-10:50
Bowman 209

Professor: Dr. David Kenneth Johnson
Department: Philosophy, Interdisciplinary Studies, and Modern Languages
Office: Office #2, 100 Porter Street
Office Hours: MWF 1:30-2:30
Phone: (413) 662-5448
Email: d.johnson@mcla.edu
Blog: http://www.critojazz.blogspot.com

Required Text: Aesthetics: A Comprehensive Anthology, Cahn and Meskin, Eds.

Focus of Class

This is an introductory (yet rigorous) seminar in the philosophy of art (often called “aesthetics”). In the context of a philosophical (essentially theoretical, rather than a more narrowly historical, psychological, or sociological, etc.) approach to the products and processes of human artistic efforts, this course surveys and employs a variety of traditional and contemporary concepts for describing accurately our experience, understanding, and appreciation of all forms of art.

Our philosophical inquiries will set out from two central questions of aesthetics: “What is art/the aesthetic?” and “What is art’s unique value?” We will then take up several related, domain-specific, or applied questions such as:

How is beauty/ugliness related to the arts? What are the significant connections between artists and their audiences, society, history, politics, and the so-called “art-world? What is the nature of artistic innovation and/or creativity? How are emotions/feelings, knowledge, truth, taste, and interpretation related to the arts?

Online Activities

My main weblog listed above contains links to all supporting course handouts and assignments, including a noninteractive blog-page that lists weekly writing assignments for this course (“Q&A’s: Art and Philosophy”). Since I prefer to devote class-time to the exposition and analysis of student and textual positions, I typically reserve my own frequently evolving and tentative views for this online medium.

Class Policies and Expectations

Carefully review Handout A (see “DKJ’s MCLA Handouts” on my blog) and the Honors Director’s short essay, designed for honors students but to my mind applicable to the best students across the curriculum, “What Makes Honors Students Honorable?” in Thesis XII Online (http://thesisxii.blogspot.com)

Cancellations

I will attempt to email the entire class using First Class to warn of any unanticipated cancellations.

Laptop Policy

Like a concert hall or theatre, our classroom is reserved for face-to-face interaction. Thus, barring special needs or circumstances, you may bring but not use your laptop during class. The same policy applies to cell phones, IPods, and all other distracting gadgets. Please print out in advance any electronic material required for class.

Examinations

There will be four exams: three spaced roughly evenly throughout the semester and one during the final exam period. All will be objective-style exams (T/F; multiple choice, short answer, etc.). Each will be worth the same, amounting to 50% of a student’s final grade for the course.

Q&A’s and Thesis XII

Students will complete weekly, one-page writing assignments (usually based on a specific reading from our text) called “Q&A’s” (see Handout QA), supplying the remaining 50% of the final grade for the course. Also, any student who writes an essay accepted for publication in Thesis XII (the Philosophy Department’s semi-annual Philosophical Review) will receive 5 points toward his or her final average for the course.

Final grades, therefore, will be determined as follows (see also Handout CP, “grading”):

1. Q&A’s = 50%
2. Four Examinations = 50%
________________
= 100%