Back on track

In contemporary music, the recorded track is the musical object that listeners encounter the most. Some philosophers, like Theodore Gracyk and Andrew Kania, have taken this to mean that the track is the work of art in contemporary music. Evidence for this is the importance that many musicians put on production of the track. So much so that producers become important contributors to the musical product.

Other philosophers, like Dan Burkett, Chris Bartel, and myself, have argued that song and performance are also works worthy of aesthetic attention. So there’s a plurality of works associated with every particular record.

In a recent interview with Rick Beato, the pioneering producer Todd Rundgren reflected on the importance of the track.1 He doesn’t side either with the track-centric view or with open-ended pluralism.

Continue reading “Back on track”

The inevitable next level

In bombing Iran, the US has been using AI to pick targets. This is a playbook that was deployed first by Israel in the early attacks on Gaza. As I commented last year, “Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza has shown that they are willing to bomb and murder indiscriminately, outstripping even their hyped AI’s alleged ability to identify targets.”

As Israeli forces have attacked Beirut, they’ve ordered the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people. There can be no pretense that technology is providing them with pinpoint targeting information.

Continue reading “The inevitable next level”

Always a good idea

I am teaching 17th&18th Century Philosophy this semester for the first time in a while. This week was my favorite bit of the course: Berkeley’s argument for idealism.

It’s a short, deductively valid argument from tempting premises, to the conclusion that the whole sensible world is just ideas. It invites a kind of wonder at how thoughts can fit together.

Continue reading “Always a good idea”

No war, no ICE

Here’s a thing I wrote to my senators:

It’s important to resist the unprovoked war with Iran, especially on the heels of the unprovoked incursion into Venezuela. Reckless and indiscriminate overthrow of governments is just a recipe for chaos.

It’s also important to resist funding ICE. I mention this in the same e-mail because I’ve seen rhetoric online trying to use our foreign wars as an excuse to fund domestic security. Murder and oppression abroad cannot be an excuse for murder and oppression of our own citizens, however. The archipelago of detainment camps that ICE is attempting to build, the extradition of people that courts have ordered should not be extradited, and untrained officers given financial incentives to sweep in as many people as possible… All these things show that ICE must not be given money to grow.