Classical Tradition Research Articles

A portrait of self-regulated musical learning behaviors among rock musicians: Applications in music education

Rock music and Western classical music seem very different but musicians in the two cultures may have enough self-regulated musical learning behaviors in common for concurrent application in school-based music education. In this paper, I describe the self-reported self-regulated musical learning behaviors of seven successful rock musicians, compare their behaviors to those expected in the Western classical tradition, and suggest ways to combine norms from both traditions in effective music education programs. Data are collected through digital ethnography methodology from a series of interviews published in YouTube. Emergent themes in the self-regulated musical learning behaviors of rock musicians include (1) passion for music making, (2) the importance of choice, (3) a need for personal control over learning, and (4) an emphasis on musical composition in daily practice.

Mending the Red-Black Thread: Marxism, the Black Radical Tradition, and the Robinson Thesis

Cedric Robinson's increasingly popular and influential work Black Marxism is best understood as a project of post-Marxist critique. Robinson's book, now regarded as a classic, asks a series of important questions of Marxism, but each of its major arguments marks a fundamental departure from the theoretical perspectives of both European and Black Marxists. The book exists in a historical moment of crisis for the left and intellectual retreat from Marxism; Robinson's relationship with Marxism and his place in the political tradition to which he gave a name, the Black Radical Tradition, suggests three main arguments. First, Robinson's critiques of the classical Marxist tradition — focused on its apparent economism and Eurocentrism — are based on a flattening of this tradition and a marked break from Marxist methodology. Second, Robinson's critique does not neatly align with the perspectives of the radical Black intellectuals whom he discusses, and indeed his conclusions are frequently in conflict with them. Third, the emancipatory project of Black Studies and the research programs convened under Robinson's influence will be best served by cautious and critical engagements with Robinson's seminal work. The generative questions that Robinson asks will be better answered through a materialist account of Black history, a syncretic understanding of Black culture, and a nonreductive, revolutionary Marxism providing the guide for political action.

THE MUSICAL DRAMATURGY AND COMPOSITION STRUCTURES IN THE SYMPHONIES BY JEAN SIBELIUS

The article is dedicated to the peculiarities of conceptional and compositional solutions in the symphonies by Jean Sibelius. The author of the article proposes a new periodisation of the creative life of Sibelius as a great representative of the symphony genre, consisting of two triads of symphonies, surrounding the fourth one. The resources of renovation of the Viennese classical tradition by Sibelius are considered based on the rst triad (Nos. 1, 2 and 3) and the programmatic symphony “Kullervo”. Among the diverse historical connections of Sibelius’ symphonic searches, the author of the article highlights the receptions of the traditions of A. Bruckner and P. I. Tchaikovsky and the historical parallels of the symphonism of Sibelius, G. Mahler and P. Hindemith. The dialectic of contrasting-composite forms and metamorphoses of thematic material is de ned as the main integrating factor in the symphonies of Jean Sibelius.

Distributive Conflict, High Inflation, and Stabilization Programs in a Small Open Economy Framework: The Case of Argentina in the 1980s

ABSTRACT The debates between demand-pull and cost-push theories of inflation have shaped stabilization programs since the 1923 German hyperinflation. This article combines elements from the modern revival of the Classical tradition of value and distribution and the Latin American Structuralist Approach to analyse the political economy behind Argentina's high-inflation regime and stabilization policies from 1983 to 1989. Our main hypothesis is that exchange rate dynamics play a crucial role in stabilizing distributive configurations and price dynamics in a small open economy with conflicting claims. High external debt, persistent devaluation expectations, and exchange rate policies imposed by international creditors to safeguard the economy's repayment capacity are identified as the primary causes behind the failure of stabilization attempts in Argentina during the late 1980s.

Stoicism 'à la mode': Senecan Ethics in Roger Bacon’s 'Moralis philosophia'

While recent scholarship accents early Franciscans’ use of Greek and Greco-Arabic sources in their ethics, Roger Bacon’s appeal to Stoic ethics via Seneca in his Moralis philosophia, the last book of his Opus maius, has not been given its due. Bacon’s citation of Seneca’s dialogues privileges De ira and works he associates with it. Placing Bacon’s ethics in the context of classical and Christian traditions on anger, this paper argues that Bacon uses Seneca to undermine the arguments for righteous anger in both these traditions, specifically those validated by his Franciscan contemporary John of La Rochelle. Bacon’s alternative addresses ethical and political concerns he shares with his dedicatee, Pope Clement IV, and with Franciscan confrères committed to popular preaching and the apostolate to non-Christians. As such, Bacon’s Stoic ethics à la mode needs clearer recognition in the ongoing reinterpretation of thirteenth-century Franciscan thought.

Jesuits, Jansenists, and the Culture Wars

Abstract This introductory article explores the relevance of studying the Jesuit-Jansenist conflict in early modern France against the broader background of modernity as such and its inherent problems with fragmentation, isolation, and polarization in all areas of culture. It begins with a reference to the particular use of the study of early modernity and its religious and sociopolitical problems by the two prominent dissidents of the twentieth century, Leszek Kołakowski (1927–2009) and Jan Patočka (1907–77), in order to draw some potential parallels between the contemporary “culture wars” and the conflict between the Jesuits and the Jansenists. The contributions, stemming from a conference held at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań in March 2023, celebrating the four-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Blaise Pascal, shed light on various aspects of classical culture, education, tradition, and innovation in the areas of theatre, music, and philosophy in seventeenth-century France.

The role of Passion and Self-Efficacy in entrepreneurial activities in the gig economy: An Unsupervised Machine Learning Analysis with Topic Modeling

This research examines passion and self-efficacy through experience and knowledge, as motivational factors that support entrepreneurs within the gig economy (GE). It sheds light on entrepreneurs’ sources of passion in the GE literature. The sample is composed of all the 1164 entrepreneurship activities offered worldwide through Airbnb, Tour by Locals, and Withlocals on 5 May 2022. The study is supported by unsupervised machine learning models and seeks to find latent topics emerging from the analysis of the entrepreneurs’ descriptions and exposes the main correlated clustered dimensions. There are six main motivators behind GE platforms as a first step toward entrepreneurship: Experience, Passion for share, Knowledge, Classic traditions, Empowered community and local activities, and Well-being. It also confirms the correlation between passion and self-efficacy through experience, pointing them as main factors behind entrepreneurship in the GE. Five of the six sources of passion previously pointed by theory were found: Passion for growth, for people, for product/service, for innovation and for social mission. This study discloses self-efficacy and the sources of passion and points directions to practitioners involved in entrepreneurial activities in the GE ecosystem. This work used machine learning models to access quantitatively a paradigm that is inductive by nature. The results point to well-being as a significant factor to be addressed in future research regarding entrepreneurship. This research only studies individuals involved in the GE; as such, further studies should cohort new populations from different fields.

The small open economy in a generalized gravity model

To provide sharp answers to basic questions in international trade, a standard approach is to focus on a small open economy (SOE). Whereas the classic tradition is to define a SOE as an economy that takes world prices as given, in the new trade literature it is defined instead as one that takes foreign-good prices and export demand schedules as given. We develop a gravity model that nests all its standard microfoundations and show how to take the limit so that an economy that becomes infinitesimally small behaves like a SOE. We then derive comparative statics and optimal policy for the SOE. Ignoring standard tax indeterminacies, optimal policy is characterized by export taxes and import tariffs equal to the (inverse) foreign demand and supply elasticities, respectively, and employment subsidies determined by the scale elasticity (under perfect competition) or markups (under monopolistic competition).

Beauty Is the Gravitas Amoris: A Trinitarian Correlation of Beauty and Love

There have been many attempts to give a precise definition of beauty. In this article, I join a tradition of trinitarian reflection on beauty and attempt to add further clarity to a trinitarian definition of beauty. Beauty, in my construal, is the gravitas amoris of the triune being of love—it is, in other words, the objective attractional “force” or “weightiness” exerted by triune love on the soul by which one, if she yields to triune love, experiences the bliss and delight of triune love and is thereby drawn into deifying union. This article will proceed as follows: First, I will survey the relationship between beauty and love found in the classic philosophical tradition represented by Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus. Then, I will survey this beauty–love relation in Christian thought from Augustine, Aquinas, Ficino, Edwards, and von Hildebrand. These figures will provide supporting evidence for my construal of beauty. I then turn to the constructive task. I argue that there is an abductive fit between the features of beauty and the nature of the Trinity. In light of this fit and the sources of traditional thought above, beauty is best thought of as the gravitas amoris—the weighty impression of God’s triune love in created things that draws one into the triune life and is experienced as delight when perceived. I conclude by answering objections and reflecting on how this account reframes the transcendentals and coordinates the experience of beauty with Christian love.

Persuasiveness of Language in Climate Change Speeches

This study seeks to discover persuasive strategies used to communicate or address certain issues that are addressed during a speech, specifically climate change speeches. The speeches that were used in this study were recorded videos of Yeb Sano, Barack Obama, and Gina Lopez that were uploaded on the internet. By examining those videos thoroughly, we dissected every part using the framework of analysis by Bitzer (1992) which composes the key elements of classical theoretical tradition including The Five Canons of Rhetoric, Ethos, Pathos, Logos, Figure of speech, and Oratory. After analyzing it using this tool, we concluded that more technicalities come with writing an effective speech. Using all those analysis frameworks and techniques we have discovered that a lot of aspects come into play in creating a persuasive speech. Using the Framework of Analysis by Lloyd F. Bitzer we have delved into the realm where persuasiveness of language that are manifested through the following parameters; first is the classical rhetorical tradition which consists of the five cannons of rhetoric and a few more which are discussed individually in the following chapters below. We also opted to use Colaizzi's method of data analysis to explore the array of different responses of commenters from those recorded videos. Using the thematic patterning of Colaizzi, the following findings were aspects of the effectiveness of speech were highlighted, we found Seven factors that contribute to the effectiveness of a persuasive speech. With the help of the same patterning, we have also discovered four factors that contribute to or make the speech to be ineffective. Now we want this study to be helpful to some individuals who struggle to make their audience immersed or engaged when listening to their speeches.

Review of Quranic Arabic: From Its Hijazi Origins to Its Classical Reading Traditions

Review of Quranic Arabic: From Its Hijazi Origins to Its Classical Reading Traditions

A Negative Way: Dionysian Apophaticism and the Experiential

The experiential bias in modern understandings of spirituality has led to readings of the pre-modern texts of Pseudo-Dionysius as referring to “negative experiences” of faith. Denys Turner, Bernard McGinn, and others have outlined the mistaken “spiritual positivism” of such readings and their contrast with the negative dialectics of the classical apophatic tradition. Indeed, the philosophical parameters of the Christian mysticism of the Dionysian tradition would deny “mystical experience” to be “experience” as such. Nevertheless, several modern theologians have attempted to integrate interpretations of the experiential in Christian mysticism into their theology. These include Sara Coakley in the idea of spiritual sense in her theology of the body, Karl Rahner in the conception of spiritual touch within his theology of grace, and Louis Dupré’s view that there is religious significance in the experience of “emptiness” in modern-day atheism. I shall contrast these attempted integrations with the critique of “mystical experience” within classical understandings of apophaticism.

The Authoritarian Nature of Common Good Constitutionalism

Abstract How are we to evaluate the project of common good constitutionalism? This new movement, which dismisses positivism and liberalism, progressivism and originalism, aims to overturn the entire canon of modern political and constitutional theory. In its place, it aims to restore a classical tradition of natural law jurisprudence, which is said to have been lost over the last century of constitutional law and practice. In so doing it uses one of liberalism’s own juristic heroes, Ronald Dworkin, in order to free conservatism from the tethers of fidelity to constitutional text and the principle of popular sovereignty underwriting it. Common good constitutionalism’s intervention in the constitutional culture wars of the present is authoritarian not because of its opposition to liberalism, but because of its steadfast refusal of any link between constitutional authority and democracy.

Continuity and Evolution in Vermeule on Legal Interpretation

Abstract This article is a constructive interpretation of Adrian Vermeule’s thought on legal interpretation, putting his previous work on these issues in conversation with his explicit embrace of the classical legal tradition so prominently on display in Common Good Constitutionalism. What emerges is a picture of Vermeule’s contemporary thinking on interpretation that has an interesting core of continuity, one running concurrently with several significant conceptual and normative evolutions brought about by his more explicit embrace of a classical legal framework. Part I offers a synthesis of Vermeule’s treatment of core questions of legal interpretation pre-Common Good Constitutionalism. Part II begins by outlining Vermeule’s express turn to the classical legal tradition and how this tradition approaches important public law issues linked to interpretation. Part II then proceeds to pick out and elaborate on themes of continuity and evolution. I argue here that while Vermeule’s embrace of the classical legal tradition has involved several significant conceptual and normative shifts in his thinking, this has not involved repudiation of his prior work on legal interpretation. Rather, the thrust and insights of much of his previous public law thought on interpretation retain vibrancy within the explicitly classical framework he has now adopted. Overall, I suggest Common Good Constitutionalism, and the works accompanying and building upon it, can be profitably read as providing a form of retroactive coherence to Vermeule’s long-standing arguments concerning legal interpretation, offering them a unifying conceptual framework. From the perspective of a classical natural law jurist at least, Vermeule’s embrace of the classical tradition provides his extensive body of scholarship in this area a more explicit and robust conceptual and normative anchor.

Between Authority and Usurpation? Common Good and Constitutional Government

Abstract The classical tradition of law and government supports lawful authority and condemns usurpation. But the common good sometimes provides a reason to sweep aside existing constitutional arrangements. This article considers the way in which authority and usurpation feature in Adrian Vermeule’s recent book, Common Good Constitutionalism, and thus reflects on the nature of constitutional government. Vermeule’s work combines a commendable philosophy of government with a questionable philosophy of legal reasoning, which weakens the force of Vermeule’s account of American constitutional law and practice. Reflection on the scope of the common good—on whose common good counts—has important implications for how, and for whom, authority should be exercised. Collective agency is important in securing the common good and representative democracy is an important means to unite a people in common action for their good. Constitutional government should aim to command popular support. Forms of constitutional government are contingent, but usurpation of lawful public authority is an evil that should be avoided.

Contemporary Scholarship on Classical Islamic Psychology: A Scoping Review

The Islamic classical scholarly tradition is replete with literature on a wide range of psychological themes. In recent decades, there has been a surge in the study and re-evaluation of this classical literature considering modern psychology. The purpose of this review is to typologize and examine the prevalent themes and approaches in this contemporary body of scholarship engaging with classical Islamic psychological literature, and to highlight gaps and limitations. This literature review utilized a flexible search strategy through various national and regional databases using a wide range of keywords. The study included a total of 132 works in three languages: Arabic, English, and Turkish. The identified works were screened for inclusion based on their relevance to psychology and their focus on classical Islamic works. These works were organized according to a thematic typology developed by the authors into three categories: broad overviews, theory-oriented works, and application-oriented works. The review indicated a significant diversified interest in classical literature in relation to modern approaches to psychology. However, contemporary scholarship included a notable “championing” attitude towards classical literature with less prevalence of empirical explorations and practical applications. Certain classical scholars and treatises received significantly more attention than others in recent decades. The paper concludes by offering future directions for research in this domain.

TANBURİ CEMİL BEY AND HIS MUSIC: GENIUS AND MELANCHOLY

Tanburi Cemil Bey is considered one of the greatest geniuses who grew up in the classical Turkish music tradition. However, his place in the history of national culture cannot be understood only through his actions and works in the musical field. To accurately determine its location, the conceptual apparatus of a comparative and multidimensional perspective is needed. For this reason, this study discusses the concept of genius attributed to Cemil Bey and investigates the possibilities of evaluating it as a form of historical subjectivity through the structure-agency tension in sociology. While doing this, the concept of melancholy, which has accompanied genius since ancient times, is also included in the analysis. These concepts have a deep-rooted unity that frames the medical, epistemological and philosophical norms of the Western tradition of thought. The closeness between these two concepts, which were mainly established on a medical and philosophical level in ancient Greek thought, is discussed in a wide range of symbols within the framework of the Saturn myth in Renaissance cosmology. By revising the ancient belief that the planets have a certain influence on the character and moral qualities of people, the personification of the melancholic genius is added to the myth of Saturn in the astrological context of Renaissance cosmology. Thus, it paves the way for the maturation of a separate poetic experience of melancholy that focuses on the existential dimension of melancholy as well as its physical symptoms. Romanticism intensifies the perception of melancholy as a sign of self-reflexivity that allows contemplation on the deepest aspects of existence and often symbolizes creative genius. It creates a context in which Cemil Bey can be read, like C. Baudelaire and W. Benjamin, who see themselves as residents of this unique field of subjectivity.

Mitología Griega y Discurso Ecológico

This article explores the use of Greek mythology in current ecological discourse. In Classical Studies, specifically in Classical Tradition studies, the ecocritical revision of Greco-Latin texts and their survival is still in its infancy. The ecological question is usually approached as a reconstruction of notions and uses of nature, with little reference to the contemporary philosophical and cultural discourse that revolves around the cultural causes of the climate crisis, its historical paradoxes, and its future projections. This has led to a situation in which ancient mythology, especially Greek mythology, is used by ecological discourse representatives for argumentative, explanatory, or informative purposes without the required textual criticism and scientific rigor. This paper insists on the need to critically review the ecological readings of Greek mythology to avoid contradictions, paradoxes, or biased interpretations that could weaken the ecocritical debate. Specifically, two predominant tendencies are analyzed: the argumentative use of myth (e.g., in the case of the adamantine chains of Prometheus or the use of Platonic myths) and its resemanticization for a specific discursive purpose (e.g., the reductionist interpretations of Gaia and Medusa) in authors such as Timothy Morton, Jane Bennett, Ursula Heise, or Donna Haraway. The results show that the treatment of Greek myths in the ecological discourse is often subordinated to argumentative needs, avoiding alternative mythographic sources that relativize what has been exposed or venturing into biased interpretations that can lead to undesired contradictions concerning the postulates of the ecological discourse itself.

Introduction to a Symposium on David Lowenthal and Paul Cantor as Interpreters of Shakespeare

This symposium honors the work of David Lowenthal (1923–2022) and Paul Cantor (1945–2022), prominent scholars of political philosophy and literature, who passed away within two months of each other in 2022. Lowenthal and Cantor belonged to a school of thought that regarded Shakespeare as a philosophical and political thinker in the classical tradition who was keenly attuned to the challenges Christianity posed for traditional conceptions of virtue. In their view, Shakespeare’s plays presented profound investigations of the good life for human beings by putting ethics and politics in dramatic form, revealing the ways different political regimes encourage rival and antagonistic virtues.

Comparative study of classical oratory traditions in East and West

Comparative study of classical oratory traditions in East and West