Critique of Pure Music

In Integrating Europe: Informal Politics and Institutional Change the author explains why the European Union (EU) member states actively surrender policy-making power to supranational authorities in unconventional ways. In light of the general antipathy toward giving up national sovereignty in European societies-even where "pro-European" sentiment thrives, why do national governments allow the creation of any new EU laws or policies whose effects theycannot keep under their general control? Why do EU member states allow any sovereignty transfer to occur outside of inter-governmental treaties, which are the only legitimate EU bargains found in the EU's formal sphere? Deploying the tools of rational choice institutionalist theory, the author argues that informalbargains struck between the EU's primary organizational actors - the European Council, European Commission, and European Parliament - have paradoxically resulted in increased integration. As the EU is an ideal laboratory for testing different institutionalist hypotheses for explaining institutional change, the author focuses on the ongoing competition to alter the EU rules that allocate power, and, with an approach that allows for feedback loops among agents and structures, makes an argumentthat flies in the face of realist and intergovernmentalist theories. While some have shed light on the importance of informal dynamics in the legal sphere of the EU, this book does the same for the policy-making sphere.Why do we value music? Many people report that listening to music is one of life's most rewarding activities. In Critique of Pure Music, James O. Young seeks to explain why this is so. Formalists tell us that music is appreciated as pure, contentless form. On this view, listeners receive pleasure, or a pleasurable 'musical' emotion, when they explore the abstract patterns found in music. Music, formalists believe, does not arouse ordinary emotions such asjoy, melancholy or fear, nor can it represent emotion or provide psychological insight. Young holds that formalists are wrong on all counts. Drawing upon the latest psychological research, he argues that music is expressive of emotion by resembling human expressive behaviour. By resembling human expressivebehaviour, music is able to arouse ordinary emotions in listeners. This, in turn, makes possible the representation of emotion by music. The representation of emotion in music gives music the capacity to provide psychological insight-into the emotional lives of composers, and the emotional lives of individuals from a variety of times and places. And it is this capacity of music to provide psychological insight which explains a good deal of the value of music, both vocal and purely instrumental.Without it, music could not be experienced as profound. Philosophers, psychologists, musicians, musicologists, and music lovers will all find something of interest in this book.