Carolyn Abbate
Biographic Data
| ID | 277466 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Carolyn Abbate |
| GIVEN NAMES | Carolyn |
| FAMILY NAME | Abbate |
| SIGNATURE | ABBATE C |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Nevada, Las Vegas |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5366-6653 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 75 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1989 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Jankélévitch’s Singularity
People and Their Animal Companions: Navigating Moral Constraints in a Harmful, Yet Meaningful World
Analyzing Opera: Verdi and Wagner
On the Ill-Being of Animals: From Factory Farm to Forever Home
Animal welfare theorists tend to assume that most animals in captivity—especially those living in our homes and in sanctuaries—can, with sufficient care and environmental enrichment, live genuinely good lives. This misguided belief stems from the view that animal well-being should be assessed only in terms of the felt experiences of animals. Against this view, I argue that in assessing how well an animal’s life is going, we ought to consider two …
The Epistemology of Meat-Eating
A widely accepted view in epistemology is that we do not have direct control over our beliefs. And we surely do not have as much control over our beliefs as we have over simple actions. For instance, you can, if offered $500, immediately throw your steak in the trash, but a meat-eater cannot, at will, start believing that eating animals is wrong to secure a $500 reward. Yet, even though we have more control over our behavior than we have over our…
On the role of knowers and corresponding epistemic role oughts
Certain Loves for Opera
The attraction of objects has motivated a swerve within the humanities-a move away from texts and exegesis, linguistics, and semiotics; a move toward the body, the senses, materiality, and physiology. A musical instrument, a scientific artifact, a collection of sounds, an antique postcard: yes, all these objects are expressive and sometimes aesthetically pleasing, and in being so they can be understood to embody an epistemology, with theories and…
Valuing animals as they are—Whether they feel it or not
Dressing up animals in ridiculous costumes, shaming dogs on the internet, playing Big Buck Hunter at the local tavern, feeding vegan food to cats, and producing and consuming “knockout” animals, what, if anything, do these acts have in common? In this article, I develop two respect‐based arguments that explain how these acts are morally problematic, even though they might not always, if ever, affect the experiential welfare of animals. While thes…
Meat Eating and Moral Responsibility: Exploring the Moral Distinctions between Meat Eaters and Puppy Torturers
In his influential article on the ethics of eating animals, Alastair Norcross argues that consumers of factory raised meat and puppy torturers are equally condemnable because both knowingly cause serious harm to sentient creatures just for trivial pleasures. Against this claim, I argue that those who buy and consume factory raised meat, even those who do so knowing that they cause harm, have a partial excuse for their wrongdoings. Meat eaters act…
Save the Meat for Cats: Why It’s Wrong to Eat Roadkill
Redefending Nonhuman Justice in Complex Animal Communities: A Response to Jacobs
In response to my argument against Aristotle’s claim that humans are more political than other animals, Edward Jacobs counters that the evidence I use from cognitive ethology and my application of evolutionary principles fail to demonstrate that other animals are as political as humans. Jacobs furthermore suggests that humans are more political than other animals by pointing to the political variation in human communities. In this article, I defe…
The Future of Meat without Animals
Overlooking the Ephemeral
This essay considers philosophical and aesthetic issues at stake in dealing with ephemeral arts such as performed music and exhibited film. Taking inspiration from Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht’s writings on presence culture and meaning culture, it explores possible stances towards beautiful objects – stances that precisely do not treat them as texts to be explained – including extreme attitudes such as silence and reticence. Refusing to regret the ephem…
"Higher" and "Lower" Political Animals: A Critical Analysis of Aristotle’s Account of the Political Animal
While Aristotle’s proposition that "Man is by nature a political animal" is often assumed to entail that, according to Aristotle, nonhuman animals are not political, some Aristotelian scholars suggest that Aristotle is only committed to the claim that man is more of a political animal than any other nonhuman animal. I argue that even this thesis is problematic, as contemporary research in cognitive ethology reveals that many social nonhuman mamma…
Sound Object Lessons
Two brief film sequences, in which paper blowing down a street (The Informer, 1935) and a candle passed along a table (The Old Dark House, 1931) make sounds. Next to them lies an antique microphone. This article charts the genealogies, cultural resonances, and interactions of these sound objects, drawing on the history of sound and acoustic technologies, film music aesthetics, and music philosophy. The sound objects give expression to fables abou…
The Search for Liability in the Defensive Killing of Nonhuman Animals
Virtues and Animals: A Minimally Decent Ethic for Practical Living in a Non-ideal World
Music-Drastic or Gnostic
Jankélévitch’s Singularity
Music is no cipher; it is not awaiting the decoder.Musical works do not express emotion or reflect optical phenomena, nor do they tell stories, nor represent ideologies unless such works are degraded a priori, already propaganda, in which case they are no longer music.Music has a power over our bodies and minds wildly disproportionate to its lack of obvious or concrete meaning, as to its slippery aesthetic status.Nonetheless, music in general, mu…
Music and the Ineffable
The classic work on the philosophy of music—now available in English to a new generation of readers Vladimir Jankélévitch left behind a remarkable body of work steeped as much in philosophy as in music. His writings on moral quandaries reflect a lifelong devotion to music and performance, and, as a counterpoint, he wrote on music aesthetics and on modernist composers such as Fauré, Debussy, and Ravel. Music and the Ineffable brings together these…
Unsung Voices: Opera and Musical Narrative in the Nineteenth Century
Unsung Voices: Opera and Musical Narrative in the Nineteenth Century
Unsung Voices: Opera and Musical Narrative in the Nineteenth Century: Opera and Musical Narrative in the Nineteenth Century
Who "speaks" to us in The Sorcerer's Apprentice, in Wagner's operas, in a Mahler symphony? In asking this question, Carolyn Abbate opens nineteenth-century operas and instrumental works to new interpretations as she explores the voices projected by music. The nineteenth-century metaphor of music that "sings" is thus reanimated in a new context, and Abbate proposes interpretive strategies that "de-center" music criticism, that seek the polyphony a…
Analyzing Opera
Analyzing Opera: Verdi and Wagner explores the latest developments in opera analysis by considering, side by side, the works of the two greatest opera composers of the nineteenth century. Although the juxtaposition is not new, comparative studies have tended to view these masters as radically different both as musicians and as musical dramatists. Wagner and his "symphonic opera" set against Verdi "the melodist" is one of many familiar antitheses,…
Music-Drastic or Gnostic
Music and the Ineffable
The classic work on the philosophy of music—now available in English to a new generation of readers Vladimir Jankélévitch left behind a remarkable body of work steeped as much in philosophy as in music. His writings on moral quandaries reflect a lifelong devotion to music and performance, and, as a counterpoint, he wrote on music aesthetics and on modernist composers such as Fauré, Debussy, and Ravel. Music and the Ineffable brings together these…
Unsung Voices: Opera and Musical Narrative in the Nineteenth Century
Virtues and Animals: A Minimally Decent Ethic for Practical Living in a Non-ideal World
Sound Object Lessons
Two brief film sequences, in which paper blowing down a street (The Informer, 1935) and a candle passed along a table (The Old Dark House, 1931) make sounds. Next to them lies an antique microphone. This article charts the genealogies, cultural resonances, and interactions of these sound objects, drawing on the history of sound and acoustic technologies, film music aesthetics, and music philosophy. The sound objects give expression to fables abou…
Save the Meat for Cats: Why It’s Wrong to Eat Roadkill
Overlooking the Ephemeral
This essay considers philosophical and aesthetic issues at stake in dealing with ephemeral arts such as performed music and exhibited film. Taking inspiration from Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht’s writings on presence culture and meaning culture, it explores possible stances towards beautiful objects – stances that precisely do not treat them as texts to be explained – including extreme attitudes such as silence and reticence. Refusing to regret the ephem…
Analyzing Opera
Analyzing Opera: Verdi and Wagner explores the latest developments in opera analysis by considering, side by side, the works of the two greatest opera composers of the nineteenth century. Although the juxtaposition is not new, comparative studies have tended to view these masters as radically different both as musicians and as musical dramatists. Wagner and his "symphonic opera" set against Verdi "the melodist" is one of many familiar antitheses,…
Unsung Voices: Opera and Musical Narrative in the Nineteenth Century: Opera and Musical Narrative in the Nineteenth Century
Who "speaks" to us in The Sorcerer's Apprentice, in Wagner's operas, in a Mahler symphony? In asking this question, Carolyn Abbate opens nineteenth-century operas and instrumental works to new interpretations as she explores the voices projected by music. The nineteenth-century metaphor of music that "sings" is thus reanimated in a new context, and Abbate proposes interpretive strategies that "de-center" music criticism, that seek the polyphony a…
Unsung Voices: Opera and Musical Narrative in the Nineteenth Century
Unsung Voices: Opera and Musical Narrative in the Nineteenth Century
Jankélévitch’s Singularity
Music is no cipher; it is not awaiting the decoder.Musical works do not express emotion or reflect optical phenomena, nor do they tell stories, nor represent ideologies unless such works are degraded a priori, already propaganda, in which case they are no longer music.Music has a power over our bodies and minds wildly disproportionate to its lack of obvious or concrete meaning, as to its slippery aesthetic status.Nonetheless, music in general, mu…
Music and the Ineffable
The classic work on the philosophy of music—now available in English to a new generation of readers Vladimir Jankélévitch left behind a remarkable body of work steeped as much in philosophy as in music. His writings on moral quandaries reflect a lifelong devotion to music and performance, and, as a counterpoint, he wrote on music aesthetics and on modernist composers such as Fauré, Debussy, and Ravel. Music and the Ineffable brings together these…
Music-Drastic or Gnostic
Virtues and Animals: A Minimally Decent Ethic for Practical Living in a Non-ideal World
The Search for Liability in the Defensive Killing of Nonhuman Animals
"Higher" and "Lower" Political Animals: A Critical Analysis of Aristotle’s Account of the Political Animal
While Aristotle’s proposition that "Man is by nature a political animal" is often assumed to entail that, according to Aristotle, nonhuman animals are not political, some Aristotelian scholars suggest that Aristotle is only committed to the claim that man is more of a political animal than any other nonhuman animal. I argue that even this thesis is problematic, as contemporary research in cognitive ethology reveals that many social nonhuman mamma…
Sound Object Lessons
Two brief film sequences, in which paper blowing down a street (The Informer, 1935) and a candle passed along a table (The Old Dark House, 1931) make sounds. Next to them lies an antique microphone. This article charts the genealogies, cultural resonances, and interactions of these sound objects, drawing on the history of sound and acoustic technologies, film music aesthetics, and music philosophy. The sound objects give expression to fables abou…
The Future of Meat without Animals
Overlooking the Ephemeral
This essay considers philosophical and aesthetic issues at stake in dealing with ephemeral arts such as performed music and exhibited film. Taking inspiration from Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht’s writings on presence culture and meaning culture, it explores possible stances towards beautiful objects – stances that precisely do not treat them as texts to be explained – including extreme attitudes such as silence and reticence. Refusing to regret the ephem…
Redefending Nonhuman Justice in Complex Animal Communities: A Response to Jacobs
In response to my argument against Aristotle’s claim that humans are more political than other animals, Edward Jacobs counters that the evidence I use from cognitive ethology and my application of evolutionary principles fail to demonstrate that other animals are as political as humans. Jacobs furthermore suggests that humans are more political than other animals by pointing to the political variation in human communities. In this article, I defe…
Save the Meat for Cats: Why It’s Wrong to Eat Roadkill
Valuing animals as they are—Whether they feel it or not
Dressing up animals in ridiculous costumes, shaming dogs on the internet, playing Big Buck Hunter at the local tavern, feeding vegan food to cats, and producing and consuming “knockout” animals, what, if anything, do these acts have in common? In this article, I develop two respect‐based arguments that explain how these acts are morally problematic, even though they might not always, if ever, affect the experiential welfare of animals. While thes…
Meat Eating and Moral Responsibility: Exploring the Moral Distinctions between Meat Eaters and Puppy Torturers
In his influential article on the ethics of eating animals, Alastair Norcross argues that consumers of factory raised meat and puppy torturers are equally condemnable because both knowingly cause serious harm to sentient creatures just for trivial pleasures. Against this claim, I argue that those who buy and consume factory raised meat, even those who do so knowing that they cause harm, have a partial excuse for their wrongdoings. Meat eaters act…
The Epistemology of Meat-Eating
A widely accepted view in epistemology is that we do not have direct control over our beliefs. And we surely do not have as much control over our beliefs as we have over simple actions. For instance, you can, if offered $500, immediately throw your steak in the trash, but a meat-eater cannot, at will, start believing that eating animals is wrong to secure a $500 reward. Yet, even though we have more control over our behavior than we have over our…
On the role of knowers and corresponding epistemic role oughts
Certain Loves for Opera
The attraction of objects has motivated a swerve within the humanities-a move away from texts and exegesis, linguistics, and semiotics; a move toward the body, the senses, materiality, and physiology. A musical instrument, a scientific artifact, a collection of sounds, an antique postcard: yes, all these objects are expressive and sometimes aesthetically pleasing, and in being so they can be understood to embody an epistemology, with theories and…
On the Ill-Being of Animals: From Factory Farm to Forever Home
Animal welfare theorists tend to assume that most animals in captivity—especially those living in our homes and in sanctuaries—can, with sufficient care and environmental enrichment, live genuinely good lives. This misguided belief stems from the view that animal well-being should be assessed only in terms of the felt experiences of animals. Against this view, I argue that in assessing how well an animal’s life is going, we ought to consider two …
People and Their Animal Companions: Navigating Moral Constraints in a Harmful, Yet Meaningful World
Analyzing Opera: Verdi and Wagner
Jankélévitch’s Singularity
Epistemology (12 works) · Philosophy (12 works) · Art (9 works) · Biology (8 works) · Musicology and Musical Analysis (7 works) · Psychology (7 works) · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment (7 works) · Environmental ethics (6 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Aesthetics (5 works)