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Virtual School, The Sciences of Education Online, volume 1, issue 3, December, 1998
Thessaloniki: School of Primary Education, Aristotle University
ISSN 1108-2356
Abstract
The article discusses the cultural significance of the arbitrariness and the human symbols. The age-long discussion on the arbitrariness of linguistic sign does not seem to consider the scope of arbitrariness itself, neither its meaning for civilization and human culture. This article attempts to extract from naturalist and cognitive approaches the "tools" to be used for analyzing the fabrication of symbols as an intrinsic aspect of human activity. The analysis shows that it is necessary to explore new ways to control the functions of mechanisms for the management of symbols and symbolic systems (like the mass media). For democracy to function in the cultural field also, this issue is considered most important.
According to the suggested approach, arbitrariness is peculiar to human beings; an intrinsic feature of signifying, and of communication in general - including the cultural and artistic communication. It is this feature that enables the development and refinement of the contemporary opaque mechanisms for knowledge and information management. These mechanisms require fresh forms of literacy and critical thought, and this is a field of research that still remains open.
The article focuses on the historical and systematic analysis of arbitrariness as a feature of civilization par excellence. From this point of view its significance is methodological, in order to comprehend some of the functions of the symbolic production and distribution.
Musicology, 9/1997, pp. 82-98
Athens: Nissos Publications
ISSN 1012-0203
Abstract
The sociology of music is interested in musical material as an historically preformulated object and as the substratum of certain expression and communication forms. This article explores musical material as a product of history and as a social product that "codifies" in a specific and unique way the human approach to reality in general (not only to sonic reality). At the same time, it elaborates certain concepts of the sociology and the aesthetics of music - two fields of study that do not have a long tradition in Greece.
The article discusses the scope and the object of the sociology of music and makes some methodological notes on the approach of music as a total social phenomenon.
(In Bulgarian: Към диалектиката на музикалния материал)
Article in the peer-reviewed journal:
Kultura, 2/1991, pp. 37-52
Sofia: Ministry of Culture
ISSN: 0861-0401
The journal was being published by the Research Institute of Culture of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
Abstract
This article analyzes from a sociological point of view the material used in music. It explores the dialectics of its development in the western culture and it discusses the social factors that define its particular configuration. Based on the methodological assumption that music as an art is a form of communication, the article examines the musical material in two aspects: as a medium to objectify the artistic idea and as a medium in a specific form of artistic communication. The article concludes that even the seemingly simplest decisions of a composer (during the creation process) express and manifest in an indirect way and through particularly complex mediations essential features and components of his culture and therefore of the society he lives in.
Leviathan, 11/1991, pp. 35-59
Athens: Society for Research and Studies on Civilization and Culture
ISSN 1105-6444
Abstract
This is a review of antiformalism, humanism, subjective idealism and irrationalism developed during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These trends had a significant influence on the development of the sociological views about music in particular, and about the arts in general. They influenced also the artistic practice and contributed to the appearance of the romantic ideology, thus preparing the ground for developments that appeared during the twentieth century in the fields of the arts and culture in general, and specifically in music. This study traces from a systematic and historical perspective the methodological foundations of some fields in contemporary sociology (like the sociology of music and the sociology of the arts).
(In Bulgarian: Рационалност, субект, познание между модерно и постмодерно)
Article in the peer-reviewed journal:
Filosofska Misal, 6/1990, pp. 110-121
Sofia: Bulgarian Philosophical Association (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences)
ISSN 0324-024X
Abstract
The article is methodological, since it explores the questions of rationality and irrationality - two central issues in the sociology of the arts that the discussion on the postmodern situation brought in the foreground once more. The article presents a review of the concepts on modernity and postmodernity based on the discussion about the notions of rationality, knowledge and subject. It argues that an important methodological limitation of several approaches (like F. Nietzsche's, O. Spengler's, A. Camus', M. Horkheimer's, T. W. Adorno's, J. Habermas', J.-F. Lyotard's, and others) is that they view these categories regardless of their particular and historical forms and manifestations. However, the article supports also the idea that these approaches focus on a series of important issues and questions related with the development of the western civilization.
