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The Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature

Malcolm Budd

Consists of four self‐contained essays on the aesthetics of nature, which complement one another by exploring the subject from different points of view. The first is concerned with how the idea of ... More

Consists of four self‐contained essays on the aesthetics of nature, which complement one another by exploring the subject from different points of view. The first is concerned with how the idea of aesthetic appreciation of nature should be understood and proposes that it is best understood as aesthetic appreciation of nature as nature—as what nature actually is. This idea is elaborated by means of accounts of what is meant by nature, what is meant by a response to nature as nature, and what an aesthetic response consists in, and through an examination of the aesthetic relevance of knowledge of nature. The second essay, which is divided into three separate chapters, expounds and critically examines Immanuel Kant's theory of aesthetic judgements about nature. The first of these chapters deals with Kant's account of aesthetic judgements about natural beauty; the second with his claims about the connections between love of natural beauty and morality (which are contrasted with Schiller's claim about love of naive nature); and the third examines his theory of aesthetic judgements about the sublime in nature, rejecting much of Kant's view and proposing an alternative account of the emotion of the sublime. The third essay argues against the assimilation of the aesthetics of nature to that of art, explores the question of what determines the aesthetic properties of a natural item, and attempts to show that the doctrine of positive aesthetics with respect to nature, which maintains that nature unaffected by humanity is such as to make negative aesthetic judgements about the products of the natural world misplaced, is in certain versions false, in others inherently problematic. The fourth essay is a critical survey of much of the most significant recent literature on the aesthetics of nature. Various models of the aesthetic appreciation of nature have been advanced, but none of these is acceptable and, it is argued, no model is needed.Less

Aesthetic Creation

Nick Zangwill

The first chapter addresses the criteria of adequacy of a theory of art. Chapters 2-5 are constructive — they advance a positive view of the nature of art, explore its consequences, and defend it ... More

The first chapter addresses the criteria of adequacy of a theory of art. Chapters 2-5 are constructive — they advance a positive view of the nature of art, explore its consequences, and defend it against objections. The last two chapters are destructive — they argue against other views of the nature of art, and they do so by contrast with the kind of view put forward earlier, and in the light of the groundrules laid down in the first chapter.Less

The Aesthetic Mind: Philosophy and Psychology

Elisabeth Schellekens and Peter Goldie (eds)

This collection of original essays from leading researchers across a wide range of disciplines engages with a number of issues concerning ‘the aesthetic mind’. It is the only collection which ... More

This collection of original essays from leading researchers across a wide range of disciplines engages with a number of issues concerning ‘the aesthetic mind’. It is the only collection which specifically targets the extent to which the empirical sciences can contribute to our philosophical understanding of the notions of the aesthetic and the artistic. The questions addressed include the following: Why do we engage with things aesthetically and why do we create art? Does art or aesthetic experience have a function or functions? Which characteristics distinguish aesthetic mental states? Which skills or abilities do we put to use when we engage aesthetically with an object and how does that compare with non-aesthetic experiences? What does our ability to create art and engage aesthetically with things tell us about what it is to be a human being?The collection is divided into seven parts: ‘The Aesthetic Mind’, ‘Emotion in Aesthetic Experience’, ‘Beauty and Universality’, Imagination and Make-Believe’, ‘Fiction and Empathy’, ‘Music, Dance and Expressivity’, and ‘Pictorial Representation’.Less

Aesthetic Pursuits: Essays in Philosophy of Art

Jerrold Levinson

This book presents work by Jerrold Levinson, one of the most prominent philosophers of art today, which follows in the line of his four earlier collections, Music, Art and Metaphysics (1990), The ... More

This book presents work by Jerrold Levinson, one of the most prominent philosophers of art today, which follows in the line of his four earlier collections, Music, Art and Metaphysics (1990), The Pleasures of Aesthetics (1996), Contemplating Art (2006), and Musical Concerns (2015). This book specifically complements the last of those by collecting recent work not concerned with music, the art that has occupied Levinson more than any other, focusing instead on literature, film, and visual art, while addressing itself as well to issues about humour, beauty, and the emotions.Less

Aesthetics and the Sciences of Mind

Greg Currie, Matthew Kieran, Aaron Meskin, and Jon Robson (eds)

Through much of the twentieth century, philosophical thinking about works of art, design, and other aesthetic products has emphasized intuitive and reflective methods, often tied to the idea that ... More

Through much of the twentieth century, philosophical thinking about works of art, design, and other aesthetic products has emphasized intuitive and reflective methods, often tied to the idea that philosophy’s business is primarily to analyse concepts. This ‘philosophy from the armchair’ approach contrasts with methods used by psychologists, sociologists, evolutionary thinkers, and others who study the making and reception of the arts empirically. How far should philosophers be sensitive to the results of these studies? Is their own largely a priori method basically flawed and their views on aesthetic value, interpretation, imagination, and the emotions of art to be rethought in the light of best science? The essays in this volume seek answers to these questions, many through detailed studies of problems traditionally regarded as philosophical but where empirical inquiry seems to be shedding interesting light. No common view is looked for or found in this volume: a number of authors argue that the current enthusiasm for scientific approaches to aesthetics is based on a misunderstanding of the philosophical enterprise and sometimes on misinterpretation of the science; others suggest various ways that philosophy can and should accommodate and sometimes yield to the empirical approach. The authors provide a substantial introduction which sets the scene historically and conceptually before summarizing the claims and arguments of the essays.Less

Aesthetics as Philosophy of Perception

Bence Nanay

Aesthetics is about some special and unusual ways of experiencing the world. Not just artworks, but also nature and ordinary objects. But then if we apply the remarkably elaborate and sophisticated ... More

Aesthetics is about some special and unusual ways of experiencing the world. Not just artworks, but also nature and ordinary objects. But then if we apply the remarkably elaborate and sophisticated conceptual apparatus of philosophy of perception to questions in aesthetics, we can make real progress. The aim of this book is to bring the discussion of aesthetics and perception together. Many influential debates in aesthetics will look very different and maybe not as difficult to tackle if we clarify the assumptions they make about perception and about experiences in general. The focus of the book is the concept of attention and the ways in which this concept and especially the distinction between distributed and focused attention can help us re-evaluate various key concepts and debates in aesthetics. Some of the key concepts and debates that the book covers are picture perception and depiction, about aesthetic experiences, about formalism, about the importance of uniqueness in aesthetics, about the history of vision debate, and about our identification with fictional characters (among others).Less

The Aesthetics of Argument

Martin Warner

Argument and imagination are often interdependent. This book is concerned with how this relationship may bear on argument’s concern with truth, not just persuasion, and with the enhancement of ... More

Argument and imagination are often interdependent. This book is concerned with how this relationship may bear on argument’s concern with truth, not just persuasion, and with the enhancement of understanding such interdependence may bring. The rationality of argument, conceived as the advancement of reasons for or against a claim, is not simply a matter of deductive validity. Whether arguments are relevant, have force, or look foolish—or whether an example is telling or merely illustrative—cannot always be assessed in these terms. A series of case studies explores how analogy, metaphor, narrative, image, and symbol can be used in different ways to frame one domain in terms of another, severally or in various combinations, and how criteria drawn from the study of imaginative literature may have a bearing on their truth-aptness. Such framing can be particularly effective in argumentative roles inviting self-interrogation, as Plato saw long ago. Narrative in such cases may be fictional, whether parabolic or dramatic, autobiographical or biographical, and in certain cases may seek to show how standard conceptualizations are inadequate. Beyond this, whether in poetry or prose and not only with respect to narrative, the “logic” of imagery enables us to make principled sense of our capacity to grasp imagistically elements of our experience through words whose use at the imaginative level has transformed their standard conceptual relationships, and hence judge the credibility of associated arguments. Assessment of the argumentative imagination requires criteria drawn not only from dialectic and rhetoric, but also from poetics.Less

The Aesthetics of Design

Jane Forsey

This book offers the first full treatment of design in the field of philosophical aesthetics. Aesthetic theory has traditionally occupied itself with fine art in all its forms, sometimes with craft, ... More

This book offers the first full treatment of design in the field of philosophical aesthetics. Aesthetic theory has traditionally occupied itself with fine art in all its forms, sometimes with craft, and often with notions of beauty and sublimity in art and nature. In so doing, it has largely ignored the quotidian and familiar objects and experiences that make up our daily lives. Yet how we interact with design involves aesthetic choices and judgements as well as practical, cognitive and moral considerations. This work challenges the discipline to broaden its scope to include design, and illustrates how aesthetics helps define our human concerns. Subjecting design to as rigorous a treatment as any other aesthetic object exposes it to three main challenges that form the core of this book. First, design must be distinguished from art and craft as a unique kind of object meriting separate philosophical attention, and is here defined in part by its functional qualities. Second, the experience of design must be defended as having a particularly aesthetic nature. Here Forsey adapts the Kantian notion of dependent beauty to provide a model for our appreciation of design as different from our judgments of art, craft and natural beauty. Finally, design is important for aesthetics and philosophy as a whole in that it is implicated in broader human concerns. Forsey situates her theory of design as a constructive contribution to the recent movement of Everyday Aesthetics, which seeks to re-enfranchise philosophical aesthetics as an important part of philosophy at large.Less

Aesthetics of the Familiar: Everyday Life and World-Making

Yuriko Saito

Everyday aesthetics was recently proposed as a challenge to the contemporary Anglo-American aesthetics discourse dominated by the discussion of art and beauty. This book responds to the subsequent ... More

Everyday aesthetics was recently proposed as a challenge to the contemporary Anglo-American aesthetics discourse dominated by the discussion of art and beauty. This book responds to the subsequent controversies regarding the nature, boundary, and status of everyday aesthetics and argues for its legitimacy. Specifically, its discussion highlights the multifaceted aesthetic dimensions of everyday life that are not fully accounted for by the commonly held account of defamiliarizing the familiar. Instead, the appreciation of the familiar as familiar, negative aesthetics, and the experience of doing things are all included as being worthy of investigation. These diverse ways in which aesthetics is involved in everyday life are explored through conceptual analysis as well as by application of specific examples from art, environment, and household chores. The significance of everyday aesthetics is also multi-layered. This book emphasizes the consequences of everyday aesthetics beyond the generally recognized value of enriching one’s life experiences and sharpening one’s attentiveness and sensibility. Many examples, ranging from consumer aesthetics and nationalist aesthetics to environmental aesthetics and cultivation of moral virtues, demonstrate that the power of aesthetics in everyday life is considerable, affecting and ultimately determining the quality of life and the state of the world, for better or worse. In light of this power of the aesthetic, everyday aesthetics has a social responsibility to encourage cultivation of aesthetic literacy and vigilance against aesthetic manipulation. Ultimately, everyday aesthetics can be an effective instrument for directing humanity’s collective and cumulative world-making project for the betterment of all its inhabitants.Less

Aesthetics on the Edge: Where Philosophy Meets the Human Sciences

Dominic McIver Lopes

Recent years have seen an explosion of research on the biological, neural, and psychological foundations of artistic and aesthetic phenomena, which had previously been the province of the social ... More

Recent years have seen an explosion of research on the biological, neural, and psychological foundations of artistic and aesthetic phenomena, which had previously been the province of the social sciences and the humanities. Meanwhile, it is a boom time for meta-philosophy, many new methods have been adopted in aesthetics, and philosophers are tackling the relationship between empirical and theoretical approaches to aesthetics. These eleven essays propose a methodology especially suited to aesthetics, where problems in philosophy are addressed principally by examining how aesthetic phenomena are understood in the human sciences. Since the human sciences include much of the humanities as well as the social, behavioural, and brain sciences, the methodology promises to integrate arts research across the academy. The volume opens with four essays outlining the methodology and its potential. Subsequent essays put the methodology to work, shedding light on the perceptual and social-pragmatic capacities that are implicated in responding to works of art, especially images, but also music, literature, and conceptual art.Less

Antithetical Arts: On the Ancient Quarrel Between Literature and Music

Peter Kivy

This book constitutes a defence of musical formalism against those who would put literary interpretations on the absolute music canon. In Part I, the historical origins of both the literary ... More

This book constitutes a defence of musical formalism against those who would put literary interpretations on the absolute music canon. In Part I, the historical origins of both the literary interpretation of absolute music and musical formalism are laid out. In Part II, specific attempts to put literary interpretations on various works of the absolute music canon are examined and criticized. Finally, in Part III, the question is raised as to what the human significance of absolute music is, if it does not lie in its representational or narrative content. The answer is that, as yet, philosophy has no answer, and that the question should be considered an important one for philosophers of art to consider, and to try to answer without appeal to representational or narrative content.Less

Approach to Aesthetics: Collected Papers on Philosophical Aesthetics

Frank Sibley

John Benson, Betty Redfern, and Jeremy Roxbee Cox (eds)

Includes some of the most significant of Sibley’s published papers as well as five new essays previously unpublished. The point of the book is not a systematic introduction to aesthetics, but rather ... More

Includes some of the most significant of Sibley’s published papers as well as five new essays previously unpublished. The point of the book is not a systematic introduction to aesthetics, but rather a theoretical discussion of some core topics. The first three papers study the difference and the relation between aesthetic and non-aesthetic properties. Papers 4–6 show how aesthetic properties depend on non-aesthetic ones. In papers 7–9 is discussed the difficulty in finding criteria of aesthetic merit. The distinction between attributive and predicative use of adjectives and its application to the cases of beautiful and ugly is considered in Chs 12–14. The nature of aesthetic and the relation between concepts of the aesthetic of art are the arguments of papers 10 and 15. Finally, papers 11 and 16 investigate the impossibility of isolating and defining a ‘purely music’ experience and illustrate the ontological status of works of visual art respectively.Less

Apt Imaginings: Feelings for Fictions and Other Creatures of the Mind

Jonathan Gilmore

Do people’s responses to works of art track their responses to the real world? Specifically, do emotions, cognitions, and desires elicited by fictional stories and visual imaginings differ—in their ... More

Do people’s responses to works of art track their responses to the real world? Specifically, do emotions, cognitions, and desires elicited by fictional stories and visual imaginings differ—in their constitution or the norms that govern them—from those based on beliefs and perceptions? A commitment to one or another answer to this question animates reflection on the nature of art from Plato’s banishment of dramatic poetry from his ideal state to theories in cognitive science of the role of imagination in our mental life. This book defends a thesis of normative discontinuity: although the doxastic representations, emotions, desires, and evaluations that one forms in engaging with a fiction depend on much of the same psychological and neurophysiological machinery one employs in navigating the real world, the norms that govern the appropriateness of those attitudes toward what is fictional or imagined can be contrary to the norms that govern their fit to analogous things in the real world. In short, this book argues that the functions of art ground, on occasion, a kind of autonomy of the imagination: what would be the wrong way to feel or think about states of affairs in the real world could be the right way to feel or think when those states of affairs are only make-believe.Less

Art and Abstract Objects

Christy Mag Uidhir (ed.)

The standard way of thinking about non-repeatable (single-instance) artworks such as paintings, drawings, and non-cast sculpture is that they are concrete things (i.e. material, causally efficacious, ... More

The standard way of thinking about non-repeatable (single-instance) artworks such as paintings, drawings, and non-cast sculpture is that they are concrete things (i.e. material, causally efficacious, located in space and time). For example, Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is currently located in Paris, Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc weighs 73 tonnes, Vermeer’s The Concert was stolen in 1990, and Michaelangelo’s David was attacked with a hammer in 1991. By contrast, consider the current location of Melville’s Moby Dick or the weight of Yeats’s ‘Sailing to Byzantium’ or how one might go about stealing Puccini’s La Bohemme. The standard view of repeatable (multiple-instance) artworks such as novels, poems, plays, operas, films, and symphonies is that they must be abstract things (i.e. immaterial, casually inert, outside space-time). Although novels, poems, and symphonies may not appear to be stock abstract objects, most philosophers of art claim that for the basic intuitions, practices, and conventions surrounding such works to be preserved, repeatable artworks must be abstracta. The purpose of this volume is to examine how philosophical enquiry into the nature of art might productively inform or be productively informed by enquiry into the nature of abstracta taking place within other areas of philosophy such as metaphysics, philosophy of mathematics, epistemology, philosophy of science, and philosophy of mind and language. The aim is to provide a general methodological blueprint from which those within philosophy of art and those without can begin building responsible, and therefore mutually informative and productive, relationships between their respective fields.Less

Art and Art-Attempts

Christy Mag Uidhir

Although few philosophers agree about what it is for something to be defined as art, most, if not all, agree on one thing: art must be in some sense intention-dependent. Art and Art-Attempts is about ... More

Although few philosophers agree about what it is for something to be defined as art, most, if not all, agree on one thing: art must be in some sense intention-dependent. Art and Art-Attempts is about taking intention-dependence seriously as a substantive necessary condition for being art. Artworks are the products of the attempts (goal-oriented intention-directed activities) in which we engage, and these attempts not only succeed or fail but have products that reflect that success or failure. It is not just that an artwork must be the product of intentional action but rather that an artwork must be the product of a successful art-attempt—an attempt with success conditions that if satisfied entail satisfaction of the conditions for being art (whatever those may be). To capture a substantive (non-trivial) sense in which art must be intention-dependent requires trading mere intention-dependence for a substantive attempt-dependence. What follows from art’s intention-dependence being so reframed is a unified, systematic, and productive framework for philosophical enquiry into the nature of art and its principal relata. Art and Art-Attempts aims neither to propose nor to defend any particular, precise answer to the question ‘What is art?’ Instead, Art and Art-Attempts shows the ways in which taking intention-dependence seriously as a substantive necessary condition for being art can be profoundly revelatory, and perhaps even radically revisionary, as to the scope and limits of what any particular, precise answer to such a question could viably be.Less

Art and Authority: Moral Rights and Meaning in Contemporary Visual Art

K. E. Gover

Art and Authority is a philosophical essay on artistic authority and freedom: its sources, nature, and limits. It draws upon real-world cases and controversies in contemporary visual art and connects ... More

Art and Authority is a philosophical essay on artistic authority and freedom: its sources, nature, and limits. It draws upon real-world cases and controversies in contemporary visual art and connects them to significant theories in the philosophical literature on art and aesthetics. Artworks, it is widely agreed, are the products of intentional human activity. And yet they are different from other kinds of artifacts; for one thing, they are meaningful. It is often presumed that artworks are an extension of their makers’ personality in ways that other kinds of artifacts are not. This is clear from our recognition that an artist continues to own his or her creation even once the art object, in which the artwork inheres, belongs to another. But it is far from clear how or why artists acquire this authority, and whether it originates from a special, intimate bond between artist and artwork. In response to these questions, the book argues for a ‘dual-intention theory’ of artistic authorship, in which it is claimed that authorship entails two orders of intention. The first, ‘generative’ moment, names the intentions that lead to the production of an artwork. The second, ‘evaluative’ moment, names the decision in which the artist decides whether or not to accept the artwork as part of their corpus.Less

Art and Belief

Ema Sullivan-Bissett, Helen Bradley, and Paul Noordhof (eds)

This volume brings together recent work on belief and its connection to truth with issues concerning belief that arise in the philosophy of art. In the twelve new essays collected here, contributors ... More

This volume brings together recent work on belief and its connection to truth with issues concerning belief that arise in the philosophy of art. In the twelve new essays collected here, contributors address questions at the intersection of philosophy of mind and philosophy of art, while also advancing these debates. Some of the chapters herein discuss the cognitive contributions artworks can make, for example, whether authors of fiction can testify to their readers. If they can, are they culpable for the false beliefs of their readers formed in response to their work? If they cannot, that is, if the testimonial powers of authors of fiction are limited, is there some non-testimonial epistemic role that fiction can play? And in any case, is such a role relevant when determining the value of the work? Also taken up in the volume are issues concerned with the phenomenon of fictional persuasion, specifically, what is the nature of the attitude involved in such cases (those in which we seem to form beliefs about the real world in response to reading fiction)? If these attitudes are typically unstable, unjustified, and unreliable, does this put pressure on the view that they are beliefs? If these attitudes are beliefs, does this put pressure on the view that all beliefs are aimed at truth? The final pair of papers in the volume take different stances on the nature of aesthetic testimony, in particular, is testimony of this kind a legitimate source of beliefs about aesthetic properties and value?Less

Art and Embodiment: From Aesthetics to Self-Consciousness

Paul Crowther

Critical Aesthetics and Postmodernism (Clarendon Press, 1993) argued that art and aesthetic experiences have the capacity to humanize. In this book, the author develops this theme in ... More

Critical Aesthetics and Postmodernism (Clarendon Press, 1993) argued that art and aesthetic experiences have the capacity to humanize. In this book, the author develops this theme in much greater depth, arguing that art can bridge the gap between philosophy's traditional striving for generality and completeness, and the concreteness and contingency of humanity's basic relation to the world. As the key element in his theory, he proposes an ecological definition of art. His strategy involves first mapping out and analysing the logical boundaries and ontological structures of the aesthetic domain. He then considers key concepts from this analysis in the light of a tradition in Continental philosophy (notably the work of Kant, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Hegel) which — by virtue of the philosophical significance that it assigns to art — significantly anticipates the ecological conception. On this basis the author is able to give a full formulation of his ecological definition. Art, in making sensible or imaginative material into symbolic form, harmonizes and conserves what is unique and what is general in human experience. The aesthetic domain answers basic needs intrinsic to self-consciousness itself, and art is the highest realization of such needs. In the creation and reception of art the embodied subject is fully at home with his or her environment.Less

Art and Emotion

Derek Matravers

This book examines how emotions form a bridge between our experience of art and of life. We often find that a particular poem, painting, or piece of music carries an emotional charge; we may also ... More

This book examines how emotions form a bridge between our experience of art and of life. We often find that a particular poem, painting, or piece of music carries an emotional charge; we may also experience emotions towards, or on behalf of, a particular fictional character. These experiences are philosophically puzzling, for their causes seem quite different from the causes of emotion in the rest of our lives. Using many literary, visual and musical examples, this book shows that what these experiences have in common, and what links them to the expression of emotion in non-artistic cases, is the role played by feeling. It surveys various accounts of the nature of fiction, attacks contemporary cognitivist accounts of expression, and offers an uncompromising defence of a controversial view about musical expression: that music expresses the emotions it causes its listeners to feel. Whilst this book engages with the work of contemporary theorists, it remains accessible to readers without philosophical training.Less