Philosophy and Literature is an internationally renowned refereed journal founded by Denis Dutton at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch. It is now published by the Johns Hopkins University Press. Since its inception in 1976, Philosophy and Literature has been concerned with the relation between literary and philosophical studies, publishing articles on the philosophical interpretation of literature as well as the literary treatment of philosophy. Philosophy and Literature has sometimes been regarded as iconoclastic, in the sense that it repudiates academic pretensions, (...) insidious jargon and institutional vogue. Dutton, who remains the editor, still writes a regular column. A distinctive feature of Philosophy and Literature was the annual Bad Writing Contest, held from 1995–98, which sought to identify (and publish) the ‘most stylistically lamentable passages’ of academic prose, often to great amusement. (shrink)

The third issue of the Journal for the Philosophy of Language, Mind and the Arts is centered on a series of questions related to the nature of images. What properties characterize them? Do they exist also in our minds? What relationship do they have with phenomena such as perception, memory, language and interpretation? The authors participating in this issue have been asked to answer these and other questions starting from and in dialogue with the two philosophical perspectives that have most (...) enriched the study of our object of research since the second half of the twentieth century: analytical philosophy and visual culture studies. The first four essays address problems related to ontology (Didi-Huberman, Prinz, Bantinaki, Manzotti). In their pages the question will be asked not only about the nature of images but also about what it means for an image to represent an object or an action realistically. The second part contains discussions related to the topics of perception, appreciation and creation of pictures (Ferretti; Gavaler, Goldberg; Pigoni, Coraci, Carlenzi). The third section goes through the problems related to the very concept of representing by images (Biggs; Weichert; Derby). The last section of the issue is devoted to two cases in which images are used not so much and not only to represent something, but also to convey ethical-political values (Fasnacht; Olesiejuk). (shrink)

Works of literature represent stories, characters, and events: these are the contents of a work. Often, the contents of literary works are fictional; however, it is just as characteristic of works of literature that these contents are narrated in a distinct style of writing, in an author’s distinct literary “voice.” In this paper, I consider whether works of literature might represent something over and above their fictional contents in virtue of their style alone and what consequences this might have for (...) our thinking about aesthetic education. Both of these concerns—with what works of art represent and what kind of knowledge they make available to us—have been central to recent analytic philosophy of art. While I.. (shrink)

This article is primarily concerned with the philosophical problems that arise out of a consideration of painting. By painting I mean of course not any kind of application of paint to a surface – house painting for instance – but painting as an art, to use Richard Wollheim's phrase. Since Plato, philosophy has intermittently been concerned with these problems, and over the past 30 years, painting has come under a new focus as philosophy of art has increasingly turned its attention (...) to the issues that arise from particular art forms. I will also draw on some ideas developed in art history and theory, which have a suitably philosophical, that is, general or foundational, character. There are many philosophical issues that arise equally from painting and other art forms, but for just this reason, they are best addressed in a broader cross-art-form context, and I will mostly avoid dealing with them here. Instead, I will focus on issues that arise solely or with a special force from a consideration of painting. It will be helpful to roughly arrange these in two categories. The first is representation; the second is form. We shall see that these categories are difficult to keep separate with regard to painting and overlap at various points. (shrink)

Scientific images represent types or particulars. According to a standard history and epistemology of scientific images, drawings are fit to represent types and machine-made images are fit to represent particulars. The fact that archaeologists use drawings of particulars challenges this standard history and epistemology. It also suggests an account of the epistemic quality of archaeological drawings. This account stresses how images integrate non-conceptual and interepretive content.

What is it for a picture to depict a scene? The most orthodox philosophical theory of pictorial representation holds that depiction is grounded in resemblance. A picture represents a scene in virtue of being similar to that scene in certain ways. This essay presents evidence against this claim: curvilinear perspective is one common style of depiction in which successful pictorial representation depends as much on a picture's systematic differences with the scene depicted as on the similarities; it cannot be analyzed (...) in terms of similarity alone. The same problem arises for many other kinds of depiction. The essay concludes that depiction in general is not grounded in resemblance but geometrical transformation. (shrink)

This paper concerns the conditions under which realism is an artistic merit in perceptual narratives, and its consequences for the practice of non-traditional casting. Perceptual narratives are narrative representations that perceptually represent at least some of their contents, and include works of film, television, theatre and opera. On certain construals of the conditions under which realism is an artistic merit in such works, non-traditional casting, however morally merited, is often artistically flawed. I defend an alternative view of the conditions under (...) which realism is an artistic merit in perceptual narratives. I identify the two forms of realism at issue in debates about the artistic merits of non-traditional casting, and identify the artistic norms that determine the conditions under which each constitutes an artistic merit. I argue that, independently of the relation between moral merits and artistic merits, non-traditional casting violates these norms less often than is sometimes assumed. Moreover, in certain circumstances, non-traditional casting affects realism in artistically meritorious ways. I conclude by considering the implications of my view for the practice of whitewashing. (shrink)

I claim that caricature is an epistemically defective depiction. More precisely, when employed in service to some epistemic uptake, I claim that caricature can have a non-negligible epistemic effect only for a less than ideally rational audience with certain cognitive biases. An ideally rational audience, however, would take all caricature to be what I refer to as fairground caricature, i.e., an interesting or entertaining form of depiction that is at best only trivially revelatory. I then argue that any medium (or (...) genre) substantially employing caricature (or standardly featuring or prescribing its employment) in service to some epistemic uptake is to that extent an epistemically defective medium (e.g., beliefs informed by works specific to that medium are to that extent unwarranted). I then show the editorial cartoon to be just such an epistemically defective medium. (shrink)

My main objective in this paper is to formulate a view of pictorial realism I call ‘hypothetical verity’. It owes much to John Kulvicki but diverges from his view in an important respect: rather than thinking that realistic pictures are true to our conceptions of things, I hold that they are true to what things would be like if they existed. In addition, I agree with Dominic Lopes that different realisms reflect different aspects of reality, but restate the case without (...) recourse to symbol systems. Together, the twin principles of hypothetical verity and aspectival absolutism constitute a theory of realism able to account for realistic fictional entities, the problem of revelatory realism and images that teach new information. (shrink)