Research seeking a scientific foundation for the theory of art appreciation has raised controversies at the intersection of the social and cognitive sciences. Though equally relevant to a scientific inquiry into art appreciation, psychological and historical approaches to art developed independently and lack a common core of theoretical principles. Historicists argue that psychological and brain sciences ignore the fact that artworks are artifacts produced and appreciated in the context of unique historical situations and artistic intentions. After revealing flaws in the (...) psychological approach, we introduce a psycho-historical framework for the science of art appreciation. This framework demonstrates that a science of art appreciation must investigate how appreciators process causal and historical information to classify and explain their psychological responses to art. Expanding on research about the cognition of artifacts, we identify three modes of appreciation: basic exposure to an artwork, the artistic design stance, and artistic understanding. The artistic design stance, a requisite for artistic understanding, is an attitude whereby appreciators develop their sensitivity to art-historical contexts by means of inquiries into the making, authorship, and functions of artworks. We defend and illustrate the psycho-historical framework with an analysis of existing studies on art appreciation in empirical aesthetics. Finally, we argue that the fluency theory of aesthetic pleasure can be amended to meet the requirements of the framework. We conclude that scientists can tackle fundamental questions about the nature and appreciation of art within the psycho-historical framework. (shrink)

Human expression is open-ended, versatile, and diverse, ranging from ordinary language use to painting, from exaggerated displays of affection to micro-movements that aid coordination. Here we present and defend the claim that this expressive diversity is united by an interrelated suite of cognitive capacities, the evolved functions of which are the expression and recognition of informative intentions. We describe how evolutionary dynamics normally leash communication to narrow domains of statistical mutual benefit, and how expression is unleashed in humans. The relevant (...) cognitive capacities are cognitive adaptations to living in a partner choice social ecology; and they are, correspondingly, part of the ordinarily developing human cognitive phenotype, emerging early and reliably in ontogeny. In other words, we identify distinctive features of our species' social ecology to explain how and why humans, and only humans, evolved the cognitive capacities that, in turn, lead to massive diversity and open-endedness in means and modes of expression. Language use is but one of these modes of expression, albeit one of manifestly high importance. We make cross-species comparisons, describe how the relevant cognitive capacities can evolve in a gradual manner, and survey how unleashed expression facilitates not only language use, but also novel behaviour in many other domains too, focusing on the examples of joint action, teaching, punishment, and art, all of which are ubiquitous in human societies but relatively rare in other species. Much of this diversity derives from graded aspects of human expression, which can be used to satisfy informative intentions in creative and new ways. We aim to help reorient cognitive pragmatics, as a phenomenon that is not a supplement to linguistic communication and on the periphery of language science, but rather the foundation of the many of the most distinctive features of human behaviour, society, and culture. (shrink)

The premise that every work belongs to an art-kind has recently inspired a kind-centred approach to theories of art. Kind-centred analyses posit that we should abandon the project of giving a general theory of art and focus instead on giving theories of the arts. The main difficulty, however, is to explain what makes a given kind an art-kind in the first place. Kind-centred theorists have passed this buck on to appreciative practices, but this move proves unsatisfactory. I argue that the (...) root of this dissatisfaction stems not from the act of kicking the can down the road, but from not kicking it far enough. The missing ingredient, I argue, is a notion of convention which does the work of marking the difference between art and non-art for a given physical medium. (shrink)

Arthur Danto argued from the premiss that artworks are essentially cognitive to the conclusion that they are incidentally aesthetic. I wonder why Danto, and the very many of us he persuaded, came to believe that the cognitive and the aesthetic oppose one another. I argue, contrary to Danto’s historical claims, that the cognitive and the aesthetic did not come into opposition until the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, and that they were brought into opposition for reasons of art-critical expediency (...) rather than philosophical necessity. I conclude that a robustly cognitive notion of the aesthetic remains an option for us. (shrink)

Many artists, art critics, and poets suggest that an aesthetic appreciation of artworks may modify our perception of the world, including quotidian things and scenes. I call this Art-to-World, AtW. Focusing on visual artworks, in this paper I articulate an empirically-informed account of AtW that is based on content-related views of aesthetic experience, and on Goodman’s and Elgin’s concept of exemplification. An aesthetic encounter with artworks demands paying attention to its aesthetic, expressive, or design properties that realize its purpose. Attention (...) to these properties make percipients better able to spot them in other entities and scenes as well. The upshot is that an aesthetic commerce with artworks enlarges the scope of what we are able to see and has therefore momentous epistemic consequences. (shrink)

Philosophers should listen to punk rock. Though largely ignored in analytic aesthetics, punk can shed light on the nature, limits, and value of art. Here, I will begin with an overview of punk aesthetics and then extrapolate two lessons. First, punk intentionally violates widely held aesthetic norms, thus raising questions about the plasticity of taste. Second, punk music is associated with accompanying visual styles, fashion, and attitudes; this points to a relationship between art and identity. Together, these lessons suggest that (...) art appreciation is not just about finding beauty or aesthetic worth but is also about constructing a self. (shrink)

I offer an analysis of the role played by consideration of an item's functions when it is judged aesthetically. The account applies also to artworks, of which some serve extrinsic functions (such as the glorification of God and the communication of religious lore) and others have the function of being contemplated for their own sake alone. Along the way, I deny that aesthetic judgements fit the model of judgements either of free beauty or of dependent beauty, given how these two (...) came to be described in the early twentieth century. (shrink)

The premise of this article is straightforward: cheap art as a method and movement, though often ignored in the aesthetics literature, is ideally suited for creative activism. To understand this claim, we must have a working definition of the term "cheap art", which I develop in the first section. In doing so, I focus on four features of cheap art, united by the core idea of anti-elitism, that make it well suited to support creative activism: (1) Cheap art is light, (...) quick, sloppy, and easy to do. (2) Cheap art is made from cheap materials. (3) Cheap art rejects the idea of art as a business created for the artworld elite and aims instead to provide art of the people and for the people. (4) Cheap art challenges its audience members rather than seeking to placate or soothe them. After a brief defense of the claim that cheap art is in fact art, I discuss each aspect in detail, emphasizing its advantages for creative activism. I close with two suggestions for evaluating cheap art, which I argue can be extended to creative activism more broadly. (shrink)

The way we think about disagreement is shaped by the systematic emphasizing of its adversarial, non-cooperative aspects. This is due to a perspective on arguing and disagreeing. Perspectives enable some thoughts and occlude others. We claim that the way some issues are thought of in aesthetics is conditioned by a similar phenomenon we call ‘the Received Image’ (RI), which parallels the influence on ethics of what Bernard Williams called ‘systems of morality’. Peter Kivy argued that disagreements in aesthetics, if genuine, (...) presuppose that contenders are tacit realists about ‘art-relevant properties’: the motivation for arguing lies in making the adversary acknowledge (epistemic) defeat (in pursuing agreement from others). He draws this conclusion from what he sees as a fundamental difference between aesthetics and ethics. However, in our view, Kivy and his opponents in the semantic meta-debate on disagreement think under the aegis of the RI. We look at disagreements about art from a neo-cognitivist perspective, and argue that heuristic similarities between aesthetics and ethics stand out with an understanding-based epistemology coupled with an adequate theory of artistic form: form as a perspective-generating device whose grasping involves ‘infinitely fine adjustments’. (shrink)

A viable theory of literary humanism must do justice to the idea that literature offers cognitive rewards to the careful reader. There are, however, powerful arguments to the effect that literature is at best only capable of offering idle visions of a world already well known. In this essay I argue that there is a form of cognitive awareness left unmentioned in the traditional vocabulary of knowledge acquisition, a form of awareness literature is particularly capable of offering. Thus even if (...) it is the case that literature has nothing interesting to give us in the way of knowledge, the literary humanist can consistently maintain that literary experience is thoroughly cognitive. (shrink)

Work on the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction is often motivated by its use in other areas, such as intrinsic value, real vs. Cambridge change, supervenience and other topics. With the exception of Figdor 2008, philosophers have sought to articulate a global distinction -- a distinction between kinds of properties, rather than ways in which individuals have properties. I argue that global I/E distinctions are unable to do the work that allegedly motivates them, focusing on the case of intrinsic value.

My perspective in this paper is to look at sport and other physical activities as a way of exploring and experimenting with the environing world. The human being is basically the homo movens – born...

Aesthetic theoriesmayclaim universality, but they are normally conditioned by the aesthetic issues and debates of their own times. Plato and Aristo- tle were motivated both to account for the Greek arts of their day and to connect aesthetics to their general metaphysics and theories of value. Closer to our time, asNo¨el Carroll observes, the theories of Clive Bell and R.G. Collingwood can be viewed as “defenses of emerging avant-garde practices— neoimpressionism, on the one hand, and the mod- ernist poetics of (...) Joyce, Stein, and Eliot on the other.”1 Susanne Langer can be read as provid- ing a justification for modern dance, while the ini- tial version of George Dickie’s institutional the- ory “requires something like the presupposition that Dada is a central form of artistic practice” in order to gain intuitive appeal. The. (shrink)

In this article I discuss what I am calling “ally aesthetics.” I suggest a set of necessary, though not necessarily sufficient, considerations for the creation of successful instances of ally art. Focusing on three case studies, I propose some key characteristics of ally aesthetics, such as its contextual/temporal nature and how that relates to success and the importance of understanding the place of the ally aesthetic within the larger movements they are allying with.

This article considers the shift currently taking place in philosophical thinking about photography. What I call “new” theory departs from philosophical orthodoxy with respect to when a photograph comes into existence, a difference with far-reaching consequences. I trace this to Dawn Wilson on the “photographic event.” To assess the new theory's newness one needs a grip on the old. I divide this between “skeptical” and “nonskeptical” orthodoxy, where this turns on the theory's implications for photography's standing as art. New theory (...) emerges as a response to skeptical orthodoxy in particular. I divide new theory in turn between “restrictive” and “permissive” responses to skeptical orthodoxy and raise challenges for both. The restrictive version arguably divides what does and does not count as strictly photographic in arbitrary ways; the permissive version rules in images that are not obviously photographs and faces two difficulties individuating photographs. I conclude by noting several questions that need to be addressed before new theory clearly has the upper hand over orthodoxy. These concern its ability to account for photography's epistemic capacities, the extent to which it constitutes an advance over “nonskeptical” orthodoxy, and whether new theorists have yet to be new enough when it comes to photographic agency. (shrink)

Aesthetic values give agents reasons to perform not only acts of contemplation, but also acts like editing, collecting, and conserving. Moreover, aesthetic agents rarely operate solo: they conduct their business as integral members of networks of other aesthetic agents. The consensus theory of aesthetic value, namely that an item’s aesthetic value is its power to evoke a finally valuable experience in a suitable spectator, can explain neither the range of acts performed by aesthetic agents nor the social contexts in which (...) they operate. This paper proposes a new theory of aesthetic value specifically to explain facts about the sociality of aesthetic agents. (shrink)

Central issues in philosophy of architecture include foundational matters regarding the nature of: (1) architecture as an artform, design medium, or other product or practice; (2) architectural objects—what sorts of things they are; how they differ from other sorts of objects; and how we define the range of such objects; (3) special architectural properties, like the standard trio of structural integrity (firmitas), beauty, and utility—or space, light, and form; and ways they might be special to architecture; (4) architectural types—how to (...) consider abstract groups of architectural objects and their instances; (5) meaning and other language-like phenomena in architecture and its objects; (6) formation of and warrant for our basic grasp, and considered judgment, of architectural objects; and (7) social and moral features of architectural objects and architectural practice. Yet other questions engage applied philosophical concerns regarding architecture, such as the character of architectural notation; intellectual property rights; and client-architect obligations. A far-reaching philosophy of architecture extends beyond even a broadly aesthetics-based assessment, to include considerations of ethics, social and political philosophy, and philosophical reflections on psychology and the behavioral sciences. The aesthetics of architecture, by itself, spans traditional issues mooted in philosophy of art, as well as aesthetics of the everyday, and environmental aesthetics. Such traditional issues include the nature of the work; the possibility of classes, kinds, or types in the domain; the character and roles of representation, intentionality, and expression; and the warranted foundations for criticism. The ethics of architecture also addresses traditional issues, including delineation of rights, responsibilities, the good, virtues, and justice in architectural milieus. Still other aspects of philosophy of architecture concern social and technological characteristics. (shrink)

The last twenty‐five years have seen a radical shift in the work of politically committed artists. No longer content to merely represent social reality, a new generation of artists has sought to change it, blending art with activism, social regeneration projects, and even violent political action. I assess how this form of contemporary art should lead us to rethink theories of artistic value and argue that these works make a convincing case for an often‐dismissed position, namely, the pragmatic view of (...) artistic value. However, the pragmatic view, when properly applied, sets the bar high indeed—art that tries to change society should be considered good art only when it succeeds in making a tangible difference. (shrink)

This work proposes a coevolutionary theory of aesthetics that encompasses both biotic and human arts. Anthropocentric perspectives in aesthetics prevent the recognition of the ontological complexity of the aesthetics of nature, and the aesthetic agency of many non-human organisms. The process of evaluative coevolution is shared by all biotic advertisements. I propose that art consists of a form of communication that coevolves with its own evaluation. Art and art history are population phenomena. I expand Arthur Danto’s Artworld concept to any (...) aesthetic population of producers and evaluators. Current concepts of art cannot exclusively circumscribe the human arts from many forms of non-human biotic art. Without assuming an arbitrarily anthropocentric perspective, any concept of art will need to engage with biodiversity, and either recognize many instances of biotic advertisements as art, or exclude some instances of human art. Coevolutionary aesthetic theory provides a heuristic account of aesthetic change in both human and biotic artworlds, including the coevolutionary origin of aesthetic properties and aesthetic value within artworlds. Restructuring aesthetics, art criticism, and art history without human beings at the organizing centers of these disciplines stimulate new progress in our understanding of art, and the unique human contributions to aesthetics and aesthetic diversity. (shrink)

The topic of this article is the relationship of street art to both the street and the artworld. I take it as significant that philosophers have turned their attention to “street art” and not, say, “urban outdoor art” or “site-specific art in urban settings.” The “street” in street art seems to imply more than a location or geographic modifier. I consider the further significance of the “street” in street art, and the view, argued or assumed, of the street when philosophers (...) discuss street art. My second target in this article is what I have called the “discontinuity thesis.” This is the idea, defended or assumed in some of the most important philosophical writing about street art, that street art represents a radical break with the artworld and is “antithetical” to it. I argue that the discontinuity thesis is mistaken, and that to understand the larger institutional context of street art we must examine the sociology of artworlds. Street art has followed a familiar process and pioneering street artists are best seen as “mavericks” in Howard Becker’s sense. I argue that seeing street artists in this way can help better understand and appreciate their work. (shrink)

Art theory has consistently emphasised the importance of situational, cultural, institutional and historical factors in viewers’ experience of fine art. However, the link between this heavily context-dependent interpretation and the workings of the mind is often left unexamined. Drawing on relevance theory—a prominent, cogent and productive body of work in cognitive pragmatics—we here argue that fine art achieves its effects by prompting the use of cognitive processes that are more commonly employed in the interpretation of words and other stimuli presented (...) in a communicative context. We describe in particular how institutional factors effectively co-opt these processes for new ends, allowing viewers to achieve cognitive effects that they otherwise would not, and so provide cognitivist backing for an Institutional Theory of Art, such as that put forward by Arthur Danto. More generally, we situate and describe the Western fine art tradition as a phenomenon that is a consequence of both the cognitive processes involved in communication, and of cultural norms, practices and institutions. (shrink)

Feminism and Tradition in Aesthetics takes a fresh look at the history of aesthetics and at current debates within the philosophy of art by exploring the ways in which gender informs notions of art and creativity, evaluation and interpretation, and concepts of aesthetic value. Multiple intellectual traditions have formed this field, and the discussions herein range from consideration of eighteenth century legacies of ideas about taste, beauty, and sublimity to debates about the relevance of postmodern analyses for feminist aesthetics. Forward (...) by Arthur C. Danto, 20 authors include Paul Mattick, Jr., Caroline Korsmeyer, Timothy Gould, Christine Battersby, Mary Devereaux, bell hooks, REnee Lorraine, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Elizabeth Ann Dobie, Adrian Piper, Anita Silvers, Susan Feagin, Mary D. Garrard, Ellen Handler Spitz, Noel Carroll, Joanne Waugh, Joseph Margolis, Rita Felski, and Hilde Hein, as well as Peg Brand's essay, "Revising the Aesthetic-Nonaesthetic Distinction: The Aesthetic Value of Activist Art.". (shrink)

What are the groundrules in the philosophy of art? What criteria of adequacy should we use for assessing theories of art?

Scientists, humanists, and art lovers alike value art not just for its beauty, but also for its social and epistemic importance; that is, for its communicative nature, its capacity to increase one's self-knowledge and encourage personal growth, and its ability to challenge our schemas and preconceptions. However, empirical research tends to discount the importance of such social and epistemic outcomes of art engagement, instead focusing on individuals' preferences, judgments of beauty, pleasure, or other emotional appraisals as the primary outcomes of (...) art appreciation. Here, we argue that a systematic neuroscientific study of art appreciation must move beyond understanding aesthetics alone, and toward investigating the social importance of art appreciation. We make our argument for such a shift in focus first, by situating art appreciation as an active social practice. We follow by reviewing the available psychological and cognitive neuroscientific evidence that art appreciation cultivates socio-epistemic skills such as self- and other-understanding, and discuss philosophical frameworks which suggest a more comprehensive empirical investigation. Finally, we argue that focusing on the socio-epistemic values of art engagement highlights the important role art plays in our lives. Empirical research on art appreciation can thus be used to show that engagement with art has specific social and personal value, the cultivation of which is important to us as individuals, and as communities. (shrink)

If artworks and their aesthetic properties stand in constitutive relationships to historical context and circumstances, so that some understanding of relevant facts is involved in responding to a work, what becomes of the intuitive view that we see artworks and at least some of their aesthetic properties? This question is raised by arguments in both aesthetics and art history for the historical nature of works of art. The paper argues that the answer needs to take philosophy of perception into account. (...) The principal development that has shaped philosophy of perception in the last thirty years—explaining perceptual experience in terms of contents that represent that such-and-such is the case—is directly relevant to key arguments for the historical nature of art because contents can represent complex kinds and properties. Conceptual realism is especially well-suited for explaining perception of artworks and aesthetic properties because it emphasizes that forms of understanding—in the sense of capacities, abilities and techniques—are involved in perceptual engagement with individual objects and instances of properties. To make this case, the paper examines influential arguments for the historical nature of art and aesthetic properties by Arthur C. Danto and Kendall L. Walton; and examines art-historical discussions by Michael Baxandall, Linda Nochlin and T. J. Clark. The paper argues that the aesthetic properties of an artwork depend on human intentional uses of properties, colours and contours among them, and such uses may themselves be aesthetic. The Wittgensteinian notion of use is contextual and historical, and uses are perceptible. (shrink)

Both aestheticians and social epistemologists are concerned with disagreement. However, in large part, their literature has yet to overlap substantially in terms of discussing whether there are viable conceptions of aesthetic peerhood and what the significance of aesthetic peer disagreement might be as a result. This article aims to address this gap. Taking cues from both the aesthetics and social epistemological literature, it develops several conceptions of aesthetic peerhood that are not only constituted by various forms of cognitive peerhood and (...) affective peerhood, but which are also framed by a specific model of ordinary peer disagreement. For each of these conceptions, it suggests what the significance of ordinary aesthetic peer disagreement might be and how future discussions about it might proceed for both aestheticians and social epistemologists alike. (shrink)

Inspired by Helen Longino’s ‘critical contextual empiricism’, in this paper I argue that art arises from social epistemic procedures that encompass both aesthetic functions and institutional practices. Within these procedures, aesthetic functions are developed, validated, and enforced through institutional practices, rather than being solely tied to the artistic outcomes of those practices. I call this approach ‘critical contextual aestheticism’.

This book symposium on Jason Holt’s Kinetic Beauty: The Philosophical Aesthetics of Sport includes commentaries from Stephen Mumford, John E. MacKinnon and Andrew Edgar with replies from Holt.

Most modern definitions of art fail to successfully address the issue of the ever-changing nature of art, and rarely even attempt to provide an account that would be valid in more than just the modern Western context. This article develops a new theory that preserves the advantages of its predecessors, solves or avoids their problems, and has a scope wide enough to account for art of different times and cultures. It argues that an object is art in a given context (...) iff some person culturally competent in this context have afforded it the status of a candidate for appreciation for reasons considered good in this context. This weakly institutional view is supplemented by auxiliary definitions explaining the notions of cultural contexts, competence, and good reasons for affording the status. The relativisation to contexts brings increased explanatory power and scope, and the ability to account for the diversity of art. (shrink)

Does trust play a significant role in the appreciation of art? If so, how does it operate? We argue that it does, and that the mechanics of trust operate both at a general and a particular level. After outlining the general notion of ‘art-trust’—the notion sketched is consistent with most notions of trust on the market—and considering certain objections to the model proposed, we consider specific examples to show in some detail that the experience of works of art, and the (...) attribution of art-relevant properties or characterisations to works of art, very often involves the notion of trust; in such cases—perhaps most or even, implicitly, all—the question ‘Do I trust the artist (or art-maker)?’, is inescapable. (shrink)

This paper aims to map and highlight the diverse heritage of Pragmatism in aesthetics. It argues that pragmatist aesthetics represents an interesting third way of doing aesthetics beyond the analytic philosophy of art and continental aesthetics. It offers a first, provisional sketch of existing research trends in pragmatist aesthetics, such as somaesthetics, environmental aesthetics, everyday aesthetics, and social aesthetics. Furthermore, it identifies some “family resemblances” connecting most pragmatist “relatives” in the field of aesthetics: the idea that (1) aesthetics is broader (...) than the traditional philosophy of art, (2) the criticism of the view of art as constituting an independent realm or an autonomous system, (3) the thesis of a basic continuity between artistic practices and experience “in the raw,” (4) the adoption of a naturalistic yet non-reductive stance, and (5) a broadly socio-political inspiration. (shrink)

Many artists, art critics, and poets suggest that an aesthetic appreciation of artworks may modify our perception of the world, including quotidian things and scenes. I call this Art-to-World, AtW. Focusing on visual artworks, in this paper I articulate an empirically-informed account of AtW that is based on content related views of aesthetic experience, and on Goodman’s and Elgin’s concept of exemplification. An aesthetic encounter with artworks demands paying attention to its aesthetic, expressive, or design properties that realize its purpose. (...) Attention to these properties make percipients better able to spot them in other entities and scenes as well. The upshot is that an aesthetic commerce with artworks enlarges the scope of what we are able to see and has therefore momentous epistemic consequences. (shrink)

Što je manje ograničenja s kojima se susrećemo u umjetničkom stvaranju, to je veća naša umjetnička sloboda; kako tehnologija napreduje i pruža nam sve više opcija i sve veću kreativnu fleksibilnost, tako naša umjetnička sloboda cvjeta. Tako glasi narodna mudrost o ovom fenomenu. No je li ta mudrost doista mudra? Mnogi umjetnici i teoretičari umjetnosti smatraju da nije; za Stravinskog, “[š]to više ograničenja namećemo, to se više oslobađamo lanaca koji sputavaju duh”. U radu razmatram ortodoksno gledište i ovu alternativnu perspektivu (...) kroz analizu ograničenja koja proizlaze iz fizičkih, psiholoških i tehnoloških čimbenika, kao i iz heterogene skupine rutinskih praksi koje nazivamo "konvencijama". Kako bih produbio analizu, oslanjam se na perspektivu "rješavanja problema" u umjetničkoj kreativnosti, ispitujući međudjelovanje između izuma i konvencija u umjetnosti, koristeći različite primjere iz filma i rock glazbe. Prema teoriji Jona Elstera, problemi s kojima se umjetnici suočavaju proizlaze iz mješavine izabranih, nametnutih i izmišljenih ograničenja; prema teoriji Davida Bordwella, ti se problemi mogu riješiti replikacijom, revizijom, sintezom ili odbacivanjem postojećih rješenja. Zaključujem da ni pučka teorija, ni alternativna teorija nisu točne; umjesto toga, postoji "idealna zona" umjetničke kreativnosti smještena između onemogućujućeg viška opcija i sputavajuće oskudice istih. Tvrdim da Stravinskijeva protu-teorija umjetničke kreativnosti, iako nije doslovno istinita, djeluje kao "sretna neistina" – epistemološki vrijedna pretjerana korekcija. (shrink)

In 1956, W.B. Gallie introduced his idea of essentially contested concepts. In my paper, I offer a novel interpretation of his theory and argue that his theory, thus interpreted, is correct. The key to my interpretation lies in a condition Gallie places on essentially contested concepts that other interpreters downplay or dismiss: that the use of an essentially contested concept must be derived “from an original exemplar whose authority is acknowledged by all the contestant users of the concept.” This reveals (...) a similarity between Gallie’s views and the semantic externalist views of Hilary Putnam, and others, about natural kind terms like “water” and “tiger.” I argue that natural kind terms and terms for essentially contested concepts are two species of a single semantic genus. In the case of natural kind terms, a term refers to a natural kind, the exemplars are instances of that kind, and the relation between the exemplars and anything to which the term applies is co-membership of the kind. In the case of terms for essentially contested concepts, a term refers to an historical tradition, the exemplar is a stage or temporal part of that tradition, and the relation between the exemplar and anything to which the term refers is being the heir of. This allows me to understand the contests that alerted Gallie to the phenomenon of essentially contested concepts as contests over the ownership of historical traditions. (shrink)

We discuss how analysis of contemporary artworks has shaped philosophical theories about the concept of art, the ontology of art, and artistic media. The rapid expansion, during the contemporary period, of the kinds of things that can count as artworks has prompted a shift toward procedural definitions, which focus on how artworks are selected, and away from definitions that focus exclusively on artworks’ features or effects. Some contemporary artworks challenge the traditional art–ontological dichotomy between physical particulars and repeatable entities whose (...) occurrences are physical particulars. And nontraditional techniques and materials employed in contemporary art violate the boundaries of conventional media, prompting a rethinking of what artistic medium might be. (shrink)

Time is a necessary element in understanding AI art. Firstly, time reveals the historical process by which art-theoretical predicates move from the unmarked to the marked, which can thus be utilized as a defense for arguing the legitimacy of AI art as art. Furthermore, AI art should be seen as a “new” art that is temporally ahead of the descriptive forms of art theory. Secondly, time provides a unique interpretation of AI artworks’ characteristics and aesthetic experience. The absence of experience, (...) the de-depth of AI artworks, and the “short experience/short memory” aesthetic mode of the masses are closely linked to the scarcity of time in an age of acceleration. Finally, time reflects the loss of “aura” and the new end of art that AI art may bring about. Time provides a defense and explanation of AI art, as well as a perspective for reflecting on the development of art in contemporary times. (shrink)

In this article I revisit A. C. Bradley's account of form/content unity through the lens of both Peter Kivy's and Peter Lamarque's recent work on Bradley's lecture “Poetry for Poetry's Sake.” I argue that Lamarque gives a superior account of Bradley's argument. However, Lamarque claims that form/content unity should be understood as an imposition applied by the reader to poetry. Working with the counterexample of modernist poetry, I throw doubt on both this claim and some associated presuppositions found in Lamarque's (...) account. Modernist poetry appears to intermittently fail to exhibit form/content unity; its unique value also appears bound up with this intermittent failure. However—against the moderates, like Kivy and Kelly Dean Jolley, who this counterexample may seem to support—I claim Lamarque is nonetheless correct that form/content unity is intrinsic in response to poetic value. I argue form/content unity should be seen as a demand, which poems can intentionally frustrate. (shrink)

(2013). A Hermeneutics of Sport. Sport, Ethics and Philosophy: Vol. 7, Sport and Art: An Essay in the Hermeneutics of Sport, pp. 140-167. doi: 10.1080/17511321.2012.761893.

Richard Wollheim threatened George Dickie's institutional definition of art with a dilemma which entailed that the theory is either redundant or incomprehensible and useless. This article modifies the definition to avoid such criticism. First, it shows that the definition's concept of the artworld is not vague when understood as a conventional system of beliefs and practices. Then, based on Gaut's cluster theory, it provides an account of reasons artworld members have to confer the status of a candidate for appreciation. An (...) authorised member of an artworld has a good reason to confer the status on an object if it satisfies a subset of criteria respected as sufficient within this artworld. The first horn of the dilemma is averted because explaining the reasons behind conferral cannot eliminate references to the institution, and the second loses its sharpness, as accepting partial arbitrariness of the conferral does not deprive the theory of its explanatory power. (shrink)

After half a century, environmental aesthetics successfully expanded the scope of modern art-centred Western aesthetic discourse. I argue that further expansion is in order. First, we should explore the aesthetics of the constituents of the environment, namely artefacts, human activities and social relationships, which determine the quality of life and the state of the world. Second, we need to cultivate aesthetic literacy as well as a normative discourse to steer our aesthetic practice toward a better world-making. Finally, environmental aesthetics needs (...) to be globalised to include rich aesthetic traditions of nature and environment from diverse cultures. (shrink)

What more do we need to fully appreciate perfumes, beyond considering them objects for aesthetic appreciation? My contention is that our appreciation of some perfumes would be largely incomplete, unless we acknowledged them as works of art. I defend the claim that some perfumes are works of art from the point of view of different definitions. Nick Zangwill’s aesthetic definition makes it easy to defend the proposed claim, but is not very informative for the purposes of fully appreciating some perfumes. (...) On the other hand, Jerrold Levinson’s intentional-historical definition and Dominic Lopes’s approach to defining art make it more challenging to defend the proposed claim. I show that, even so, the challenge may be met. Moreover, the challenge is well worth engaging with, since tackling it uncovers features of some perfumes that are essential to their full appreciation. (shrink)

(2013). Sportworld. Sport, Ethics and Philosophy: Vol. 7, Sport and Art: An Essay in the Hermeneutics of Sport, pp. 30-54. doi: 10.1080/17511321.2013.761881.

ABSTRACTIn this paper, I consider Adorno's claim that art is at, or is coming to, an ‘end’. I consider Adorno's account in relation to the work of Arthur Danto and G. W. F. Hegel. I employ Danto's account, together with two distinct interpretive glosses of Hegel's account, as heuristic devices in order to clarify both Adorno's own arguments, and the context within which they are being advanced. I argue that while Danto and Hegel see art as coming to an end (...) autonomously, owing to art's successful realization of its governing principle, Adorno by contrast sees art as coming to an end heteronomously. Art's narrative is forcibly broken off, rather than completed. Adorno's account, indebted to Hegel, of art's commitment both to autonomy and the realization of ‘spiritual needs’ is explored in order to clarify how, on Adorno's view, this has happened to art; and why, precisely, he believes art is coming to an end. (shrink)

Offers a compelling intercultural perspective on body, art, self, and society.