There is little question as to whether there is good boring art, though its existence raises a number of questions for both the philosophy of art and the philosophy of emotions. How can boredom ever be a desideratum of art? How can our standing commitments concerning the nature of aesthetic experience and artistic value accommodate the existence of boring art? How can being bored constitute an appropriate mode of engagement with a work of art as a work of art? More (...) broadly, how can there be works of art whose very success requires the experience of boredom? Our goal in this paper is threefold. After offering a brief survey of kinds of boring art, we: i) derive a set of questions that we argue constitutes the philosophical problem of boring art; ii) elaborate an empirically informed theory of boredom that furnishes the philosophical problem with a deeper sense of the affect at the heart of the phenomenon; and iii) conclude by offering and defending a solution to the problem that explains why and how artworks might wish to make the experience of boredom key to their aesthetic and artistic success. (shrink)

This dissertation examines the practice of categorizing works of art and its relationship to art criticism. How a work of art is categorized influences how it is appreciated and criticized. Being frightening is a merit for horror, but a demerit for lullabies. The brushstrokes in Monet's "Impression, Sunrise" (1874) look crude when seen as a Neoclassical painting, but graceful when seen as an Impressionist painting. Many of the judgments we make about artworks are category-dependent in this way, but previous research (...) has rarely examined in depth the ontological structure of art categories, how they are generated and maintained, and how they function. This dissertation fills this gap. The proposal of this dissertation can be summarized as follows. Categories (especially genres) should be analyzed as clusters of rules that regulate the responses and behaviors of agents in the artworld. The visual mundaneness is a critical reason to consider Duchamp's "Comb" (1916) provocative, given the existence of the readymade as a set of rules that justifies such reasoning. The critical and appreciative practice of which categorization is a part is a social practice of making, declaring, proposing, reforming, and developing rules of appreciation. How we appreciate artworks, and how criticism guides our appreciation, is sensitive to how we categorize artworks. How we categorize artworks is sensitive to what categories have been set up in our community and which categories are active regarding each artwork. (shrink)

Experientialism in aesthetics is the view that the artistic merit or the aesthetic value of something is determined by the final value of certain experiences of it. These are usually specified as experiences of it with understanding and appreciation. Until recently, experientialism was the dominant view. Not anymore. Experientialists are now subject to a barrage of objections, many of which they have not answered. Here I argue that all of these objections fail. I develop a new form of experientialism that (...) is immune to them. It also has an independent rationale. It incorporates an account of the value of art appreciation that is plausible in its own right. And it endorses many of the core insights of anti-experientialists, especially concerning the final value of good art. Those of us unconvinced by experientialism need to take this form of it seriously. I conclude by identifying some genuine problems it faces. Even these aren’t clearly insoluble. (shrink)

Making an adequate aesthetic judgment about an object or an aesthetic property requires first-hand experience of that object or property. Many have suggested that this principle is a valid epistemic norm in the epistemology of the aesthetic. However, some recent philosophers have argued that certain works of conceptual art and other counterexamples disprove the principle in question, even suitably modified. In this paper, I argue that these philosophers are mistaken and that, when properly qualified, the acquaintance principle (in some of (...) its versions) is not threatened by their examples and arguments. (shrink)

The debate concerning the ontological status of musical works is perhaps the most animated debate in contemporary analytic philosophy of music. In my view, progress requires a piecemeal approach. So in this article I hone in on one particular musical work concept – that of the classical Western art musical work; that is, the work concept that regulates classical art-musical practice. I defend a fictionalist analysis – a strategy recently suggested by Andrew Kania as potentially fruitful – and I develop (...) a version of such an analysis in line with a broad commitment to philosophical naturalism. (shrink)

This paper presents a series of arguments aimed at showing that, for an important subclass of social rules—non‐summary rules—no adequate metaphysical account has been given, and it tentatively suggests that no such account can be given. The category of non‐summary rules is an important one, as it includes the rules of etiquette, fashion, chess, basketball, California state law, descriptive English grammar, and so on. This paper begins with behavioristic accounts of the conditions for the existence of such rules, and proceeds (...) through progressively more complex accounts, all the way to what are labeled ‘normative attitude accounts,’ which are prima facie plausible and particularly popular. In each case it is argued that the type of account under consideration cannot explain the existence of the relevant type of social rule. (shrink)

In two experiments (N=888), we explore to what extent the folk concept of art is compatible with the leading philosophical definitions of art, and whether it is an essentialist or a non-essentialist concept. We manipulate three factors: whether an object is created intentionally, whether it has aesthetic value, and whether it is institutionally recognized. In addition, we also manipulate the artistic domain (visual art or music). The results suggest that none of the three properties is seen by the folk as (...) necessary for an object to be considered art, which suggests that the folk concept of art might be a cluster concept. (shrink)

We have a rough idea of what artifacts are: artifacts are objects made to serve a certain purpose. However, there is no consensus on how to specify this definition. Essentialists argue that objects are grouped into artifact kinds by sharing non-trivial artifact essences, while anti-essentialists argue that there is no such essence to be found. However, the prominent essentialist and anti-essentialist accounts suffer from extensional and definitional problems. I argue that the problems current essentialist and anti-essentialist accounts face mainly stem (...) from the assumption of artifact concept monism. According to artifact concept monism, there is only a single way to group objects into artifact kinds. To remedy the problems that stem from artifact concept monism, this paper offers an alternative framework by drawing parallels from the debates on species concept pluralism and art concept pluralism. (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)

Introduced into the philosophical lexicon during the Eighteenth Century, the term ‘aesthetic’ has come to be used to designate, among other things, a kind of object, a kind of judgment, a kind of attitude, a kind of experience, and a kind of value. For the most part, aesthetic theories have divided over questions particular to one or another of these designations: whether artworks are necessarily aesthetic objects; how to square the allegedly perceptual basis of aesthetic judgments with the fact that (...) we give reasons in support of them; how best to capture the elusive contrast between an aesthetic attitude and a practical one; whether to define aesthetic experience according to its phenomenological or representational content; how best to understand the relation between aesthetic value and aesthetic experience. But questions of more general nature have lately arisen, and these have tended to have a skeptical cast: whether any use of ‘aesthetic’ may be explicated without appeal to some other; whether agreement respecting any use is sufficient to ground meaningful theoretical agreement or disagreement; whether the term ultimately answers to any legitimate philosophical purpose that justifies its inclusion in the lexicon. The skepticism expressed by such general questions did not begin to take hold until the later part of the 20th century, and this fact prompts the question whether (a) the concept of the aesthetic is inherently problematic and it is only recently that we have managed to see that it is, or (b) the concept is fine and it is only recently that we have become muddled enough to imagine otherwise. Adjudicating between these possibilities requires a vantage from which to take in both early and late theorizing on aesthetic matters. (shrink)

First critical survey devoted to the history of philosophical contributions to this topic. Brings to light neglected contributions prior to the second half of the 20th century including works in Danish, German, and French. Provides a division of issues and clarifies key ambiguities related to modality.

This is an overview of analytic philosophy of music. It is in five sections, as follows: 1. What Is Music? 2. Musical Ontology 3. Music and the Emotions 4. Understanding Music 5. Music and Value.

The definition of art is controversial in contemporary philosophy. Whether art can be defined has also been a matter of controversy. The philosophical usefulness of a definition of art has also been debated. -/- Contemporary definitions can be classified with respect to the dimensions of art they emphasize. One distinctively modern, conventionalist, sort of definition focuses on art’s institutional features, emphasizing the way art changes over time, modern works that appear to break radically with all traditional art, the relational properties (...) of artworks that depend on works’ relations to art history, art genres, etc. – more broadly, on the undeniable heterogeneity of the class of artworks. The more traditional, less conventionalist sort of definition defended in contemporary philosophy makes use of a broader, more traditional concept of aesthetic properties that includes more than art-relational ones, and puts more emphasis on art’s pan-cultural and trans-historical characteristics – in sum, on commonalities across the class of artworks. Hybrid definitions aim to do justice to both the traditional aesthetic dimension as well as to the institutional and art-historical dimensions of art, while privileging neither. (shrink)