Echoing a distinction made by David Wiggins in his discussion of the relation of identity, this paper investigates whether aesthetic adjectives such as ‘beautiful’ are sortal-relative or merely sortal-dependent. The hypothesis guiding the paper is that aesthetic adjectives, though probably sortal-dependent in general, are sortal-relative only when used to characterize multifunctional artefacts. This means that multifunctional artefacts should be unique in allowing the following situation to occur: for some object x there are sortals K and K' such that x is (...) a beautiful K and also a K', but not a beautiful K'. Examples of multifunctional artefacts show that this is indeed a possibility. However, that multifunctional artefacts are unique in this respect will be demonstrated by a more principled argument, taking into account the nature of functions on the one hand, and the nature of artefact-classification on the other hand. (shrink)

This essay argues for two conclusions about functional beauty, as this notion has been understood by Parsons and Carlson in a recent book by the same name. First of all, it is argued that functional beauty either is not a distinct kind of beauty or that the members of this kind are not all and only instances of the property of looking fit. Second, it is argued that functional beauty is relative only to categories corresponding to essential functions. The second (...) conclusion contradicts what Parsons and Carlson write about functional beauty, but the first conclusion does not, since they agree that looking fit is not necessary for functional beauty. However, their agreement on this point is based on reasons that can be shown to be mistaken. Moreover, contrary to what Parsons and Carlson claim, looking fit can also be shown to be insufficient for functional beauty. (shrink)

One of the oldest platitudes about beauty is that it is pleasant to perceive or experience. In this article, I take this platitude at face value and try to explain why experiences of beauty are seemingly always accompanied by pleasure. Unlike explanations that have been offered in the past, the explanation proposed is designed to suit a “realist” view on which beauty is an irreducibly evaluative property, that is, a value. In a nutshell, the explanation is that experiences of beauty (...) are experiences in which it appears that something is beautiful, and that such experiences are identical to experiences of aesthetic pleasure. (shrink)

According to Roy Sorensen [Philosophical Studies 100 (2000) 175–191] an object cannot differ aesthetically from its mirror image. On his view, mirror-reversing an object – changing its left/right orientation – cannot bring about any aesthetic change. However, in arguing for this thesis Sorensen assumes that aesthetic properties supervene on intrinsic properties alone. This is a highly controversial assumption and nothing is offered in its support. Moreover, a plausible weakening of the assumption does not improve the argument. Finally, Sorensen’s second argument (...) is shown to be formally flawed. As a result, the case for the aesthetic irrelevancy of orientation seems still open. (shrink)

There is a consensus that satire cannot be defined, but is best characterized by a cluster account. However, I argue that a cluster account does not acknowledge the artistically and politically significant distinction between real satire and some forms of frivolous topical comedy which are casually labeled ‘satire’ in international media contexts. To uphold this distinction, I introduce a weak proposal that satire is a genre which necessarily sets out to critique and entertain (with the qualification that these purposes necessarily (...) interact, although neither is wholly instrumental to the other). I further argue that this proposal also provides necessary and sufficient conditions for a definition of satire. (shrink)

Anjan Chatterjee has promoted an analogy between the Bengalese finch and the human artist. With reduced selective pressure from females due to its domestication, the male finch’s song has become more elaborate. Similarly, art’s lack of a practical function facilitates the creative generativity shown by artists. I argue that this analogy is flawed on both sides. Only recently has some art been regarded as non-functional. And the elaboration of the finch’s song is an effect of female selection under the conditions (...) of domestication. (shrink)

In Functional Beauty, Glenn Parsons and Allen Carlson defend the importance of Functional Beauty—that is, the view that an item's fitness (or otherwise) for its proper function is a source of positive (or negative) aesthetic value—within a unified comprehensive aesthetic theory that encompasses art, the everyday, animals and organic nature, natural environments and inorganic nature, and artifacts. In the following section, I outline the main lines of argument presented in the book. I then criticize some of these arguments. I do (...) so, however, from the perspective of someone who shares the authors' commitment to the importance of Functional Beauty and their dismay at its neglect in contemporary aesthetic theory. .. (shrink)

In his 2014 book Fiction and Narrative, Derek Matravers mounts a concerted attack on what he terms the ‘post-Walton consensus’ as to the features that distingui.

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Volume 78, Issue 1, Page 75-79, Winter 2020.

Antiques are undoubtedly objects worthy of aesthetic appreciation, but do they have a distinctive aesthetic value in virtue of being antiques? In this article we give an account of what it is to be an antique that gives the thesis that they do have a distinctive aesthetic value a chance of being true and suggests what that distinctive value consists in. After introducing our topic in Section I, in Section II we develop and defend the Adjectival Thesis: the thesis that (...) the concept of being an antique is an adjectival concept. This provides us with the means to formulate our definition, which we do in Section III. In Section IV we further explicate and defend our definition. In Section V we conclude by briefly saying where we think our definition could be improved, by making a few comments about the aesthetics of antiques and by stating an interesting consequence of our definition: that it is not analytic that antiques are old. (shrink)

Our experience of narrative has an internal and an external aspect--the content of the narrative’s representations, and its intentional, communicative aetiology. The interaction of these two things is crucial to understanding how narrative works. I begin by laying out what I think we can reasonably expect from a narrative by way of causal information, and how causality interacts with other attributes we think of as central to narrative. At a certain point this discussion will strike a problem: our judgements about (...) what is a relevant possibility within the narrative’s story depend on our judgements of probability; but these latter judgements depend, in turn, on factors external to the world of the story, and cannot be explained in terms of causal relations available within the story. We need the external, author-centred perspective at this point. These different perspectives, the internal and the external, correspond to different types of explanations we may give of events in a story; I call these internal and external explanations. I show how these different explanations are made use of in two contrasting arthistorical projects. I use these examples as the basis for a generalisation about the structure of the two explanatory forms. Finally, I suggest some ways in which explanations of these two kinds relate to one another, and to our thinking when we are engaged by a narrative. (shrink)

Aesthetics and Environment: Variations on a Theme is collection of essays that lends emphasis to, and in some cases sheds new light on, Arnold Berleant's distinctive approach to aesthetic theory. T...

Many have held that photographs give us a firmer epistemic connection to the world than do other depictive representations. To take just one example, Bazin famously claimed that “The objective nature of photography confers on it a quality of credibility absent from all other picture-making” ([Bazin, 1967], 14). Unfortunately, while the intuition in question is widely shared, it has remained poorly understood. In this paper we propose to explain the special epistemic status of photographs. We take as our starting place (...) (in §1) Kendall Walton’s startling proposal that photographs are special because they are “transparent” [Walton, 1984] — that is, that they are special because, unlike other depictive representations, they enable us literally to see their depicta.1 Walton’s proposal has not convinced many; however, it has proven surprisingly difficult to say just what is wrong about the transparency thesis. In §§2–4 we’ll rise to this challenge and show why photographs are not transparent in Walton’s sense. Finally, in §§5–7 we’ll propose and defend a novel diagnosis of what is epistemically special about photographs. (shrink)

Noël Carroll’s (“Moderate Moralism”) conceptual framework includes four positions: radical autonomism, moderate autonomism, moderate moralism, and radical moralism. Alessandro Giovanelli (“The Ethical Criticism of Art: A New Mapping of the Territory”) argues that the radical positions, as Carroll defines them, have no modern day adherents. Therefore, the framework should be adapted such that we can see interestingly new distinctions. On Giovanelli’s new framework Carroll’s account is a moderate autonomist view. In this paper I adopt Giovanelli’s framework and raise a different (...) objection to Carroll’s account. I argue that Carroll’s account possesses a branching structure, since on this account moral and aesthetic criticism are not linearly related. Because of this structure, Carroll’s theory faces a dilemma: it’s either self-undermining or consistent with moderate autonomism, even in his own framework. Drawing on Kendall Walton’s (“Categories of Art”) notion of categories of art, I provide an account that is both non-branching and moderate moralist in Giovanelli’s framework. It’s non-branching because moral criticism bears a linear causal relation to aesthetic criticism. (shrink)

Aesthetic evaluations of human bodies have important implications for moral recognition and for individuals’ access to social and material goods. Unfortunately, there is a widespread aesthetic disregard for non-white bodies. Aesthetic evaluations depend on the aesthetic properties we regard objects as having. And it is widely agreed that aesthetic properties are directly accessed in our experience of aesthetic objects. How, then, might we explain aesthetic evaluations that systematically favour features associated with white identity? Critical race philosophers, like Alia Al-Saji, Mariana (...) Ortega, Paul C. Taylor, and George Yancy, argue that this is because the perception of racialized bodies is affected by the social structures in which they are appreciated. The aim of this paper is to propose how social structures can affect aesthetic perception. I argue that mental imagery acquired through the interaction with aesthetic phenomena structures the perception of non-aesthetic properties of bodies, so that aesthetic properties consistent with racist stereotypes are attributed to individuals. (shrink)

Nelle pagine che chiudono la monografia The Transfiguration of the Commonplace: a Philosophy of Art Danto osserva che lo stile segue il destino che la sua etimologia determina: c’è stile quando lo stilus, che è lo strumento di scrittura latino che ha la caratteristica di lasciare «qualcosa del proprio carattere sulla superficie che segna», lascia sulla “superficie” “qualcosa” «del carattere della mano che lo dirige». Lo stile è una questione di “carattere” nel senso nel quale Aristotele descr...

Advocates of ordinary aesthetics argue that aesthetic experiences found in everyday life can have an impact on our ethical being. This raises the question of how, specifically, action arises from aesthetic experience. Although this matter affects both Aesthetics and Ethics, the current literature provides few details on potential mechanisms. Using neurophysiological evidence, this article proposes specific action profiles and associated mechanisms for aesthetic experiences. To achieve this, it is argued that aesthetic experience originates within the mind and that ordinary aesthetic (...) experiences are logically permissible. Subsequently, a proposed landscape of aesthetic experience is derived. Mechanisms for pathways from experience to action are provided for each category of aesthetic experience. In sum, this provides a tangible bridge between Aesthetics and Ethics, enabling a better understanding of how one’s ethical being is influenced by certain experiences. (shrink)

Street art is an art form that entails creating public works incorporating the street physically and in their meaning. That physical property is employed as an artistic resource in street art raises two questions. Are street artworks necessarily illegal? Does being illegal change the nature of production and aesthetic appreciation? First, I argue street artworks must be in the street. On my view, both the physical and sociocultural senses of the street can be constitutive of meaning. Second, I argue that (...) illegality is a prototypical and paradigmatic feature of street art. While illegality alone does not make works better than sanctioned street art, it affects the production process and changes what is available to appreciate. (shrink)

Aesthetic non-inferentialism is the widely-held thesis that aesthetic judgements either are identical to, or are made on the basis of, sensory states like perceptual experience and emotion. It is sometimes objected to on the basis that testimony is a legitimate source of such judgements. Less often is the view challenged on the grounds that one’s inferences can be a source of aesthetic judgements. This paper aims to do precisely that. According to the theory defended here, aesthetic judgements may be unreasoned, (...) insofar as they are immediate judgements made on the basis of, and acquiring their justification from, causally prior sensory states. Yet they may also be reasoned, insofar as they may be the outputs of certain inferences. Crucially, a token aesthetic judgement may be unreasoned and reasoned, simultaneously. A key reason for allowing inference a serious role in aesthetic judgements emerges from reflection upon the nature of aesthetic expertise. (shrink)

Introduction to a symposium in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism on the 50th anniversary of Kendall Walton's "Categories of Art." Featuring papers by Madeleine Ransom, Stacie Friend, David Davies and Kendall Walton.

In this discussion I consider one aesthetic issue which arises from certain intimate relationships between art and nature. The background to these relationships can be traced to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It includes factors of considerable importance in the history of the aesthetic appreciation of nature such as the eighteenth century infatuation with landscape gardening and the continuingly influential role of landscape painting. Here, however, I concentrate on these relationships only as exemplified in a contemporary phenomenon – environmental art. (...) By environmental art I mean both the earthworks and earthmarks of artists such as Robert Smithson, Michael Heizer, and Dennis Oppenheim and certain structures on the land such as those of Robert Morris, Michael Singer, and Christo. Some paradigm cases are Smithson's Spiral Jetty, Heizer's Double Negative, Singer's Lily Pond Ritual Series, and Christo's Running Fence. (shrink)

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)

To analyze the relations between art and science, philosophers and historians have developed different lines of inquiry. A first type of inquiry considers how artistic and scientific practices have interacted over human history. Another project aims to determine the contributions that scientific research can make to our understanding of art, including the contributions that cognitive science can make to philosophical questions about the nature of art. We rely on contributions made to these projects in order to demonstrate that art and (...) science are codependent phenomena. Specifically, we explore the codependence of art and science in the context of a historical analysis of their interactions and in the context of contemporary debates on the cognitive science of art. (shrink)

Dancing with Time: The Garden as ArtJohn PowellPeter Lang. 2019. pp. 204. £45.00.

Although the concept of judgment has been replaced by the concept of belief in many philosophical subdisciplines, it has retained its central role in aesthetics. This paper discusses the following explanation for this: In contrast to the concept of belief, the concept of judgment presupposes conscious and first-personal engagement with the object about which the judgment is being made, and this conscious and first-personal engagement with the object in question plays a more important role in aesthetics than in other domains.

I aim at explaining the sense in which the notion of improvisation is important for the ontology of art. In the first part, I criticize the widespread assumption of the repeatability of a musical work without transformation of its identity and defend Conversational Improvisational Emergentism (CIE) as the specific contribution of improvisation to musical ontology: in an improvisation, values and meanings of what has been played constrain what follows and are themselves retroactively (trans)formed by what follows; likewise, the performing interpretations (...) of musical works and traditions reinvent their meanings and evaluation criteria, responding to past interpretations and opening up (as well as binding) possibilities for future interpretations. In the second part, I extend the scope of my investigation to art more generally. By critiquing the principle of «no evaluation without identification» and referring to Peter Lamarque’s and Joseph Margolis’ views about art ontology, I propose a transformative theory of artworks, which is based on the thesis of the improvisational “nature” of artistic practices (a thesis that I conceive of as a particular form of CIE). Its core point is that evaluative and performative interpretations of artworks (re)shape creatively, and retroactively, the meanings and the flexible identities of artworks. Accordingly, the artworks’ meanings and identities emerge (and are (trans)formed) through the cultural improvisational interactions in which artworks participate. (shrink)

The conception of disinterested pleasure is not only central to Kant’s theory of beauty but also highly influential in contemporary philosophical discourse about beauty. However, it remains unclear, what exactly disinterested pleasure is and what role it plays in experiences of beauty. This volume sheds new light on the conception of disinterested pleasure from the perspectives of both Kant scholarship and contemporary aesthetics. In the first part, the focus is on Kant’s theory of beauty as grounded on the conception of (...) disinterested pleasure. In the second part, disinterested pleasure is investigated in the light of contemporary debates on beauty. The third part is dedicated to the relation of theories of disinterested pleasure to the meta-aesthetical debate between realism and anti-realism. The volume clarifies the meaning, role, and implications of one of the most influential conceptions in traditional as well as contemporary approaches to beauty. (shrink)

The practice of attributing aesthetic properties to scientific and philosophical theories is commonplace. Perhaps one of the most famous examples of such an aesthetic judgement about a theory is Quine's in 'On what there is': "Wyman's overpopulated universe is in many ways unlovely. It offends the aesthetic sense of us who have a taste for desert landscapes". Many other philosophers and scientists, before and after Quine, have attributed aesthetic properties to particular theories they are defending or rejecting. One often hears (...) that a view is "elegant", "attractive", "beautiful", or even "sexy". [...] The general claim that aesthetic properties supervene on non-aesthetic properties is a largely debated one. In this paper, I wish to address this issue from an angle which has not been really explored so far: I shall neither concentrate on cases of artefacts nor of natural objects, like the beauty of a painting or the beauty of a sunrise, rather, my main centre of attention will be the somewhat more special, theoretical case of the beauty of philosophical theories (with a focus on metaphysical theories). As we will see, there are some interesting issues concerning claims that attribute aesthetic properties to theories, in part because, even if such claims are commonplace in philosophy and in science, little has been said about the nature of the relevant supervenience basis – that is, about what it is exactly that the beauty of a theory is supposed to supervene on. Moreover, we shall see that aesthetic properties of theories play a crucial role in theory choice and evaluation. Indeed, it seems that the aesthetic properties of a theory can be appealed to in theory evaluation and when it comes to preferring one theory over another. But before we ask ourselves what role the attribution of aesthetic properties to theories can play, I will adress the question how theories come to have their aesthetic properties in the first place. (shrink)

In this article, I defend Lewisian modal realism against objections arising from the possibility of ‘Island Universes’ and other similar cases. The problem comes from Lewis’ claim that possible worlds are spatio-temporally isolated. I suggest a modification of Lewisian modal realism in order to avoid this family of objections. This modification may sound quite radical since it amounts to abandoning the very notion of a possible world, but as radical as it may sound it in fact remains well in the (...) spirit of Lewis’ original view. (shrink)

In this article, I want to understand the nature of aesthetic experiences of landscapes. I offer an understanding of aesthetic appreciation of landscapes based on a notion of a landscape where landscapes are perspectival observer-dependent entities, where the 'creator' of the landscape necessarily happens to be the same person as the spectator, and where her scientific (and other) knowledge and beliefs matter for the appreciation to be complete. I explore the idea that appreciating a landscape in this sense has quite (...) a lot in common with taking and appreciating a photograph. On our way, we will see how imagination plays a crucial role in the story. (shrink)

In his book The Metaphysics of Beauty Nick Zangwill argues for the claim that aesthetic properties metaphysically necessarily depend on sensory properties. This claim plays a role in his argument against physicalist aesthetic realism as well as in the formulation of his own response- dependence view. In this article, I offer reasons to resist the aesthetic/ sensory dependence claim by a discussion of the case of theories, theorems, proofs, and similar theoretical objects, which do possess genuinely aesthetic properties, while these (...) do not depend on any sensory properties. I argue against Zangwill’s claim that such attributions of aesthetic properties are merely metaphorical. (shrink)

Diarmuid Costello ha defendido recientemente una versión fuerte de lo que él llama, siguiendo a Dominic Lopes, La nueva teoría de la fotografía y ha criticado una versión anterior de esta nueva teoría, que él considera más débil y restringida. Ambas posiciones —radical y restringida— se oponen a la visión tradicional en filosofía analítica de la fotografía. Sin embargo, Costello sostiene que la posición débil está aún demasiado cerca de esta tradición. Este artículo defiende la posición débil y argumenta que (...) la supuesta versión fuerte es más prescriptiva, restrictiva e inadecuada. (shrink)

In this paper, we present and defend a modest anti-realist conception of aesthetic properties – e.g. being unified, moving, delicate, tragic, etc – in order to motivate a contextualist semantic view about aesthetic judgments. We argue that aesthetic properties are plausibly seen as viewpoint-dependent even though our epistemic access to the presence of aesthetic properties is decidedly more complicated than other, less controversial instances of viewpoint-dependent properties. On the basis of our anti-realist conception, we argue, utilizing the Kaplanian distinction between (...) character and content within a possible worlds semantic theory, that the contents expressed in aesthetic thought and language are sensitive to certain contextual features of a particular thinker’s or speaker’s situation. Finally, we address a number of formidable objections to our view, objections concerning certain context-sensitivity diagnostics, and sho... (shrink)

Visual artists and scientists frequently employ the labour of assistants and technicians, however these workers generally receive little recognition for their contribution to the production of artistic and scientific work. They are effectively “invisible”. This invisible status however, comes at the cost of a better understanding of artistic and scientific work, and improvements in artistic and scientific practice. To enhance understanding of artistic and scientific work, and these practices more broadly, it is vital to discern the nature of an assistant (...) or technician’s contribution to the production of a work, which is difficult as it is uncommon to discuss these workers. To address this, I investigate how different kinds of parallel working arrangements in collective artistic and scientific practices affect the creative potential of individuals involved. Different working arrangements permit different degrees of autonomy for individuals involved in these practices. Significantly, a lack of autonomy precludes the opportunity to act spontaneously and so exercise, what I term, “creative agency”. Evaluating the contribution of an assistant or technician based on the degree of autonomy that they are granted in the production of a work is an approach that I show can be used to precisely determine the nature of their contribution to the production of a work and accordingly, what kind of recognition an agent should receive for this. Importantly, this approach has the advantage of explaining the artistic and epistemic significance of different kinds of contribution to the production of artistic and scientific work. (shrink)

The category within which an artwork is received affects its critical and aesthetic significance (Levinson 2011; Walton 1970).1 Yet, it is not always clear how.

This essay is a critical notice of Malcolm Budd's _The Aesthetics of Nature (Oxford, 2002) and Emily Brady's _Aesthetics of the Natural Environment (Edinburgh, 2003). I argue that, although each of the volumes makes an important contribution to our understanding of the aesthetic experience of nature, the accounts of aesthetic appreciation of nature that are developed by Budd and Brady are each somewhat defective in that neither grants an adequate role to knowledge in such appreciation, and specifically to scientific knowledge.

Over the last few decades, empirical researchers have become increasingly interested in explaining the formation of “basic” aesthetic judgments, i.e. simple judgments of sensory preferability and the pleasure that seems to accompany them. To that end, Reber et al. have recently defended a “processing-fluency” view, which identifies aesthetic pleasure with one’s ability to easily process an object’s perceptual properties (e.g. Reber 2012 ). While the processing-fluency theory is certainly an improvement over its competitors, it is currently vulnerable to several serious (...) criticisms. In what follows, I aim to provide a more holistic, explanatorily robust, model of the processing-fluency theory of aesthetic pleasure by incorporating what the view neglects: the crucial role of perceptual disfluency, interest, and the underlying values that drive aesthetic appraisal. (shrink)

Much of the literature on public space focuses on physical inclusion and exclusion rather than social inclusion or exclusion. In this paper, the implications of this are considered in the context of two monuments, The Volunteers/Les Bénévoles, and The Emigrant, located outside the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. These monuments, while perhaps designed to celebrate Canadian multiculturalism, can be read instead as signaling Canada’s enduring commitment to white supremacy, Eurocentricity and colonization, when viewed through (...) the eyes of racialized immigrants. Thus the “public space” becomes exclusionary. In the context in which the monuments are situated, the racial subtext cannot be ignored. This article purports that images, text and placement, regardless of intention, have significant implications on public space and public demeanor. (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)

The Introduction provides an overview of Kendall Walton’s make-believe framework for a variety of representations and his arguments that such representations are dependent on their social or historical context. Walton argues that diverse representations involve our capacities for imagination and make-believe with props; they overlap with the fictional. Focusing on make-believe with props explains paradigmatic representational arts such as paintings and novels, theater and film. But this perspective reaches beyond the arts: it explains pictures and photographs in general not only (...) artistic ones; stories in general as well as literary and performing arts; music; metaphors, and even the claims we make about fictional entities and existence. The first section explains the main points of the make-believe framework in Mimesis as Make-Believe, and it reconstructs Walton’s argument in “Categories of Art” that some aesthetic properties depend on the perceptible and historical categories of art to which a work belongs. The second section outlines Walton’s specific proposals about literary fiction, fictional characters, poetry, pictures, photographs, music and negative existential claims. These explanations are integrated with summaries of the papers. The third section examines Walton’s implicit view of two much-discussed issues: the ontology of art and definitions of art. This discussion clears away some misunderstandings of Walton’s contextualism or historicism and relates Walton’s work to Arthur Danto’s and Frank Sibley’s. (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)

Aesthetic properties figure prominently in our daily lives, our conversations and many actions we take. Yet theoretical disagreement prevails over their nature, their variety, their epistemic and metaphysical status. This overview highlights the heterogeneity of aesthetic properties and examines repercussions for explanation. Aesthetic properties belong to natural objects or scenes, to artworks in any medium, to artefacts and built environments across historical eras; and they draw a wide variety of responses such as our perceptions, emotions or imaginative thought. Historicism about (...) artworks carries over to at least some aesthetic properties that depend on facts of their broader historical context just as works do. One issue is whether aesthetic properties can be demarcated solely in terms of non-aesthetic properties. If not, explanations of aesthetic properties need to draw on other aesthetic notions such as aesthetic experience, attention, judgement or value. The paper examines several accounts of aesthetic value to show how they extend to aesthetic properties. The paper concludes with an overview of the current metaphysical debate between realists and non-realists about aesthetic properties. (shrink)

<P>While there are many books on the romantics, and many books on Heidegger, there has been no book exploring the connection between the two. Pol Vandevelde’s new study forges this important link. </P> <P>Vandevelde begins by analyzing two models that have addressed the interaction between literature and philosophy: early German romanticism (especially Schlegel and Novalis), and Heidegger’s work with poetry in the 1930s. Both models offer an alternative to the paradigm of mimesis, as exemplified by Aristotle’s and Plato’s discussion of (...) poetry, and both German romanticism and Heidegger owe a deep debt to Plato. The study goes on to defend the view that Heidegger was influenced by romanticism. The author’s project is thus both historical, showing the specificity of the romantic and Heideggerean works, and systematic, defending aspects of their alternative mode of thinking while also pointing to their weaknesses. </P>. (shrink)