Most philosophers of art assume that there are three categories with regard to arthood, namely ‘art’, ‘artful’ and ‘non-art’ and that, therefore, a definition must be able to account for ‘artful items’, also called ‘borderline cases of art’. This article, however, defends the thesis that, since there is no agreement over which items fall under the category ‘artful’, the ability to account for borderline cases of art should not be used as a criterion for evaluating definitions of art. The defended (...) thesis is important, not merely because it reveals that virtually all alleged descriptive definitions of art have strong recommendatory consequences, but also because the thesis has implications for the artefacts that are considered to be borderline cases of art. (shrink)

The claim that God is perfectly beautiful has played a key role within the history of a number of religious traditions. However, this view has received surprisingly little attention from philosophers of religion in recent decades. In this article I aim to remedy this neglect by addressing some key philosophical issues surrounding the doctrine of divine beauty. I begin by considering how best to explicate the claim that God is perfectly beautiful before moving on to ask what consequences accepting this (...) claim will have for our broader theorizing in philosophy. (shrink)

Few dispute the descriptive necessity of intentions in art, little ground has been gained in virtue of such consensus. Intentions matter, but we must know not only which ones matter and why they matter but also the implications of their mattering for art theory writ large. I show that intentionality cannot be exhausted by mere appeals to deliberateness or bare artifactuality. I then argue that only reflexively governed intentions are necessary for art - artistic intentions are communicative intentions. Finally I (...) show how making intentions reflexive accrues myriad art theoretical advantages ranging from interpretation to evaluation of art. Intentions matter because they are communicative. Art becomes language-like and in doing so art gets to matter because language matters. (shrink)

Può un’opera d’arte non avere proprietà estetiche? Può l’arte essere definita, e compresa, senza alcun riferimento all’estetico? Fino a qualche tempo fa, una riposta affermativa a queste due domande sembrava inevitabile: le cosiddette Teorie Estetiche dell’arte, per le quali le opere d’arte sono prodotte con l’intenzione di suscitare esperienze estetiche (soprattutto per il tramite delle proprietà estetiche), mostravano tutti i loro limiti di fronte alle nuove tendenze artistiche, come ad ese...

I defend extreme formalism about inorganic nature against arguments put forward by Glenn Parsons. I begin by laying out the general issue over aesthetic formalism, and I describe the position of extreme formalism about inorganic nature. I then reconsider -Ronald Hepburn's beach/seabed example. Next I discuss the notions of function in play in our thinking about inorganic nature. And lastly I consider Parsons's flooding river example. I conclude that extreme formalism about inorganic nature is safe from Parsons's arguments.