The artist-poet William Blake claims that “Jesus & his Apostles & Disciples were all Artists.” Blake committed his artistic career to religious writing, and gave rise to a new Christianity, which better encapsulated the realities of the existential human condition. In what follows, I will explore Blake’s philosophy of religion and of imagination. Through an explication of Blake’s meta-poetry, I aim to illuminate Blake’s depictions of the connection between the imagination and religion. In devising a Blakean philosophy of imagination, (...) I consider the connection between metaphor and Blake’s imaginative poetics, as well as the poetry of Wallace Stevens, which further corroborates that the Blakean notion of the imagination are indispensable and eternally necessary. (shrink)

This largely expository lecture deals with aspects of traditional solid geometry suitable for applications in logic courses. Polygons are plane or two-dimensional; the simplest are triangles. Polyhedra [or polyhedrons] are solid or three-dimensional; the simplest are tetrahedra [or triangular pyramids, made of four triangles]. -/- A regular polygon has equal sides and equal angles. A polyhedron having congruent faces and congruent [polyhedral] angles is not called regular, as some might expect; rather they are said to be subregular—a word coined for (...) this lecture. To repeat, a subregular polyhedron has congruent faces and congruent [polyhedral] angles. A subregular polyhedron whose faces are all regular polygons is regular—using standard terminology. -/- Geometers before Euclid showed that there are “essentially” only five regular polyhedra: every regular polyhedron is a tetrahedron (4 faces), a hexahedron or cube (6 faces), an octahedron (8 faces), a dodecahedron (12 faces), or an icosahedron (20 faces). -/- The first question is whether there are subregular polyhedra that are not regular. For example, are there tetrahedra having congruent angles and congruent triangular faces but whose faces are not equilateral triangles? -/- Another question is the classification of subregular polyhedra if they exist. For example, considering the fact that the regular tetrahedra all have equilateral triangles as faces, we ask which triangles other than equilaterals are faces of subregular tetrahedra. Similarly, considering the fact that the regular hexahedra all have squares as faces, we ask which quadrangles other than squares are faces of subregular hexahedra. -/- After introductory remarks that include historical and philosophical points, we concentrate on tetrahedra. A triangle that is congruent to each of the four faces of a tetrahedron is called a generator of the tetrahedron. The main result proved is that every acute triangle is a generator of a subregular tetrahedron. The proof includes an algorithm –implementable with scissors and paper –that constructs from any given acute triangle a subregular tetrahedron whose faces are congruent to the given triangle. -/- Algorithm: Given any acute triangle. Construct a similar triangle whose sides are double the sides of the given triangle. Draw the three lines connecting the three midpoints of the sides (making four triangles congruent to the given triangle—a central triangle surrounded by three peripheral triangles). Make three “hinges” along the lines connecting the midpoints. “Fold” the peripheral triangles together (into a tetrahedron). [LIGHTLY EDITED VERSION OF PRINTED ABSTRACT] Acknowledgements: William Lawvere, Colin McLarty, Irvin Miller, Frango Nabrasa, Lawrence Spector, Roberto Torretti, and Richard Vesley. -/- . (shrink)

I argue that the experiences of everyday life are replete with aesthetic character, though this fact has been largely neglected within contemporary aesthetics. As against Dewey's account of aesthetic experience, I suggest that the fact that many everyday experiences are simple, lacking in unity or closure, and characterized by limited or fragmented awareness does not disqualify them from aesthetic consideration. Aesthetic attention to the domain of everyday experience may provide for lives of greater satisfaction and contribute to our ability to (...) pursue moral aims. (shrink)

I argue that there can be appropriate aesthetic experiences even of basic somatic experiences like itches and scratches. I show, in relation to accounts of aesthetic experience offered by Carroll and Stecker, that experiences of itches and scratches can be aesthetic; I show that itches can be objects of attention in the way that normative accounts of the aesthetic often require; and I show, in relation to accounts of the aesthetic appreciation of nature offered by Carlson and Carroll, that aesthetic (...) experience of itches and scratches can be appropriate. I argue that attention to the domain of somatic experience is worthwhile, in that it offers the prospects of significant aesthetic satisfaction, and I suggest that even attention to unpleasant experiences like itches and pains may be aesthetically rewarding. (shrink)

This article discusses the relationship (or lack thereof) between authors’ intentions and the meaning of literary works. It considers the advantages and disadvantages of Extreme and Modest Actual Intentionalism, Conventionalism, and two versions of Hypothetical Intentionalism, and discusses the role that one’s theoretical commitments about the robustness of linguistic conventions and the publicity of literary works should play in determining which view one accepts.

I argue that contemporary artists fix the features of their works not only through their actions of making and presenting objects, but also through auxiliary activities such as corresponding with curators and institutions. I refer to such fixing of features as the artist’s sanction: artists sanction features of their work through publicly accessible actions and communications, such as making a physical object with particular features, corresponding with curators and producing artist statements. I show, through an extended example, that in order (...) to grasp the nature of contemporary artworks, and thus be in a position to interpret them, we must attend to the features the artist has sanctioned. However, this does not amount to saying that the artist’s intention fixes the features of the work. While related to intentions, sanctions are not identical to them; and, indeed, the features the artist has sanctioned may conflict, in some cases, with those she intended. I distinguish my view from actual and hypothetical intentionalism and show that considering the artist’s sanction does not force us to accept any particular interpretation of the work. I also show that, while it has special relevance to our understanding of contemporary artworks, the notion of the sanction is in fact relevant to traditional Western art as well. (shrink)

Appropriation art has often been thought to support the view that authorship in art is an outmoded or misguided notion. Through a thought experiment comparing appropriation art to a unique case of artistic forgery, I examine and reject a number of candidates for the distinction that makes artists the authors of their work while forgers are not. The crucial difference is seen to lie in the fact that artists bear ultimate responsibility for whatever objectives they choose to pursue through their (...) work, whereas the forger's central objectives are determined by the nature of the activity of forgery. Appropriation artists, by revealing that no aspect of the objectives an artist pursues are in fact built in to the concept of art, demonstrate artists' responsibility for all aspects of their objectives and, hence, of their products. This responsibility is constitutive of authorship and accounts for the interpretability of artworks. Far from undermining the concept of authorship in art, then, the appropriation artists in fact reaffirm and strengthen it. (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)

Christy Mag Uidhir’s Art and Art-Attempts begins from two deceptively simple observations: artworks are the product of intentions, and intentions are the kinds of things that can fail to be realized successfully. Drawing on these observations, he argues that most contemporary theories of art must be rejected because they are not substantively intention-dependent: that is, they do not account for the fact that an attempt to make an artwork can fail. From his view that artworks must be the product of (...) art-attempts that are subject to failure, Mag Uidhir derives implications for many domains in the philosophy of art. He argues that artworks cannot be abstract objects, since abstract objects cannot participate in causal relations and thus can’t be the product of art attempts: one can’t coherently intend or attempt to create something that exists eternally. Things that we think of as repeatable artworks, then, can’t be abstract types: instead, Mag Uidhir proposes, every artwork is concrete, but some are tied together by a relation of relevant similarity. In this symposium, Mag Uidhir replies to three critics, David Davies, Sherri Irvin and Keith Lehrer. All three critics examine the relevant similarity relation that Mag Uidhir proposes to account for artworks that we treat as repeatable, while also considering a variety of other issues. (shrink)

Prominent philosophical accounts of artistic forgery have neglected a central aspect of the aesthetic harm it perpetrates. To be properly understood, forgery must be seen in the context of our ongoing attempts to augment our aesthetic understanding in conditions of uncertainty. The bootstrapping necessary under these conditions requires a highly refined comprehension of historical context. By creating artificial associations among aesthetically relevant qualities and misrepresenting historical relationships, undetected forgeries stunt or distort aesthetic understanding. The effect of this may be quite (...) pervasive, and removing known forgeries from museum walls will be insufficient to eradicate it. Continued attention to forgeries, once exposed, can in fact serve us by increasing our understanding of how aesthetic understanding is formed and by helping us to repair the damage they have inflicted. (shrink)

The relationship of the author’s intention to the meaning of a literary work has been a persistently controversial topic in aesthetics. Anti-intentionalists Wimsatt and Beardsley, in the 1946 paper that launched the debate, accused critics who fueled their interpretative activity by poring over the author’s private diaries and life story of committing the ‘fallacy’ of equating the work’s meaning, properly determined by context and linguistic convention, with the meaning intended by the author. Hirsch responded that context and convention are not (...) sufficient to determine a unique meaning for a text; to avoid radical ambiguity we must appeal to the author’s intention, which actualizes one of the candidate meanings. Subsequent writers have defended refined versions of these views, and a variety of positions on the spectrum between them, in a debate that remains central to philosophical aesthetics. This Teaching and Learning Guide lists key readings and suggests how they might be incorporated within a syllabus. It also offers focus questions related to the readings. See also the companion article, Sherri Irvin, “Authors, Intentions and Literary Meaning.” Philosophy Compass 1 (2006), 114-128. (shrink)

Though feminists are correct to note that conventional standards of sexiness are oppressive, we argue that feminism should reclaim sexiness rather than reject it. We argue for an aesthetic and ethical practice of working to shift from conventional attributions of sexiness to respectful attributions, in which embodied sexual subjects are appreciated in their full individual magnificence. We argue that undertaking this practice is an ethical obligation, since it contributes to the full recognition of others’ humanity. We discuss the relationship of (...) ethical to aesthetic considerations and argue that the respectful notion of sexiness is a genuinely aesthetic one, even though it does not involve assessment in relation to standards. (shrink)

I clarify the arguments of my paper “Scratching an Itch” in response to a discussion piece by Brian Soucek. I also offer a new argument that objectivity is possible for aesthetic judgments about private phenomena such as somatic experiences.

According to Arthur Danto, it is illegitimate to seek a neutral, or pre-interpretative, description of an artwork, since such descriptions necessarily fail to respect the artwork as such. Instead, we must begin by interpreting, so as to constitute the work : interpretation is what distinguishes artworks from mere physical objects. In this paper, I argue that, while Danto is right to distance artworks from mere things, this can be done without suggesting that artworks are constituted by interpretation. Moreover, Danto’s view (...) leaves us unable to account for the fact that interpretations are constrained to be responsive to the work’s features. I demonstrate that, by appealing to conventions of description that are specific to art, it is possible to offer a neutral description that respects the work as an artwork. This view accords with our common sense understanding of the relation between description and interpretation, and avoids the unfortunate consequences of Danto’s theory. // Selon Arthur Danto, il est illégitime de chercher une description « neutre » ou préinterprétative d’une oeuvre d’art, parce qu’une telle description ne peut respecter l’oeuvre d’art en tant que telle. Nous ne pouvons aborder une oeuvre sans l’interpréter, puisque l’interprétation constitue l’oeuvre d’art et distingue celle-ci d’un simple objet physique. Dans cet article je soutiens que, bien que Danto ait raison de vouloir distinguer les oeuvres d’art des simples choses, on peut effectuer cette distinction sans conclure que les oeuvres d’art sont constituées par l’interprétation. Je soutiens en outre que le point de vue de Danto ne nous permet pas de tenir compte du fait que les interprétations doivent respecter les caractéristiques de l’oeuvre. Je montre qu’en faisant appel aux conventions de description spécifiques à l’art, on peut proposer une description neutre qui respecte l’oeuvre d’art en tant qu’oeuvre. Mon point de vue est conforme à la relation généralement admise entre la description et l’interprétation des oeuvres d’art, et évite les conséquences négatives de la théorie de Danto. (shrink)

What makes a photograph an artwork, as opposed to a mere document? I defend a cluster account such that aesthetic value, aptness to interpretation, the artist’s intention and institutional uptake may contribute to the arthood of a body of photographs, with no single condition being necessary. With regard to Lawler’s works, I suggest that Lawler’s intention that they be art plays a definitive role because of the works’ resemblance to non-art photography. For some of her photographs, however, it appears that (...) such an intention is absent; and if this is correct, then, given their other features, those photographs are not artworks. (shrink)

I consider James Hamilton’s discussion of what I term the complete autonomy thesis, according to which no theatrical performance is a performance of some other work. While agreeing with Hamilton that theatrical performances are often artworks in their own right and that theatrical performance is not a derivative or subsidiary art form, I argue that the complete autonomy thesis overshoots the evidence. Some theatrical performances are autonomous, but many belong to an established tradition of close adherence to the texts of (...) dramatic literature. In such cases, we should say both that the performance itself is an artwork and that it is a performance of some literary work. I suggest that this way of understanding things promotes appreciation of both performances themselves and the dramatic works of literature that are employed in their creation. (shrink)

Catalan translation, introductory study and notes on W. K. Clifford’s “The Ethics of Belief”. Published in Clifford, W.K. “L’ètica de la creença”. Quaderns de Filosofia, vol. III, n. 2 (2016), pp. 129–150. // Catalan translation, introductory study and notes on William James’s “The Will to Believe”. Published in James, William. “La voluntat de creure”. Quaderns de Filosofia, vol. III, n. 2 (2016), pp. 151–172. [Introductory study published in Oya, Alberto. “Introducció. El debat entre W. K. Clifford i (...) class='Hi'>William James”. Quaderns de Filosofia, vol. III, n. 2 (2016), pp. 123–127]. (shrink)

In this volume, a range of high-profile researchers in philosophy of mind, philosophy of cognitive science, and empirical cognitive science, critically engage with Clark's work across the themes of: Extended, Embodied, Embedded, Enactive, and Affective Minds; Natural Born Cyborgs; and Perception, Action, and Prediction. Daniel Dennett provides a foreword on the significance of Clark's work, and Clark replies to each section of the book, thus advancing current literature with original contributions that will form the basis for new discussions, debates and (...) directions in the discipline. (shrink)

Climate engineering with stratospheric sulfate aerosol injections (SSAI) has the potential to reduce risks of injustice related to anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases. Relying on evidence from modeling studies, this paper makes the case that SSAI could have the potential to reduce many of the key physical risks of climate change identified by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Such risks carry potential injustice because they are often imposed on low-emitters who do not benefit from climate change. Because SSAI has (...) the potential to reduce those risks, it thereby has the potential to reduce the injustice associated with anthropogenic emissions. While acknowledging important caveats, including uncertainty in modeling studies and the potential for SSAI to carry its own risks of injustice, the paper argues that there is a strong case for continued research into SSAI, especially if attention is paid to how it might be used to reduce emissions-driven injustice. (shrink)

We thank the commentators for their interesting and helpful feedback on our previously published target article (Svoboda and Irvine, 2014). One of our objectives in that article was to identify areas of uncertainty that would need to be addressed in crafting a just SRM compensation system. The commentators have indicated some possible ways of reducing such uncertainty. Although we cannot respond to all their points due to limitations of space, we wish to address here the more pressing criticisms the (...) commentators have offered. (shrink)

The sense of form that provides the modern poet with a unique experience of the literary object has been crucial to various attempts to compare poetry to other cultural activities. In maintaining similar conceptions of the relationship between poetry and painting, Arthur Rimbaud and W. C. Williams establish a common basis for interpreting their creative work. And yet their poetry is more crucially concerned with the sudden emergence of visible "worlds" containing verbal objects that integrate a new kind of literary (...) text. This paper discusses the emergence of "aesthetic worlds" in the work of both poets and then examines how a common concern with Baroque form unites them in the phenomenological task of overcoming Cartesian dualism. (shrink)

The harmonious free play of the imagination and understanding is at the heart of Kant’s account of beauty in the Critique of the Power of Judgement, but interpreters have long struggled to determine what Kant means when he claims the faculties are in a state of free play. In this article, I develop an interpretation of the free play of the faculties in terms of the freedom of attention. By appealing to the different way that we attend to objects in (...) aesthetic experience, we can explain how the faculties are free, even when the subject already possesses a concept of the object and is bound to the determinate form of the object in perception. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine the role of attention in Kant’s aesthetic theory in the Critique of the Power of Judgment. While broadly Kantian aestheticians have defended the claim that there is a distinct way that we attend to objects in aesthetic experience, Kant himself is not usually acknowledged as offering an account of aesthetic attention. On the basis of Kant’s more general account of attention in other texts and his remarks on attention in the Critique of the Power of (...) Judgment, I reconstruct Kant’s account of aesthetic attention. On this account, aesthetic attention is simultaneously directed at the form of an object and at the judging subject’s own mental states as she attends to the object. In the experience of beauty, we specifically attend to the harmonious relation between the faculties of imagination and understanding. (shrink)

Evidentialists say that a necessary condition of sound epistemic reasoning is that our beliefs reflect only our evidence. This thesis arguably conflicts with standard Bayesianism, due to the importance of prior probabilities in the latter. Some evidentialists have responded by modelling belief-states using imprecise probabilities (Joyce 2005). However, Roger White (2010) and Aron Vallinder (2018) argue that this Imprecise Bayesianism is incompatible with evidentialism due to “inertia”, where Imprecise Bayesian agents become stuck in a state of ambivalence towards hypotheses. Additionally, (...) escapes from inertia apparently only create further conflicts with evidentialism. This dilemma gives a reason for evidentialist imprecise probabilists to look for alternatives without inertia. I shall argue that Henry E. Kyburg’s approach offers an evidentialist-friendly imprecise probability theory without inertia, and that its relevant anti-inertia features are independently justified. I also connect the traditional epistemological debates concerning the “ethics of belief” more systematically with formal epistemology than has been hitherto done. (shrink)

Information can be public among a group. Whether or not information is public matters, for example, for accounts of interdependent rational choice, of communication, and of joint intention. A standard analysis of public information identifies it with (some variant of) common belief. The latter notion is stipulatively defined as an infinite conjunction: for p to be commonly believed is for it to believed by all members of a group, for all members to believe that all members believe it, and so (...) forth. This analysis is often presupposed without much argument in philosophy. Theoretical entrenchment or intuitions about cases might give some traction on the question, but give little insight about why the identification holds, if it does. The strategy of this paper is to characterize a practical-normative role for information being public, and show that the only things that play that role are (variants of) common belief as stipulatively characterized. In more detail: a functional role for “taking a proposition for granted” in non-isolated decision making is characterized. I then present some minimal conditions under which such an attitude is correctly held. The key assumption links this attitude to beliefs about what is public. From minimal a priori principles, we can argue that a proposition being public among a group entails common commitment to believe among that group. Later sections explore partial converses to this result, the factivity of publicity and publicity from the perspective of outsiders to the group, and objections to the aprioricity of the result deriving from a posteriori existential presuppositions. (shrink)

John Maynard Keynes’s A Treatise on Probability is the seminal text for the logical interpretation of probability. According to his analysis, probabilities are evidential relations between a hypothesis and some evidence, just like the relations of deductive logic. While some philosophers had suggested similar ideas prior to Keynes, it was not until his Treatise that the logical interpretation of probability was advocated in a clear, systematic and rigorous way. I trace Keynes’s influence in the philosophy of probability through a heterogeneous (...) sample of thinkers who adopted his interpretation. This sample consists of Frederick C. Benenson, Roy Harrod, Donald C. Williams, Henry E. Kyburg and David Stove. The ideas of Keynes prove to be adaptable to their diverse theories of probability. My discussion indicates both the robustness of Keynes’s probability theory and the importance of its influence on the philosophers whom I describe. I also discuss the Problem of the Priors. I argue that none of those I discuss have obviously improved on Keynes’s theory with respect to this issue. (shrink)

Virtually everyone who has advanced an ontology of art has accepted a constraint to the effect that claims about ontology should cohere with the sort of appreciative claims made about artworks within a mature and reflective version of critical practice. I argue that such a constraint, which I agree is appropriate, rules out a one-size-fits-all ontology of contemporary visual art (and thus of visual art in general). Mature critical practice with respect to contemporary art accords artists a significant degree of (...) stipulative authority regarding the features and boundaries of their works. This results in ontological variation among visual artworks. Any claim to the effect that all works belong to the same ontological category will thus come out false or uninformative. Interesting, substantive claims about ontological status can be made only in relation to specific works; that is, we must consider the ontological status of each contemporary artwork individually. The only general ontological claim that can be made about visual artworks (and also about artworks in other forms) is that they belong to the sort of thing that artists create. But this is not a substantive ontological claim. (shrink)

As a response to climate change, geoengineering with solar radiation management has the potential to result in unjust harm. Potentially, this injustice could be ameliorated by providing compensation to victims of SRM. However, establishing a just SRM compensation system faces severe challenges. First, there is scientific uncertainty in detecting particular harmful impacts and causally attributing them to SRM. Second, there is ethical uncertainty regarding what principles should be used to determine responsibility and eligibility for compensation, as well as determining how (...) much compensation ought to be paid. Significant challenges loom for crafting a just SRM compensation system. (shrink)

Taylor Swift’s choice to re-record several of her early studio albums might seem purely commercial. But the depth and intensity of the project suggests that Taylor’s Versions are new artworks, not just financially motivated copies. The elements of appropriation, audience participation, and institutional critique tie Swift’s project to a tradition dating back more than a century: conceptual art. I will stop short of arguing outright that Taylor’s Versions is a conceptual art project: it is foremost a contribution to popular music. (...) But considering it in relation to conceptual art sheds light on its achievements and one notable limitation. In the realm of appropriation, the fact that the re-recordings exhibit both close resemblance to and subtle differences from the originals has prompted an intensity of close listening by audience members, with distinctive aesthetic experiences in the realm of the uncanny. In the realm of participation, Swift has creatively motivated her fans to abandon her beloved original albums, and the fans have in turn evolved a variety of strategies to shift their allegiance to the new versions and hold each other accountable. When it comes to institutional critique—the movement in conceptual art that highlights and challenges the power structures governing art institutions—Swift’s project has raised awareness of troubling and exploitative power dynamics in the music industry. However, consideration of historical precursors of Swift’s institutional critique may lead us to question some elements of her self-presentation as a victim of gendered exploitation. (shrink)

In the Critique of Judgment, Kant claims that genius is a talent for art, but not for science. Despite his restriction of genius to the domain of fine art, several recent interpreters have suggested that genius has a role to play in Kant’s account of cognition in general and scientific practice in particular. In this paper, I explore Kant’s reasons for excluding genius from science as well as the reasons that one might nevertheless be tempted to think that his account (...) allows room for the scientific genius. I then argue that Kant’s concerns are not only epistemic, but also moral, and together, they give us good reason for resisting the veneration of genius. (shrink)

William S. Lewis examines the contribution to philosophy of science made by Lefebvre, in the context of his membership of the French Communist Party.

On several current views, including those of Matthew Kieran, Gary Iseminger, Jerrold Levinson, and Noël Carroll, aesthetic appreciation or experience involves second-order awareness of one’s own mental processes. But what if it turns out that we don’t have introspective access to the processes by which our aesthetic responses are produced? I summarize several problems for introspective accounts that emerge from the psychological literature: aesthetic responses are affected by irrelevant conditions; they fail to be affected by relevant conditions; we are ignorant (...) of their causes and thus confabulate in explaining them; our attempts to offer explanations change our preferences; and the preferences we form after explanation are lower in quality. I suggest that by distinguishing introspective awareness of mental processes from introspective awareness of mental states, we can safeguard a worthwhile concept of aesthetic experience. In addition, we should recognize that theoretical, rather than introspective, understanding of our mental processes may play a valuable role in aesthetic appreciation. (shrink)

As aesthetic beings, we are receptive to and engaged with the sensuous phenomena of life while also knowing that we are targets of others’ awareness: we are both aesthetic agents and aesthetic objects. Our psychological health, our standing within our communities, and our overall wellbeing can be profoundly affected by our aesthetic surroundings and by whether and how we receive aesthetic recognition from others. When our embodied selves and our cultural products are valued, and when we have rich opportunities for (...) aesthetic experience and for the exercise of aesthetic agency, the aesthetic can foster and sustain wellbeing and help to make our lives worthwhile. But when we are subjected to aesthetic blight, restriction of our aesthetic agency, and aesthetic devaluing of our embodied selves and our communities’ cultural products, the aesthetic can do great harm: such aesthetic maneuvers play a significant role in oppression and social hierarchy related to race, gender, fatness, and disability. This essay explores the notions of aesthetic objects and aesthetic agents, their relations with each other, and the unique affordances of persons’ status as simultaneously aesthetic objects and aesthetic agents. It examines the prospects for bodily aesthetic experience to promote wellbeing and, at the end, considers how the aesthetic might play a role in establishing forms of mutual vulnerability and recognition to combat oppressive social hierarchies. (shrink)

In this essay, we describe practices developed by the philosophy department at the University of Oklahoma to promote fair and inclusive recruitment, application review, and hiring for faculty positions.

An extensive literature about pictorial representation discusses what is involved when a two-dimensional image represents some specific object or type of object. A smaller literature addresses parallel issues in sculptural representation. But little has been said about the role played by the sculptural material itself in determining the meanings of the sculptural work. Appealing to Nelson Goodman and Catherine Elgin’s discussions of literal and metaphorical exemplification, I argue that the material of which a sculpture is constituted plays key roles in (...) what is represented and how it is represented, in part because we have bodily and emotional responses to the real possibilities the sculptural material creates for us. I discuss examples of contemporary artworks by Melvin Edwards, Kara Walker, Willie Cole, Marc Quinn, Ai Weiwei, Janine Antoni, El Anatsui, Zoe Leonard, and others. (shrink)

In the museum context, curators and conservators often play a role in shaping the nature of contemporary artworks. Before, during and after the acquisition of an art object, curators and conservators engage in dialogue with the artist about how the object should be exhibited and conserved. As a part of this dialogue, the artist may express specifications for the display and conservation of the object, thereby fixing characteristics of the artwork that were previously left open. This process can make a (...) significant difference to the visual appearance of the work, the nature of the audience's experience, and how the work should be interpreted. I present several case studies in which the nature of the artwork has been shaped by such dialogues, and discuss principles for resolving cases in which there is a conflict between instructions specified by the artist and those adopted by the museum. (shrink)

Several years ago, the poet & critic Joan Houlihan offered a scathing and hilarious indictment of a lot of postmodern poetry for using words in a way that treats them as meaningless (or, perhaps, renders them meaningless). She suggested that word choice in such poems doesn’t really matter, and that the poet could just as well have substituted in other words without any change in meaning or aesthetic qualities. I argue that she’s wrong about this. I offer an account of (...) how interpretation and meaning function in poems that use words in highly non-standard ways. In such poems, there are associations and implicatures that one can reasonably expect a suitably backgrounded reader to grasp, rescuing interpretation from being a purely subjective and arbitrary activity. (shrink)

This précis summarizes the main topics, arguments and conclusions of the book. Many interesting arguments and critiques have, of course, been omitted in order to make this summary appropriately brief.

This paper addresses two questions about audience misunderstandings of contemporary art. First, what is the institution’s responsibility to prevent predictable misunderstandings about the nature of a contemporary artwork, and how should this responsibility be balanced against other considerations? Second, can an institution ever be justified in intentionally mounting an inauthentic display of an artwork, given that such displays are likely to mislead? I will argue that while the institution has a defeasible responsibility to mount authentic displays, this is not always (...) sufficient to avoid misunderstanding; the institution will sometimes need to supply auxiliary information. And even where competing considerations require mounting an inauthentic display, thoughtful museum practice can promote the audience’s ability to grasp the work. The argument will be developed with consideration of artworks by El Anatsui, Lygia Clark, and Glenn Ligon. (shrink)

This reference essay surveys recent work in the emerging sub-discipline of everyday aesthetics, which builds on the work of John Dewey to resist sharp distinctions between art and non-art domains and argue that aesthetic concepts are properly applied to ordinary domains of experience.

The origins of testing scientific models with statistical techniques go back to 18th century mathematics. However, the modern theory of statistical testing was primarily developed through the work of Sir R.A. Fisher, Jerzy Neyman, and Egon Pearson in the inter-war period. Some of Fisher's papers on testing were published in economics journals (Fisher, 1923, 1935) and exerted a notable influence on the discipline. The development of econometrics and the rise of quantitative economic models in the mid-20th century made statistical significance (...) testing a commonplace, albeit controversial tool within economics. -/- In the debate about significance testing, methodological controversies intertwine with epistemological issues and sociological developments. Our aim in this chapter is to expound these connections and to show how the use of, and the debate about, significance testing in economics differs from other social sciences, such as psychology. (shrink)

Repeatable artworks, such as novels and musical works, have often been construed as universals whose instances are particular printings or performances. In Art and Art-Attempts, Christy Mag Uidhir offers a nominalist account of repeatable artworks, eschewing talk of universals. Mag Uidhir argues that all artworks are concrete, and artworks that we regard as repeatable are simply unified by a relevant similarity relation: we use the name Beloved to refer to two concrete printed novels because they are relevantly similar to each (...) other and to certain other printings that are the product of Toni Morrison’s art-attempt. I discuss two potential difficulties for Mag Uidhir’s notion of relevant similarity: a difficulty related to appropriation, and a difficulty related to the fact that musical performances are often the product of distinct art-attempts by the composer and by the performer. I suggest that both difficulties could be addressed by enriching the notion of relevant similarity by appeal to the artist’s specification of which similarities are essential for two works to count as relevantly similar. (shrink)

Dale Tuggy argues that my trinitarian views are in conflict with the theology of the New Testament; the New Testament, rather, is unitarian. I show several flaws in this argument, and point out the New Testament evidence that eventually led to the formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity.

Within the Thomistic moral tradition, the is-ought gap is regularly treated as identical to the fact-value gap, and these two dichotomies are also regularly treated as being identical to Aristotle and Aquinas’s distinction between the practical and speculative intellect. The question whether (and if so, how) practical (‘ought’) knowledge derives from speculative (‘is’) knowledge has driven some of the fiercest disputes among the schools of Thomistic natural lawyers. I intend to show that both of these identifications are wrong and the (...) debate has been misframed. The is-ought gap is not the fact-value gap, nor does the is-ought gap correspond to Aquinas’s distinction between the speculative and practical. This opens the possibility of a resolution--within the Thomistic school--to a debate that has, heretofore, proven particularly resistant of consensus. I close by offering a tentative account of precisely how synderesis gives us our first awareness of moral law from a prior speculative understanding. (shrink)

I discuss two interrelated ways in which disgust functions in motherhood. First, relaxation of the mother’s sense of disgust allows her to nurture her child more effectively. Second, others’ responses of disgust are used to enforce social norms regarding the “good” mother. If the mother acquiesces, she must continually monitor and tidy her child, which may interfere with the child’s exploration of the world. If she does not, she is subject to ongoing signs that she is flawed or failing as (...) a mother. (shrink)

Many contemporary artworks include active matter along with rules for conservation that are designed to either facilitate or prevent that matter’s degradation or decay. I discuss the mechanisms through which actual or potential states of material decay contribute to the work’s expressive import. Nelson Goodman and Catherine Elgin introduce the concepts of literal and metaphorical exemplification, which are critical to expression: a work literally exemplifies a property when it both possesses and highlights that property, and it metaphorically exemplifies a property (...) when the properties it literally exemplifies bring that property powerfully to mind. I argue that the literal exemplification of actual or potential states of decay enhances a work’s expressive power by stimulating our bodily and emotional responses to the physical potential of the work’s active matter. Conservation practices, by affecting the properties the work literally and metaphorically exemplifies, are key to the expressive power of works that employ states of degradation and decay. The argument is illustrated through discussion of works by Zoe Leonard, Marc Quinn, and Kara Walker that literally exemplify actually or potentially decaying materials, as contrasted with works by Ai Weiwei and Sam Taylor-Johnson that represent rather than exemplify decaying materials. (shrink)

The ability of videos to serve as evidence of racial injustice is complex and contested. This essay argues that scrutiny of the Black body has come to play a key role in how videos of police violence are mined for evidence, following a long history of racialized surveillance and attributions of threat and superhuman powers to Black bodies. Using videos to combat injustice requires incorporating humanizing narratives and cultivating resistant modes of looking.

The culturally pervasive tendency to identify aspects of the body as aesthetically imperfect harms individuals and scaffolds injustice related to disability, race, gender, LGBTQ+ identities, and fatness. But abandoning the notion of imperfection may not respect people’s reasonable understandings of their own bodies. I examine the prospects for a practice of aesthetic assessment grounded in a notion of the body’s function. I argue that functional aesthetic assessment, to be respectful, requires understanding the body’s functions as complex, malleable, and determined by (...) the projects and interests of the person whose body it is. Aesthetically relevant functions, on this account, are determined neither by the body’s status as organism nor by cultural assumptions about how bodies should function or be used. (shrink)

The inherently subjective nature of consciousness severely limits our ability to make progress on the problem of consciousness. The inability to acquire objective, publicly available data on the phenomenal aspect of consciousness makes evaluating alternative theories very difficult, if not impossible. However, the anomalous nature of subjective states with respect to our conventional theories of the physical world suggests the possibility of considering other anomalous data around consciousness that happen to be objective. For such purposes, I propose that we examine (...) the psi data gathered under laboratory conditions, which generally receive little attention. I wish to consider whether we have theories or frameworks of consciousness that attempt to account for subjective qualia but also fit the psi data. I argue that Russellian monism can be combined with an argument regarding quantum holism to arrive at a version of cosmopsychism that fits very well with the psi data. While I do not argue that such a framework exhausts the theoretical possibilities, I do suggest we can move forward with a framework that has attractive theoretical features and is also consistent with objective data currently on the table. (shrink)