Analytic Approaches to AestheticsPeter Lamarque LAST MODIFIED: 10 MAY 2010 DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780195396577-0004IntroductionAesthetics is broadly that branch of philosophy concerned with fundamental questions about the nature of beauty, the nature of art, and the principles of art criticism. Some of these questions go back to the ancient Greeks, but systematic study of the foundations of aesthetics did not begin until the 18th century. Analytic philosophers turned their attention to this branch of the subject relatively late and in the 1940s and 50s tended to be scornful of what they found (John Passmore famously wrote of the dreariness of aesthetics in 1951 in the journalMind). However, in the fifty years up to the turn of the 21st century, and beyond that point, analytic approaches to aesthetics developed with considerable sophistication and there is now a huge literature on all aspects of the subject under the broad heading of analytic aesthetics. Other approaches exist, of course, notably that associated with Continental philosophy, which is more historically oriented. The analytic approach is rooted in the analysis of concepts (albeit increasingly informed by work in the empirical sciences) and tends to examine issues about the nature of art and the aesthetic qualities of objects in an ahistorical manner, even if noting and evaluating ideas from earlier periods. In the years since the early 1990s there has been a notable growth in attention to the individual arts (music, painting, literature, film, etc.). Important developments in the aesthetics of nature and the environment have also occurred.AnthologiesThere are several collections of papers that give a thorough overview of analytical work in aesthetics, showing the range of topics covered and current thinking about them.Lamarque and Olsen 2003collects influential papers on analytic aesthetics from its first flowering in the 1950s up to the present day.Schaper 1983includes some contributions from analytic philosophers, such as John McDowell, not usually associated with aesthetics.Gaut and Lopes 2005andLevinson 2003between them give fairly comprehensive and even-handed coverage of topics and ideas currently being debated, written by leading specialists.Kivy 2004offers longer and more polemical articles again by leading contemporary figures, each developing and defending a particular point of view.Kieran 2005usefully explores core debates using pairs of specially written papers taking different sides on current issues.Feagin and Maynard 1997andNeill and Ridley 1995are large and popular anthologies that include but extend beyond the analytic, both offering a broader context historically and in terms of methodology. Feagin, Susan, and Patrick Maynard, eds.Aesthetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A useful and imaginative selection of papers and extracts with a wide historical and cross-cultural sweep.Find this resource: Gaut, Berys, and Dominic McIver Lopes, eds.Routledge Companion to Aesthetics. 2d ed. London: Routledge, 2005.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Parts II, III, and IV, on, respectively, aesthetic theory, issues and challenges, and the individual arts, are detailed and accessible studies from an analytical point of view of key issues in aesthetics written by prominent contemporary philosophers.Find this resource: Kieran, Matthew, ed.Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Helpful format using pairs of commissioned articles taking different sides in current debates. Good for seminar discussion, revealing where key disagreements lie.Find this resource: Kivy, Peter, ed.The Blackwell Guide to Aesthetics. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A useful collection of eighteen commissioned articles by contemporary aestheticians. The articles present an overview of an area but also offer sometimes polemical perspectives on their subjects.Find this resource: Lamarque, Peter, and Stein Haugom Olsen, eds.Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art: The Analytic Tradition; an Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A collection of forty-six papers representing some of the best and most influential work by analytic philosophers in aesthetics from the 1950s to the present. Introductions to each section give a useful overview.Find this resource: Levinson, Jerrold, ed.Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Forty-eight specially commissioned articles, at an introductory level, on a wide range of topics in current aesthetics, under the headings Background, General Issues in Aesthetics, Aesthetic Issues of Specific Art Forms, and Further Directions in Aesthetics.Find this resource: Neill, Alex, and Aaron Ridley, eds.The Philosophy of Art: Readings Ancient and Modern. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A judicious wide-ranging selection of material from 20th-century analytical writing back to the ancient Greeks and also including Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, Tolstoy, Freud, Collingwood, and Adorno, among others.Find this resource: Schaper, Eva, ed.Pleasure, Preference, and Value: Studies in Philosophical Aesthetics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A collection of commissioned papers by leading analytical philosophers, including John McDowell, Philip Pettit, R. A. Sharpe, Anthony Savile, Ted Cohen, and Malcolm Budd. At times quite philosophically demanding.Find this resource:TextbooksThere are plenty of general introductions to aesthetics, but not all are specifically focused on analytic philosophy either in the topics discussed or in methodology.Carroll 1999andStecker 2005are especially helpful in exemplifying the use of analytical argument to clarify and assess theories about art.Dickie 1997is illuminating as a reflection on core themes of analytic aesthetics (also setting them in their historical context), from an author who has made a major contribution to its development.Graham 2005also sets the scene well, engaging with other approaches, for example, from Continental philosophy.Lyas 1997is a good introduction for beginners in philosophy, with engaging examples and straightforward exposition.Townsend 1997is more demanding but full of argument.Neill and Ridley 2007uses a format that is highly effective for teaching: pairs of articles taking different sides in a debate. Carroll, Nol.Philosophy of Art: A Contemporary Introduction. London: Routledge. 1999.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation An accessible and clearly written introduction to some of the main theories of art, with carefully argued critical analyses of each.Find this resource: Dickie, George.Introduction to Aesthetics: An Analytic Approach. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Analyzes key elements in the history of aesthetics from ancient Greece to modern times, but mostly introduces and reflects on analytical developments in the 20th century.Find this resource: Graham, Gordon.Philosophy of the Arts: An Introduction to Aesthetics. 3d ed. London: Routledge, 2005.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A popular and readable introduction including substantial chapters on music, the visual arts, literature, the performing arts, architecture, and the aesthetics of nature. Also engages with the likes of Marx, Nietzsche, and Derrida.Find this resource: Lyas, Colin.Aesthetics. London: UCL, 1997.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Reaches out to a wide audience, with examples from popular as well as classical arts. Introduces issues in a lively manner, giving particular emphasis to expression in art.Find this resource: Neill, Alex, and Aaron Ridley, eds.Arguing About Art: Contemporary Philosophical Debates. 3d ed. London: Routledge, 2007.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Each of the three editions of this influential and useful textbook has contained different selections of papers. Useful format of juxtaposing articles offering opposing points of view on a range of topics.Find this resource: Stecker, Robert.Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art: An Introduction. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Especially helpful for displaying the analytical mode of argument in aesthetics; careful considerations are given for and against a wide range of positions with useful summaries at the end of each chapter.Find this resource: Townsend, Dabney.An Introduction to Aesthetics. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A thoughtful introduction to selected issues, with a focus on relations between works of art, artists, and audiences.Find this resource:Landmark WorksThere are certain landmark works in the second half of the 20th century that stand out as especially influential in the development of analytic approaches to aesthetics.Elton 1954brought together papers on aesthetics from prominent analytic philosophers; its polemical purpose was to show, in effect, how aesthetics ought to be done.Beardsley 1958, a large and comprehensive work, illustrated that the analytic approach need not be small-scale and piecemeal (as some of the contributors inElton 1954had suggested); it proposed that aesthetics should be metacriticism, a second-order study of the principles of art criticism, but actually turned out to be more ambitious than that itself, with a wide-ranging account of how the arts fit into human life.Sibley 1959turned attention to aesthetic concepts applied to art and other objects (and significantly went beyond the 18th-century fixation with beauty alone).Danto 1964andDanto 1981moved in a different direction, away from the aesthetic qualities of art toward its social or institutional groundings, a move taken up inDickie 1974that offered the first fully worked out institutional definition of art.Goodman 1968introduced to aesthetics the rigorous style of a prominent Harvard logician; no adequate theory of pictorial representation could fail to engage with its controversial view of representation as a mode of denotation.Wollheim 1968in a concise and readable form addressed fundamental issues about the ontology of art and the form of life in which it gets its meaning. Finally, the monumentalWalton 1990, offering a unified account of many issues through the idea of make-believe, is notable not just for its influence in aesthetics but for its impact in other areas of philosophy (e.g., philosophy of mind and language). Beardsley, Monroe C.Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1958.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation An early and highly influential full-scale treatment of aesthetics from the analytic perspective. Reflects on all the arts and on problems of interpretation and evaluation.Find this resource: Danto, Arthur C. The Artworld.Journal of Philosophy61 (1964): 571584.DOI:10.2307/2022937Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Introduces the idea of an artworld and argues that what makes something a work of art rests not on what it looks like, but on its role within a social and intellectual milieu. Uses Andy Warhols Brillo Boxes to illustrate his argument.Find this resource: Danto, Arthur C.The Transfiguration of the Commonplace. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Full development of Dantos important conception of art, deploying the method of indiscernibles.Find this resource: Dickie, George.Art and the Aesthetic: An Institutional Analysis. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1974.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Presents Dickies original version of the institutional definition of art, which remains influential even though he refined the theory in later writings.Find this resource: Elton, William, ed.Aesthetics and Language. Oxford: Blackwell, 1954.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation An early collection of papersseveral by prominent philosophers such as Gilbert Ryle, Stuart Hampshire, O. K. Bouwsma, and John Passmoreillustrating and promoting analytical methods in aesthetics.Find this resource: Goodman, Nelson.Languages of Art: An Approach to a General Theory of Symbols. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1968.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A difficult but immensely important book by an eminent Harvard philosopher and logician, giving art a central role in human cognition, alongside science, and exploring its complex modes of denotation and symbolism.Find this resource: Sibley, Frank. Aesthetic Concepts.Philosophical Review68 (1959): 421450.DOI:10.2307/2182490Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A careful analysis of aesthetic concepts, such asunified, balanced, delicate, etc., pointing out their logical peculiarities in contrast to nonaesthetic concepts, such asred, square, etc. Important both for its content and its methodology. Reprinted in SibleysApproaches to Aesthetics: Collected Papers on Philosophical Aesthetics, edited by John Benson, Betty Redfern, and Jeremy Roxbee Cox (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).Find this resource: Walton, Kendall L.Mimesis as Make-Believe: On the Foundations of the Representational Arts. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation An impressive unified account of artistic representationwith applications to pictures, fictionality, and ontologyusing the core idea of games of make-believe. Waltons make-believe theory has been taken up in areas of philosophy well beyond aesthetics.Find this resource: Wollheim, Richard.Art and Its Objects: An Introduction to Aesthetics. New York: Harper and Row, 1968.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Influential reflections on the ontology of art and the role of seeing as in artistic representation by a preeminent figure in analytic aesthetics. A second edition was published by Cambridge University Press in 1980 with six supplementary essays developing its central themes.Find this resource:Defining ArtIt is often thought, though not universally so, that giving a definition of art is a necessary first stage to any adequate philosophy of art. Efforts in this endeavor are helpfully summarized inAdajian 2007and, at greater length, inDavies 1991, which attempts to categorize different kinds of definitions.Weitz 1956famously argues that the very exercise is misguided, given the creative nature of art.Gaut 2000is a bridge between Weitzs anti-essentialism and those that propose full-scale definitions. Other philosophical works, notablyDickie 1983andLevinson 1979, have insisted that a definition is possible, once formulated in the right terms.Carroll 2001does not think a definition as such is possible, but proposes an account of how we identify artworks, particularly those of a disputed kind, by means of narratives connecting them to earlier works.Beardsley 1983offers a definition in terms of aesthetic experience, although, as he recognizes, Beardsleys account does not readily fit conceptual art or other kinds of avant-garde works.Carroll 2000is a collection of papers showing contemporary philosophers addressing the definitional issue and presenting a state-of-the-art survey of the different candidates on offer. Adajian, Thomas. The Definition of Art. InThe Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edited by Edward N. Zalta. 2007.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A useful and accessible critical summary of the principal approaches.Find this resource: Beardsley, Monroe C. An Aesthetic Definition of Art. InWhat Is Art?Edited by Hugh Curtler. New York: Haven, 1983.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A leading early figure in analytic aesthetics who defines art as follows: An artwork is something produced with the intention of giving it the capacity to satisfy the aesthetic interest. Reprinted inLamarque and Olsen 2003.Find this resource: Carroll, Nol, ed.Theories of Art Today. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Twelve essays by prominent contemporary philosophers on different aspects of the definitional issue. A helpful overview and key text in analytic aesthetics.Find this resource: Carroll, Nol. Historical Narratives and the Philosophy of Art. InBeyond Aesthetics: Philosophical Essays. By Nol Carroll, 100117. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Defends the idea of identifying artespecially avant-garde artby means of historical narratives that connect contested works to art history in a way that discloses that the mutations in question are part of the evolving species of art.Find this resource: Davies, Stephen.Definitions of Art. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A wide-ranging critical assessment of different approaches to the definition of art, notably in terms of functional and procedural theories. Clearly written in nontechnical terms.Find this resource: Dickie, George. The New Institutional Theory of Art.Proceedings of the 8th International Wittgenstein Symposium10 (1983): 5764.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A succinct statement of the revised version of Dickies influential institutional definition. Shows clearly what the institutional theory seeks to achieve. Reprinted inLamarque and Olsen 2003.Find this resource: Gaut, Berys. Art as a Cluster Concept. InTheories of Art Today. Edited by Nol Carroll, 2544. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A version of family resemblance views, arguing that among a cluster of putative features of art, no one is necessary but all, or a subclass, are sufficient.Find this resource: Levinson, Jerrold. Defining Art Historically.British Journal of Aesthetics19 (1979): 232250.DOI:10.1093/bjaesthetics/19.3.232Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Develops a definition of art in terms of the relation of a work to previous works already acknowledged as art. Quite technical. Reprinted in LevinsonsMusic, Art, and Metaphysics(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990).Find this resource: Weitz, Morris. The Role of Theory in Aesthetics.Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism15 (1956): 2735.DOI:10.2307/427491Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Highly influential statement of anti-essentialism, rejecting the attempt to define art, on the grounds that art is an open concept. Reprinted inLamarque and Olsen 2003.Find this resource:Ontology of ArtThe ontology of art raises questions about whatkindof thing works of art are, to what ontological category they belong. A simple and standard view is that there is no single category to which all works belong but that some works, such as paintings, carved sculptures, and buildings, are particulars (e.g., physical objects), whereas other works, such as poems, symphonies, and dramas, are abstract entities of some kind, allowing for multiple instantiations.Wollheim 1980importantly explains the latter class by invoking the distinction between types and tokens; thus, a poem or a symphony is a type, of which individual copies or performances are tokens.Wolterstorff 1980offers a variant of this theory, referring not to types but to norm-kinds. Other philosophers place artworks into a single category. Thus,Currie 1989sees all works as types, that is, types of action, the action of discovering a structure through a heuristic path.Davies 2004takes a similar line, although identifying works with token performances (art-making).Margolis 1980sees works of art as emergent entities never identical to their physical embodiment.Rohrbaugh 2005offers a detailed survey and assessment of these and other ideas, andThomasson 2004provides judicious comments on how one might arbitrate in the debates. Currie, Gregory.An Ontology of Art. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1989.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Defends a unified but controversial view of artworks as action types. Illuminating arguments against opposing views, notably the idea of aesthetic empiricism, but technical in its logical apparatus.Find this resource: Davies, David.Art as Performance. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A difficult, philosophically sophisticated book that gets deep into the ontological debate and develops a striking and original thesis about what works of art are.Find this resource: Margolis, Joseph.Art and Philosophy: Conceptual Issues in Philosophy. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1980.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Defends the view that works of art are culturally emergent entities that are embodied in physical objects but not identical to those objects.Find this resource: Rohrbaugh, Guy. Ontology of Art. InRoutledge Companion to Aesthetics. 2d ed. Edited by B. Gaut and D. M. Lopes, 241254. London: Routledge, 2005.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A scholarly, wide-ranging account of the issues in ontology of art and the arguments for the main positions.Find this resource: Thomasson, Amie L. The Ontology of Art. InThe Blackwell Guide to Aesthetics. Edited by Peter Kivy, 7892. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Helpful and accessible survey of the key issues, with reflections on the constraints on any adequate ontological theory.Find this resource: Wollheim, Richard.Art and Its Objects. 2d ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1980.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Important work by a prominent philosopher. Uses the type-token distinction to explain the relation between certain kinds of works and individual copies or performances.Find this resource: Wolterstorff, Nicholas.Works and Worlds of Art. Oxford: Clarendon, 1980.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A careful but difficult analytical study of a range of issues in the ontology of art defending the view that musical and literary works, among others, are norm-kinds.Find this resource:Aesthetic Properties and Aesthetic ExperienceA central issue for analytic aestheticians has been the nature of, indeed the very reality of, aesthetic properties and aesthetic experiences. The topics are relatedaesthetic experiences are sometimes thought to be experiences directed to the aesthetic qualities of objectsbut can also be treated separately. Focus has been given to the reality or otherwise of aesthetic properties, the extent to which they genuinely adhere in objects rather than being merely projected onto them.Levinson 2001andZemach 1997make the case for realism, suitably qualified.Sibley 2001looks at what objectivity amounts to in aesthetics, andBender 2003expresses skepticism about realism.Walton 1970is a highly influential contribution showing how the perception of aesthetic qualities in art depends on the categories to which works are assigned.Iseminger 2003surveys the issues surrounding aesthetic experience, not least being the important treatment by Beardsley, for example, inBeardsley 1982.Dickie 1964attacks Beardsleys earlier theory of the aesthetic attitude, butCarroll 2002brings the discussion up to date by reassessing the options for any adequate account of aesthetic experience. Beardsley, Monroe C. Aesthetic Experience. InThe Aesthetic Point of View: Selected Essays. Edited by Michael Wreen and Donald Callen. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A clear statement of the importance of aesthetic experience by one of its foremost defenders among analytic aestheticians.Find this resource: Bender, John W. Aesthetic Realism 2. InOxford Handbook of Aesthetics. Edited by Jerrold Levinson, 8098. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A good survey of the topic, concluding that the case for aesthetic realism, that is, realism about aesthetic properties, has not been made.Find this resource: Carroll, Nol. Aesthetic Experience Revisited.British Journal of Aesthetics42 (2002): 145168.DOI:10.1093/bjaesthetics/42.2.145Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Revives interest in aesthetic experience and defends a content-based view, in terms of the kinds of objects toward which aesthetic experiences are directed, in favor of affect- or value-based theories.Find this resource: Dickie, George. The Myth of the Aesthetic Attitude.American Philosophical Quarterly1 (1964): 5666.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Influential paper rejecting the idea that there is a distinctive aesthetic attitudea paper largely responsible for the subsequent decline of interest in this idea.Find this resource: Iseminger, Gary. Aesthetic Experience. InOxford Handbook of Aesthetics. Edited by Jerrold Levinson, 99116. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A clear and comprehensive overview of the principal positions on aesthetic experience.Find this resource: Levinson, Jerrold. Aesthetic Properties, Evaluative Force, and Differences of Sensibility. InAesthetic Concepts: Essays After Sibley. Edited by Emily Brady and Jerrold Levinson, 6180. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A defense of aesthetic realism in terms of dispositions in objects to afford distinctive phenomenal experiences, which are separable from evaluative attitudes taken to those experiences. Quite demanding.Find this resource: Sibley, Frank. Objectivity and Aesthetics. InApproaches to Aesthetics: Collected Papers on Philosophical Aesthetics. Edited by John Benson, Betty Redfern, and Jeremy Roxbee Cox, 7187. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A nuanced defense of objectivity in aesthetic judgments and reflections on when it might be legitimate to speak of aesthetic properties.Find this resource: Walton, Kendall L. Categories of Art.Philosophical Review79 (1970): 334367.DOI:10.2307/2183933Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Argues, with ramifications right across aesthetics, that the perception of aesthetic qualities in a work of art rests not only on the intrinsic perceptual qualities of the work itself but also on facts about its provenance and context, not the least being the category to which it belongs.Find this resource: Zemach, Eddy.Real Beauty. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A thorough-going but technically difficult defense of aesthetic realism.Find this resource:Meaning and InterpretationGiven the nature of analytic philosophy, it is not surprising that questions of meaning have been prominent in debates in aesthetics. A key question has centered on the aims of interpretation in art (and literary) criticism. Is the interpreters aim to recover what was in the mind of the artist or perhaps to put a creative construction on the work to reveal its full potentialities regardless of whether the artist had thought through all the possibilities? The papers inMargolis and Rockmore 2000produce a useful overview of the subtleties of the debate, as doesBarnes 1988, although the latter can be quite demanding with its logical formulations.Krausz 2002lays out reasoned defenses of different positions by prominent contributors.Iseminger 1992andLivingston 2007tackle the specific question of the role of intention in interpretation, andStecker 1997defends a version of intentionalism. Barnes, Annette.On Interpretation. Oxford: Blackwell, 1988.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation An analytical study of validity in interpretive reasoning and the limits of objectivity and truth in interpretations.Find this resource: Iseminger, Gary, ed.Intention and Interpretation. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 1992.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation An important collection of essays on the intention debate in aesthetics, including arguments for and against actual intentionalism and hypothetical intentionalism.Find this resource: Krausz, Michael, ed.Is There a Single Right Interpretation?University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Commissioned papers on the focused question in the book title. Wide-ranging in its applications.Find this resource: Livingston, Paisley.Art and Intention: A Philosophical Study. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Defends the importance of intention in the creation of art, and thus what we understand by art, and proposes partial intentionalism in art interpretation.Find this resource: Margolis, Joseph, and Tom Rockmore, eds.The Philosophy of Interpretation. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Commissioned papers on different aspects of interpretation, offering a broad perspective on the principal issues.Find this resource: Stecker, Robert.Artworks: Definition, Meaning, Value. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A careful study of different aspects of meaning in the arts, proposing that an important core of meaning in literary works is utterance meaning.Find this resource:Art and KnowledgeThe question of whether it is a central aim or achievement of art to advance knowledge, for example, about human psychology or human nature, is hotly debated. The question is not so much the factual one, whether people do actually learn from works of art, but rather whether art can provide a special route to knowledge, which gives art a distinctive value.Stolnitz 1992is skeptical about artistic truth, andLamarque 2006expresses caution about giving undue weight to knowledge as a core value of art. In contrast,Gaut 2003and some papers inKieran and Lopes 2007make the case for arts role in human cognition, whereasNussbaum 1990andJohn 1998promote the special cognitive powers of literature. Gaut, Berys. Art and Knowledge. InOxford Handbook of Aesthetics. Edited by Jerrold Levinson, 436450. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A critical analysis of pro- and anti-cognitivist arguments, defending a pro-cognitivist stance.Find this resource: John, Eileen. Reading Fiction and Conceptual Knowledge: Philosophical Thought in Literary Context.Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism56 (1998): 331348.DOI:10.2307/432124Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A nuanced and subtle defense of the view that works of literature can enhance conceptual knowledge.Find this resource: Kieran, Matthew, and Dominic Lopes, eds.Knowing Art: Essays in Aesthetics and Epistemology. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer, 2007.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A useful collection of papers covering literature and the visual arts and assessing the claims made for arts cognitive potential.Find this resource: Lamarque, Peter. Cognitive Values in the Arts: Marking the Boundaries. InContemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Edited by Matthew Kieran, 127139. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Advances the anti-cognitivist case by raising doubts that advancing knowledge is a genuine artistic value.Find this resource: Nussbaum, Martha.Loves Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A selection of Nussbaums essays sharing the general theme that literature can enrich human moral sensibility and educate the emotions.Find this resource: Stolnitz, Jerome. On the Cognitive Triviality of Art.British Journal of Aesthetics32 (1992): 191200.DOI:10.1093/bjaesthetics/32.3.191Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A brief and lively attack on the view that art, particularly literature, can offer substantial truths.Find this resource:Values of ArtPhilosophers ask how the values of art relate to other values and also what criteria are available for making judgments about individual works. The question of whether artistic value can be a subject of objective reasoning is also prominent.Lamarque 2009offers general observations about these issues, andBudd 1995gives a sophisticated survey of competing theories as well as developing a novel account.Goldman 1995also proposes its own subtle view of aesthetic and artistic value.Savile 1982explains and defends the test of time as a criterion of value.Sibley 2001examines the role of reasons in aesthetic judgments, butGoldman 2006argues that such judgments are not subject to general principles.Gaut 2007tackles a much debated issue, advancing the case for the relevance of ethical values in some assessments of aesthetic value. Budd, Malcolm.Values of Art: Pictures, Poetry, and Music. London: Penguin, 1995.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Important but philosophically demanding book, partly a critical analysis of principal views, partly the presentation of a specific thesis, defining value in art in terms of the intrinsic values of certain experiences of art.Find this resource: Gaut, Berys.Art, Emotion, and Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A rigorous and sustained argument for the view that aesthetic evaluations of art can partially rest on moral evaluations.Find this resource: Goldman, Alan H.Aesthetic Value. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Wide-ranging, clearly written presentation of key issues developing a line of argument, with considerable refinement, that originates in Hume and Kant.Find this resource: Goldman, Alan H. There Are No Aesthetic Principles. InContemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Edited by Matthew Kieran, 299312. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A spirited and readable defense of the claim that there are no general principles governing aesthetic evaluations.Find this resource: Lamarque, Peter. Artistic Value. InCentral Issues of Philosophy. Edited by John Shand, 231243. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation An accessible introduction to the kinds of issues about artistic value raised by analytic philosophers.Find this resource: Savile, Anthony.The Test of Time: An Essay in Philosophical Aesthetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A fascinating and richly argued defense of the idea of the test of time as a criterion for artistic value.Find this resource: Sibley, Frank. General Criteria and Reasons in Aesthetics. InApproaches to Aesthetics: Collected Papers on Philosophical Aesthetics. Edited by John Benson, Betty Redfern, and Jeremy Roxbee Cox, 104118. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A nuanced discussion of Monroe Beardsleys view that there are general criteria for aesthetic evaluations, putting forth a limited case for such criteria.Find this resource:Analytic Aesthetics and the Individual ArtsA notable feature of aesthetics in the early 21st century has been the attention given to the individual arts. Thus, for example, the philosophy of music, the philosophy of the visual arts, and the philosophy of literature are now important subbranches of aesthetics with their own distinctive debates and problems.MusicProminent issues in the philosophy of music concern musical expressiveness, music and meaning, and the ontology of music. For an excellent and opinionated overview of the field, the best starting point isScruton 1997.Kivy 1993is a collection of papers by Peter Kivy, a major contributor to all aspects of the subject.Budd 1985explores theories of emotion in music in a mostly critical vein but is a good foundation for subsequent work.Davies 1994examines meaning in music, usefully identifying the main issues.Levinson 1980initiated a large and continuing literature on the ontology of music, notably on the consequences of taking musical works to be abstract entities.Dodd 2007is a full-length challenge to Levinson, even rejecting the view that musical works are strictly created (rather than discovered). Budd, Malcolm.Music and the Emotions: The Philosophical Theories. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A rigorous analytical study of prominent theories of how music relates to the emotions. Budds criticisms leave many of these theories in tatters.Find this resource: Davies, Stephen.Musical Meaning and Expression. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A thorough examination of arguments for and against the view that music is a kind of language.Find this resource: Dodd, Julian.Works of Music: An Essay in Ontology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A lively but controversial defense of the Platonist idea that musical works are abstract, eternal types, the tokens of which gain their identity entirely through certain sorts of audible properties.Find this resource: Kivy, Peter.The Fine Art of Repetition: Essays in the Philosophy of Music. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Kivy is a leading analytical philosopher of music and this contains many of his most influential papers, for example, on musical Platonism, opera, and music and emotion.Find this resource: Levinson, Jerrold. What a Musical Work Is.Journal of Philosophy77 (1980): 528.DOI:10.2307/2025596Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A highly influential essay on musical ontology, sometimes technical in content, arguing that musical works are abstract entities but also genuinely created, not just discovered. Reprinted in LevinsonsMusic, Art, and Metaphysics(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990).Find this resource: Scruton, Roger.The Aesthetics of Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Covers all aspects of the philosophy of music in a clear, readable style; written by a prominent philosopher with a profound knowledge and love of music.Find this resource:Pictorial ArtA large amount has been written by philosophers on the nature of depiction, how two-dimensional pictures can represent objects, real or fictional. The simple idea that pictures represent by resembling their subject matter has come in for serious criticism, not least inGoodman 1976, althoughHopkins 1999gives a sophisticated reappraisal.Goodman 1976rejects resemblance in favor of denotation, andWollheim 1998explains representation in terms of a special kind of perception, seeing in, whereasLopes 1996focuses on the relation between representation and interpretation.Walton 2008famously appeals to games of make-believe in the perception of pictures and argues for the transparency of photography.Scruton 1983controversially argues that photographs are not representations at all.Dutton 1983is a fascinating collection of papers on forgery that in different ways reveal important aspects of pictures and why they are valued. Dutton, Denis, ed.The Forgers Art: Forgery and the Philosophy of Art. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation An important and engaging collection of essays, including extracts from Nelson GoodmansLanguages of Art, in which he distinguishes arts that are autographic (i.e., forgeable) from the allographic (i.e., nonforgeable).Find this resource: Goodman, Nelson. Reality Remade. InLanguages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols. 2d ed. By Nelson Goodman, 39. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1976.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Accessible chapter expounding Goodmans theory of pictorial representation and his attack on resemblance theories. Reprinted inThe Philosophy of the Visual Arts, edited by Philip Alperson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).Find this resource: Hopkins, Robert.Picture, Image, and Experience: A Philosophical Inquiry. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Subtle defense of a version of the resemblance theory in terms of experienced resemblance and outline shape.Find this resource: Lopes, Dominic McIver.Understanding Pictures. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A thoughtful and original study of many aspects of pictorial representation, including what it is to recognize an object in a picture.Find this resource: Scruton, Roger. Photography and Representation. InThe Aesthetic Understanding: Essays in the Philosophy of Art and Culture. By Roger Scruton, 102126. London: Methuen, 1983.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation An often cited, controversial essay arguing that photography is not a form of representation and in that regard differs radically from painting. Reprinted inLamarque and Olsen 2003.Find this resource: Walton, Kendall L.Marvelous Images: On Values and the Arts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A handy selection of Waltons papers in aesthetics, including six important contributions on pictures and photography.Find this resource: Wollheim, Richard. On Pictorial Representation.Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism56 (1998): 217226.DOI:10.2307/432361Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A clear statement of Wollheims influential view of seeing in to explain pictorial representation, and his reasons for rejecting alternative theories. Reprinted inLamarque and Olsen 2003.Find this resource:LiteratureFor a good overview of topics in the philosophy of literature, seeDavies 2007,Lamarque 2009, andJohn and Lopes 2004.Olsen 1987positions literary aesthetics in relation to literary theory and takes a polemical stand in favor of an institutional view of literature.Lamarque and Olsen 1994is a lengthy treatment of the issue of how fiction and literature relate to truth.Searle 1979is an important paper on the logic of fiction, applying speech act theory, andRadford 1975offers an entertaining and extensively debated argument that it is irrational to respond emotionally to fictional characters. Davies, David.Aesthetics and Literature. London: Continuum, 2007.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Clear and informative critical survey of some key issues in the philosophy of literature.Find this resource: John, Eileen, and Dominic M. Lopes, eds.Philosophy of Literature: Contemporary and Classic Readings; an Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation An accessible collection of forty-five essays and extracts, by prominent philosophers, covering all aspects of the philosophy of literature.Find this resource: Lamarque, Peter.The Philosophy of Literature. Oxford: Blackwell, 2009.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A comprehensive introduction to the principal issues in an accessible style using numerous examples from literature and criticism.Find this resource: Lamarque, Peter, and Stein Haugom Olsen.Truth, Fiction, and Literature: A Philosophical Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A detailed examination of the role of truth in relation to literature, arguing that truth is not a primary literary value.Find this resource: Olsen, Stein Haugom.The End of Literary Theory. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1987.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A collection of Olsens papers on literary aesthetics, showing pioneering work in the analytic tradition.Find this resource: Radford, Colin. How Can We Be Moved by the Fate of Anna Karenina?Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society69 (1975): 6780.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation An entertaining and controversial paper arguing that although it is quite natural, it is also irrational to become emotionally involved with characters we know to be fictional. Reprinted inLamarque and Olsen 2003.Find this resource: Searle, John. The Logical Status of Fictional Discourse. InExpression and Meaning. By John Searle, 5875. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1979.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Applies speech act theory to fiction, arguing that fiction writers pretend to perform illocutionary acts, without intended deception.Find this resource:Other Art FormsCarroll 2008surveys philosophical issues about film, andCarroll 1998analyzes mass or popular art in all its forms. Both provide state-of-the-art treatment within analytic philosophy. Among discussions of other arts that have captured the attention of analytic philosophers,Friday 2002on photography,Hamilton 2007on theater,Hopkins 2003on sculpture, andSparshott 2004on dance each provide a useful overview and offer further readings. Carroll, Nol.A Philosophy of Mass Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A magisterial treatment of a complex and controversial subject, the status and value of popular arts. It takes on much current theorizing, for example, in cultural studies, and presents a compelling alternative using the methods of analytic philosophy.Find this resource: Carroll, Nol.The Philosophy of Motion Pictures. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A lucid and informative account of the philosophy of film by the preeminent authority. Carrolls own work on film, for over twenty-five years, has more or less defined this branch of aesthetics.Find this resource: Friday, Jonathan.Aesthetics and Photography. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2002.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Both an overview of central philosophical issues about photography and a development of a distinctive point of view.Find this resource: Hamilton, James, R.The Art of Theater. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2007.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Rare as a full-length treatment of theater from an analytic philosopher. An important contribution, arguing that theatrical performance is an independent art form.Find this resource: Hopkins, Robert. Sculpture. InOxford Handbook of Aesthetics. Edited by Jerrold Levinson, 572582. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A succinct and informative account of the philosophical issues involving sculpture: a subject largely neglected by analytic philosophers.Find this resource: Sparshott, Francis. Dance: Bodies in Motion, Bodies at Rest. InThe Blackwell Guide to Aesthetics. Edited by Peter Kivy, 276290. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Sketches in a readable manner a framework for a philosophy of dance and the sorts of questions that arise.Find this resource:Nature and the EnvironmentHepburn 1966is often said to be the start of modern analytical interest in the aesthetics of nature.Brady 2003,Carlson 2008,Parsons 2008, andBerleant and Carlson 2004between them cover all aspects of this burgeoning branch of aesthetics and provide a comprehensive overview.Carlson 2000andBudd 2002are good samples of the work of two of the leading analytic contributors.Saito 2007introduces a relatively new application of the aesthetics of the environment in looking at aesthetic responses to everyday objects and situations. Berleant, Arnold, and Allen Carlson, eds.The Aesthetics of Natural Environments. Peterborough, ON: Broadview, 2004.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A useful and accessible collection of essays, old and new, on all aspects of this branch of aesthetics.Find this resource: Brady, Emily.Aesthetics of the Natural Environment. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2003.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A clearly written and comprehensive introduction to and analysis of the central issues. A good place to start for those who dont know the field.Find this resource: Budd, Malcolm.The Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A collection of Budds own influential papers on the aesthetics of nature. Sometimes demanding in their analytical style but always rewarding.Find this resource: Carlson, Allen.Aesthetics and the Environment: The Appreciation of Nature, Art, and Architecture. London: Routledge, 2000.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation Carlson is one of the foremost aestheticians writing on the aesthetics of nature. This book consolidates his own influential position and reflects judiciously on current debates in the subject.Find this resource: Carlson, Allen. Environmental Aesthetics. InThe Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edited by Edward N. Zalta. 2008.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A lively, readable, and informative survey by a preeminent contributor to the whole field of the aesthetics of the environment.Find this resource: Hepburn, Ronald Contemporary Aesthetics and the Neglect of Natural Beauty. InBritish Analytical Philosophy. Edited by Bernard Williams and Alan Montefiore, 285310. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A much cited early exploration, within analytic philosophy, of aesthetics applied to the natural world. Helped to launch interest in environmental aesthetics.Find this resource: Parsons, Glenn.Aesthetics and Nature. London: Continuum, 2008.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation A clearly written and informative introduction to the philosophical debates.Find this resource: Saito, Yuriko.Everyday Aesthetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.Save Citation Export Citation E-mail Citation An illuminating introduction and contribution to a growing branch of aesthetics, concerning aesthetic responses to ordinary objects and everyday situations.Find this resource:back to top