Those who have views about the relation between aesthetic and ethical value often also have views about the nature of art criticism. Yet no one has paid much attention to the compatibility of views in one debate with views in the other. This is worrying in light of a tension between two popular kinds of view: namely, between critical pluralism and any view in the art and ethics debate that presupposes an invariant relation between aesthetic value and ethical value. Specifically, (...) the tension with invariance arises insofar as critical pluralism accommodates the aesthetic value of interpretive richness, including the aesthetic value of ethically conflicted interpretive richness. Given this tension, a shift of focus is needed in the art and ethics debate; from specifying the criteria for the aesthetic relevance of a work's ethical qualities to defending the fundamental nature of the aesthetic-ethical value relation. (shrink)

explanation is of course that Arnheim was working against the assumption that film cannot be art because it is mere mechanical recording. Thus what he needed to emphasize were all the ways in which film fails to accurately reproduce reality.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/digital-art/.

Leading young scholars present a collection of wide-ranging essays covering central problems in meta-aesthetics and aesthetic issues in the philosophy of mind, as well as offering analyses of key aesthetic concepts, new perspectives on the history of aesthetics, and specialized treatment of individual art forms.

This article surveys the current debate among analytic philosophers and film narratologists about the logic and phenomenology of cinematic narration. Particular attention is given to the question of whether every film that represents a fictional narrative also represents a narrator's fictional narration.

This volume advances the contemporary debate on five central issues in the philosophy of film. These issues concern the relation between the art and technology of film, the nature of film realism, how narrative fiction films narrate, how we engage emotionally with films, and whether films can philosophize. Two new essays by leading figures in the field present different views on each issue. The paired essays contain significant points of both agreement and disagreement; new theories and frameworks are proposed at (...) the same time as authors review the current state of debate. Given their combination of richness and clarity, the essays in this volume can effectively engage both students, undergraduate or graduate, and academic researchers. (shrink)

Even though philosophy of film is a relatively small and relatively young philosophical subfield, I argue that it is well worth a dedicated undergraduate course. I outline such a course below, with reference to particular anthologies of readings and a corresponding list of central topics. I recommend adopting a broad conception of film, to include moving image works in a range of formats and technological media, as well as an inclusive approach to philosophizing about film, one that draws on the (...) history of film theory, both the analytic and the continental philosophical traditions, critical race theory, and feminist theory. The aim of a philosophy of film course is to hone students’ philosophical skills in the service of a deeper appreciation of the art of moving images. (shrink)

Even though philosophy of film is a relatively small and relatively young philosophical subfield, I argue that it is well worth a dedicated undergraduate course. I outline such a course below, with reference to particular anthologies of readings and a corresponding list of central topics. I recommend adopting a broad conception of film, to include moving image works in a range of formats and technological media, as well as an inclusive approach to philosophizing about film, one that draws on the (...) history of film theory, both the analytic and the continental philosophical traditions, critical race theory, and feminist theory. The aim of a philosophy of film course is to hone students’ philosophical skills in the service of a deeper appreciation of the art of moving images. (shrink)

Image in the Making examines the ways in which digital technology changes our understanding of and engagement with the visual arts. At the current stage of development in digital technology, we cannot always tell, just by looking, that an image was made with digital - versus analog - tools. But a case can be made for fully appreciating an image only in terms of its underlying digital structure and technology.

This paper reveals an ulterior motive for insisting on the necessary presence of narrators in film: the desire to fit film into a literary paradigm. Despite important theoretical links between film and literature, the assumption that films must be like novels in always having narrators is unsound. By moving beyond literature in the comparison of narrative media, and focusing specifically on cases of ‘breaking the fourth wall’ in film and theatre, we find that the presence and function of a cinematic (...) narrator depends as much on the features of a specific work as it does on the nature of narrative. (shrink)