Piracy is the greatest threat facing the global music industry today. This study explores the effects of artist adoration and the perceived risk of being caught on the attitude and intention to engage in pirating a digital song among college students. The moderating effect of cultural environment factor is also examined. Experiments using between-group factorial designs were conducted in the United States and Taiwan. The results show that perceived risk of getting caught and cultural environment are important factors that (...) can significantly affect the attitude and intention toward downloading unauthorized music. In addition, a two-way (Perceived Risk ? Culture) and a three-way interaction in the model are also observed. (shrink)

Artistic Creation and Ethical Criticism investigates an idea that underpins the ethical criticism of art but is rarely acknowledged and poorly understood - namely, that the ethical criticism of art involves judgments not only of the attitudes a work endorses or solicits, but of what artists do to create the work. The book pioneers an innovative production-oriented approach to the study of the ethical criticism of art, one that will provide a refined philosophical account of this important topic as (...) well as conceptual tools that can guide future philosophizing and criticism. (shrink)

The subject of the study is the semantic content of cultural diplomacy. The relevance of addressing this topic is determined by the specifics of the current stage of development of international relations, when cultural diplomacy finds itself in a situation of sharply narrowed opportunities amid the intensification of counterproductive strategies of “cancel culture.” The purpose of the work is to trace the features of the disclosure of values and meanings of the period of recent sociocultural turbulence. The objectives of the (...) study are 1) to clarify the nature of the attitude of representatives of creative professions to the political and ideological realities of the time; 2) highlight the difference between the dichotomies “political / non-political” and “official / unofficial”; 3) establish the significance of each part of these dichotomies in solving the problems of cultural diplomacy; 4) to trace theoretical and practical approaches to the components of these dichotomies on the part of representatives of artistic culture in the light of the paradigm of meaning-making as a key value of culture; 5) determine the possibilities and boundaries of interaction between representatives of creative professions and the political context of their activities. The research methodology is based on an integrated approach based on data from cultural history, cultural anthropology, and political psychology within the framework of the theory of intercultural communication. The key method used is categorical analysis, as well as discourse analysis, which allows us to trace blocks of value preferences, taking into account the characteristics of current historical and cultural processes. The novelty of the study lies in identifying the possibilities and boundaries for the development of cultural contacts in an era of current turbulence (primarily political), when, against the backdrop of the intensification of “cancel culture,” the possibilities for such interactions are reduced. (shrink)

We are living in an increasingly complex world. How are we able to cope with this complexity and the difficulties that arise from it? Can philosophy and art, classified as the two utmost useless and pointless disciplines, have any (positive) influence on the urgent and pressing problems at hand? And, related to this, if the two have more than just their uselessness in common, how, then, are philosophy and art related? In this article, I will argue that although ‘useless’ disciplines (...) such as philosophy and art have no direct influence on our complex world, they are nonetheless the most important ones, because those working within them practice their insights in an indirect way. Indirect influence may take a little longer, but the impact is much stronger, affecting our thinking and our attitudes from within, as it were. This indirect approach has everything to do with the sort of questions philosophers and artists occupy themselves with. I will show how both address, albeit each in their own way, fundamental questions, and thereby make use of thought experiments. Intuition and imagination play a decisive part in the creative processes that are involved in thought experiments and thinking. It is argued that we all are able to learn a ‘delayed unconscious thinking’ that leads to an artistic attitude; one that will activate an artistic turn. (shrink)

What is the relationship between negative experience, artistic production, and prudential value? If it were true that (for some people) artistic creativity must be purchased at the price of negative experience (to be clear: currently no one knows whether this is true), what should we conclude about the value of such experiences? Are they worth it for the sake of art? The first part of this essay considers general questions about how to establish the positive extrinsic value of (...) something intrinsically negative. The second part emphasizes the importance of various distinctions within the realm of the negative. We must distinguish between adversity (which is non-mental) and negative mental states, and between negative thoughts (or attitudes) and negative affect. Within the realm of negative affect, we must distinguish between negative emotions and moods, on the one hand, and negative affective perspectives on the other, and then between mildly negative affective perspectives and severely negative ones (for which I reserve the term ‘suffering’). These distinctions matter greatly, since different types of negative experience have very different degrees of prudential disvalue. Although many types of negative experience may be “worth it”—because their positive extrinsic value outweighs their negative value—this is rarely true of severe suffering. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Why Artists StarveKevin MelchionneAlthough cultural types may fear being branded as philistines for saying so, a remarkable amount of contemporary art is so awful that the very fact and regularity of this awfulness is in want of an explanation. Outside the art world, this observation is jejune. Inside, it makes for immediate disqualification. Is there something about the most common artistic motivations and attitudes that make this awfulness (...) bound to happen yet hard for insiders to sniff out?There are probably many factors in need of elaboration. One reason is widespread self-deception about the motivations for pursuing art. We often hear artists explain their commitment to art by a desire to express themselves or develop their gifts. We hear of a love of beauty or the challenges of craft or the chance for insight into self and world. Frequently, artists describe being called to art, a feeling of being chosen by art rather than choosing it. These are familiar accounts of what makes a life or career in art worth pursuing. But the piety of these high sounding explanations is strikingly incongruent with so much—though by no means all—contemporary art and suggests that, among artists, self-deception about motivations looms large.Franz Kafka's "A Hunger Artist" is a parable of artistic motivation and a case study in the self-deception of the artist. In the brief story, Kafka unwinds an account of artistic motivation that begins with the familiar explanations but gives way eventually to less flattering admissions about artistic ambition. Professional fasting ultimately becomes a path to truth for the hunger artist. But the truth that it yields reduces [End Page 142] art from a source of intrinsic value to a somewhat desperate form of attention seeking. In the figure of the hunger artist, Kafka captures one self-delusion common among artists.IIn "A Hunger Artist," Kafka charts the decline of an accomplished artist.1 Kafka tells us that the artist, a practitioner of what the author describes as a now forgotten genre of performance art known as professional fasting, garners a degree of notoriety for his ability to sustain fasts of death-defying lengths. Half-art, half-sport, Kafka's professional fasting amounts to sitting in a contained but public space such as a cage, where the fast is observable round-the-clock by watchers whose job is to verify its authenticity. The fast is also subject to the attention of paying spectators. Presumably, it is this commercial element as well as the secular hubbub surrounding the fast that most distinguishes it from religious fasting (out of which artistic fasting must have emerged sometime in previous centuries, had Kafka also bothered to concoct a history of the practice). A professional fast typically lasts for periods of up to the biblically resonant forty days, after which the artist is carried from his cage with great fanfare to a modest, performance ending breakfast. Through the practice of fasting, the hunger artist lifts self-denial and by implication, self-control, to the level of virtuosity. The grace of the fast and even a sense of moderate contentment in it are part of what is on display for the audience.Notwithstanding a light routine of bonhomie, Kafka's hunger artist remains distant from his audience. He is neither buoyed by their adoration nor deflated by their vulgarity. Instead, the hunger artist seems entirely sustained by his practice. In his self-possession, we glimpse a familiar ideal of the authentic artist devoted to his practice for the sake of its intrinsic rewards. Indeed, doubts about the authenticity of his performance only fuel the hunger artist's determination. Far from insulted by the zeal of official observers, the hunger artist welcomes their vigilance. In their distrust of the hunger artist, the most severe of watchers convey a respect for the practice of professional fasting. Their desire to scrupulously ratify the authenticity of his effort is also an endorsement of its value. The earnestness of the referees pleases the hunger artist, though we are assured that their presence hardly matters. As in any authentic art, the bystanding critics are hardly necessary to ensure the integrity of the performance... (shrink)

§49 of the Critique of the Power of Judgment concludes with a striking claim regarding the freedom required for artistic expression. Kant classifies Mannerism as aping, but considers manner the only valid means of artistic expression. These opposed uses of maniera echo a historical controversy, which finds reconciliation in Kant in what I call artistic autonomy. For Kant, artistic expression of genuine originality requires autonomous action, the individual manner in which an artist selects, transforms and applies (...) given academic rules, in a way that renders an aesthetic vision meaningful. His grave concern is that artists, in their aspiration to innovate, might make the freedom to modify and transform rules into the very aim of their artistic endeavor. In order to grasp the full significance of Kant’s view, I examine the contradictory attitudes towards maniera articulated by Vasari and Bellori. Kant’s account of artistic autonomy offers an understanding of artistic succession, different from that of his predecessors. (shrink)

This study investigates how patterns of media use and exposure to media messages are related to attitudes about artificial intelligence (AI) image generators. In doing so, it builds on theoretical accounts of media framing and public opinion about science and technology topics, including AI. The analyses draw on data from a survey of the US public (N = 1,035) that included an experimental manipulation of exposure to tweets framing AI image generators in terms of real art, artists’ concerns, artists’ outrage, (...) or competing interpretations. The results show that technology news use and science fiction viewing predicted support for AI art but also predicted belief that AI image generators will take jobs and steal art styles from human artists. In addition, the experimental results demonstrate that exposure to specific media messages can influence these responses. The findings carry implications for understanding the future adoption, use, and regulation of AI image generators. (shrink)

Two of the principal roles or positions in the aesthetic/artistic situation are those of artist and aesthete. The former is obviously primarily a creative role, while the latter is obviously primarily an appreciative role. And these roles, as we know, are also interdependent: aesthetes would have little, or at any rate less, to appreciate without artists, while artists would have little, or at any rate less, creative motivation without appreciators, with aesthetes as the most important vanguard therein. But what, (...) more significantly, differentiates artist and aesthete? Do the basic impulses of the two tribes coincide, or are they rather in conflict? Is being an artist fully compatible with being an aesthete, or might there be a fundamental tension between those identities? Are the same talents, inclinations, and attitudes essential to being a successful artist those which make for a successful aesthete, or are they at some level at war with one another? These are some of the questions that are explored in this article. (shrink)

In the course of ten short sections, we comment on Gödel's seminal dialectica paper of fifty years ago and its aftermath. We start by suggesting that Gödel's use of functionals of finite type is yet another instance of the realistic attitude of Gödel towards mathematics, in tune with his defense of the postulation of ever increasing higher types in foundational studies. We also make some observations concerning Gödel's recasting of intuitionistic arithmetic via the dialectica interpretation, discuss the extra principles (...) that the interpretation validates and comment on extensionality and higher order equality. The latter sections focus on the role of majorizability considerations within the dialectica and related interpretations for extracting computational information from ordinary proofs in mathematics. (shrink)

Should we take into account an artist's personal moral failings when appreciating or evaluating the work? In this essay, I seek to expand Berys Gaut's account of ethicism by showing how moral judgment of an artist's private moral actions can figure in one's overall evaluation of their work. To expand Gaut's view, I argue that the artist's personal morality is relevant to our evaluation of their work because we may only come to understand the point of view of the work, (...) and therefore the work's prescribed attitude, by examining the values, attitudes, and behaviors of the artist. This view is defended against a rival account offered by Bernard Wills and Jason Holt, which holds that the artistic evaluation of an artist's work is independent from the moral evaluation of their life except in extreme cases. (shrink)

This review essay emphasizes the distinction between academic art history, based ultimately on the model of scientific research, and the sort that Roberto Calasso practices in his 2009 study Tiepolo in Pink. It is difficult to locate the book's genre, and the reviewer rejects identifying it as a biography (of the sort practiced by Irving Stone, Somerset Maugham, and Dimitri Merejkovski), since Calasso, like most other writers on Tiepolo, stresses how little we know about his personality, which was elusive, and (...) about his private life, which was undramatic. What chiefly interests both Calasso and the reviewer is whether Tiepolo, whose ceiling frescoes are without gravity—their “antigravity” draws the painted figures upward—is an artist without gravitas. The reviewer supports Calasso's argument that the thirty-two etchings comprising the Capricci and Scherzi make it absurd to consider Tiepolo artistically, intellectually, or morally frivolous. “Scientific” art historians have applied the category of “decoration” to these somber etchings, with their incomprehensible allegories, but Calasso, himself an artist (a novelist), approaches these pictures without scientific prejudice. The reviewer traces the dour attitude of mainstream art historians toward Tiepolo to his rivalry for commissions in the 1760s with Anton Raphael Mengs, a representative of the rising Enlightenment cult of virtue and the austere aesthetics of a rising neoclassicism. From that time on, art historians have treated Tiepolo's work as unhealthy, lightweight, and bizarre, but this review supports Calasso's claim that his work is actually sober and moving. The review concludes that there are artists whom the narrow sensibility of standard art historians will never be able to accommodate, Tiepolo being only one among several. (shrink)

This paper explores and highlights the value given to craftsmanship or technê in the community of liefhebbers and artists associated with the pictures of collections genre. Taking as its case study a group of gallery interiors by the probable inventor and leading light of the genre, Frans II Francken, it places pictures of collections within the reform of attitudes towards manual dexterity and the mechanical arts that took place in the Early Modern period. Antwerp gallery interiors exemplify the intellectual metamorphosis (...) of the hand, urging us to see in them an appeal both to the senses and to the intellect, which are fused together by the skilled artist?s technical facility. (shrink)

In the course of ten short sections, we comment on Gödel's seminal dialectica paper of fifty years ago and its aftermath. We start by suggesting that Gödel's use of functionals of finite type is yet another instance of the realistic attitude of Gödel towards mathematics, in tune with his defense of the postulation of ever increasing higher types in foundational studies. We also make some observations concerning Gödel's recasting of intuitionistic arithmetic via the dialectica interpretation, discuss the extra principles (...) that the interpretation validates and comment on extensionality and higher order equality. The latter sections focus on the role of majorizability considerations within the dialectica and related interpretations for extracting computational information from ordinary proofs in mathematics. (shrink)

In this important article, first published in 1917, the Czech aesthetician, musicologist, and composer Otakar Zich (1879--1934) distinguishes between two kinds of evaluation of a work of art: aesthetic evaluation and artistic evaluation. He bases this differentiation on two possible attitudes that a perceiver may have towards a work of art. The first originates solely in the perceiver’s experience of the work and his or her search for a feeling of pleasure. It reflects only the subjective preferences of the (...) individual; Zich terms the corresponding value ‘relative aesthetic value’. Above the relative value of an emotional effect there is an evaluation of a higher order, which consists in ‘comprehending’ a work of art. It is to this evaluation that artistic value corresponds. According to Zich, however, this objective value is grounded not in the work itself, but in the distinctive ‘personal value’ of the artist. In artistic evaluation, the work of art is therefore evaluated as a manifestation of strong artistic individuality. (shrink)

This project explores vaccine hesitancy through an artist–scientist collaboration. It aims to create better understanding of vaccine hesitant parents’ health beliefs and how these influence their vaccine-critical decisions. The project interviews vaccine-hesitant parents in the Netherlands and Finland and develops experimental visual-narrative means to analyse the interview data. Vaccine-hesitant parents’ health beliefs are, in this study, expressed through stories, and they are paralleled with so-called illness narratives. The study explores the following four main health beliefs originating from the parents’ interviews: (...) perceived benefits of illness, belief in the body’s intelligence and self-healing capacity, beliefs about the “inside–outside” flow of substances in the body, and view of death as a natural part of life. These beliefs are interpreted through arts-based diagrammatic representations. These diagrams, merging multiple aspects of the parents’ narratives, are subsequently used in a collaborative meaning-making dialogue between the artist and the scientist. The resulting dialogue contrasts the health beliefs behind vaccine hesitancy with scientific knowledge, as well as the authors’ personal, and differing, attitudes toward these. (shrink)

In Australia, the university ethics approval process is guided by the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research. The National Statement does not provide a hurdle to be overcome or avoided, nor is it a Godzilla-like monster that must be slain for truth to survive. Rather the National Statement provides an affirmation of an abiding respect for all life and a mechanism for beginning the intelligent questioning, theorization and contextualization for a work of art. Focusing specifically on the emergent (...) discipline of artistic research, this article addresses the question of how the supervisory process may take on the ‘spirit’ of the National Statement to engender genuine ethical debate, rather than merely focus on the instrumental obstacles that seem to get in the way of the research. It specifically addresses the emergent field of artistic research and the concomitant resistance to ethical regulation of artistic research, in which bureaucratic instrumentalism and compliance or censorship are considered to potentially emasculate the vitality of an art work and the ability of art to serve as a truthsayer or agent provocateur. In this, the attitude of the supervisor toward research ethics in artistic research is considered a key factor in determining their students attitudes towards the ethics process. This article will present several initiatives undertaken with the intent of more fully engaging supervisors and students with research ethics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 40.4 (2006) 39-50 MuseSearchJournalsThis JournalContents[Access article in PDF]The Acquisitive AttitudeDavid E. W. FennerAt my university, a small regional university in the south, I teach many "general education" courses in philosophy. The majority of freshmen and sophomores who populate these courses have never seen a dance performance, an opera, a symphony, or a stage play. Many have never been to an art gallery. At this (...) small university we have an active gallery; 1 besides the student and faculty shows each year, we can count on at least a half dozen other exhibitions, either single-artist shows or thematic compilations. Except when prepping for an upcoming show, the gallery is never closed. This means there are ample occasions for me to take my general education students for a visit to the gallery. In preparing them for our little field trip, I try to find a balance between two things. On the one hand, I want to leave the occasion open-ended to promote whatever sorts of personal experiences they may have in connection with viewing the artworks; the idea that they may come out of the gallery thinking this was yet one more meaningless academic exercise they had to endure makes me physically ill (so great is my passion for this opportunity to introduce them to their first art gallery experience). On the other hand, without any structure, many students will walk through the space at a brisk pace and exit quickly. This again would be a serious failure. Therefore, I give them an assignment for their visit, one that is meant to spotlight their potential enjoyment of the gallery while at the same time engaging them critically. The assignment is simple: "choose your favorite piece and be prepared to give some reasons for why this piece is better than the rest; and choose your least favorite piece and be prepared to offer some reasons for why this piece is worse than the rest." The reasons that I get back, in support of both of their judgments, frequently turn on traditional things like the representational quality of the (mimetic) work, the emotional content—either expressed or inspired—and formal considerations like balance and elegance. The conflation between identifying artistic [End Page 39] merit and their own, perhaps fairly naive, reactions is something I do not worry about at this level. This conflation may be warranted in certain theories of artistic worth—and it is something I am sympathetic to—but the real point is to encourage in the students a connection between enjoyment of the experience of viewing art and viewing it with a critical eye. If I can introduce just that one concept, the field trip has been a success. I can build on that later.I take a "critical thinking" approach to art criticism. I believe that the evaluative aspects of art criticism essentially have to do with advancing claims for which arguments and evidence can be offered. If critical thinking means seeking out and being able to advance reasons for the adoption or holding of a position, and this requires the logical skills involved with correct argument formulation and the epistemic skills involved with quality evidence gathering, then art criticism is essentially critical thinking applied to a certain content: art. Art evaluation happens in two arenas. First, there are issues of context and issues of subjectivity (Where did this work come from? Who did it? How does this work relate to other works and other times? How does this work connect to values other than purely aesthetic—or, better, artistic—ones, such as moral ones?). The effects of these sorts of considerations are relative to the viewer, her access and attention to information about the work, and the experience of viewing. The second arena is the one internal to the work itself. This is the formalist arena. Advancing a claim concerning the work's possession of a certain aesthetic feature generally takes the form of evidencing that possession on the basis of the work's possession of certain nonaesthetic, or... (shrink)

This guide accompanies the following article: Matthew Kieran, ‘Art, Morality and Ethics: On the (Im)moral Character of Art Works and Inter‐Relations to Artistic Value’. Philosophy Compass 1/2 (2006): pp. 129–143, doi: 10.1111/j.1747‐9991.2006.00019.x Author’s Introduction Up until fairly recently it was philosophical orthodoxy – at least within analytic aesthetics broadly construed – to hold that the appreciation and evaluation of works as art and moral considerations pertaining to them are conceptually distinct. However, following on from the idea that artistic (...) value is broader than aesthetic value, the last 15 years has seen an explosion of interest in exploring possible inter‐relations between the appreciative and ethical character of works as art. Consideration of these issues has a distinguished philosophical history but as the Compass survey article suggests (‘Art, Morality and Ethics: On the (Im)Moral Character of Art Works and Inter‐Relations to Artistic Value.’Philosophy Compass 1.2 (2006): 129–43), it is only very recently that figures in the field have returned to it to develop more precisely what they take the relationships to be and why. Consensus is, unsurprisingly, lacking. The reinvigoration of the issues has led sophisticated formalists or autonomists to mount a more considered defence of the idea that aesthetic and literary values are indeed conceptually distinct from the justification or otherwise of the moral perspective or views endorsed in a work (Topic I). The challenges presented by such a defence are many but amongst them are appeals to critical practice (Lamarque and Olsen), scepticism about whether or not art really can give us bona fide knowledge (Stolnitz) and the recognition that truth often seems to be far removed from what it is we value in our appreciation of works (Lamarque). One way to motivate consideration of the relevance of a work’s moral character to its artistic value concerns the phenomena of imaginative resistance. At least sometimes it would seem that, as Hume originally suggested, we either cannot or will not enter imaginatively into the perspective solicited by a work due to its morally problematic character (Topic II). In some cases, it would seem that as a matter of psychological fact, we cannot do so since it is impossible for us to imagine how it could be that a certain attitude or action is morally permissible or good (Walton). The question then is whether or not this is a function of morality in particular or constraints on imaginative possibility more generally and what else is involved. At other times, the phenomena seem to be driven by a moral reluctance to allow ourselves to enter into the dramatic perspective involved (Moran) or evaluation of the attitude expressed (Stokes). Nonetheless, it is far from obvious that this is so of all the attitudes or responses we judge to be morally problematic. After all, it looks like we can and indeed often do suspend or background particular cognitive and moral commitments in engaging with all sorts of works (Nichols and Weinberg). If the moral character of a work interacts with how we appreciate and evaluate them, then the pressing question is this: is there any systematic account of the relationship available to us? One way is to consider the relationship between our emotional responses to works and their moral character (Topic III). After all, art works often solicit various emotional responses from us to follow the work and make use of moral concepts in so doing (Carroll). Indeed, whether or not a work merits the sought for emotional responses often seems to be internally related to ethical considerations (Gaut). Yet, it is not obvious that we should apply our moral concepts or respond emotionally in our imaginative engagement with works as art as we should in real life (Kieran, Jacobson). A different route is via the thought that art can convey knowledge (Topic IV). There might be particular kinds of moral knowledge art distinctively suited to conveying (Nussbaum) or it may just be that art does so particularly effectively (Carroll, Gaut, Kieran). Either way where this can be tied to the artistic means and appreciation of a work it would seem that to cultivate moral understanding contributes to the value of a work and to betray misunderstanding is a defect. Without denying the relevance of the moral character of a work some authors have wanted to claim that sometimes the immoral aspect of a work can contribute to rather than lessen its artistic value (Topic V). One route is to claim that there is no systematic theoretical account of the relationship available and what the right thing to say is depends on the particular case involved (Jacobson). Another involves the claim that this is so when the defect connects up in an appropriate way to one of the values of art. Thus, it has been claimed, only where a work reveals something which adds to intelligibility, knowledge or understanding in virtue of its morally problematic aspect can this be so (Kieran). The latter position looks like it could in principle be held whilst nonetheless maintaining that the typical or standard relationship is as the moralists would have it. Yet perhaps allowing valence change for such reasons is less a mark of principled explanation and more a function of downright inconsistency or incoherence (Harold). The topics themselves and suggested readings given below follow the structure articulated above as further amplified in the Compass survey article. The design and structure given below can be easily compressed or expanded further. Author Recommends 1 Carroll, Noël. ‘Art, Narrative and Moral Understanding.’Aesthetics and Ethics: Essay at the Intersection. Ed. Jerrold Levinson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998. 126–60. 2 This article develops the idea that engaging with narrative art calls on moral concepts and emotions and can thereby clarify our moral understanding. 2 Carroll, Noël. Beyond Aesthetics: Philosophical Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009. 4 Part IV consists of six distinct essays on questions concerning the inter‐relations between art and morality including the essay cited above and the author’s articulation and defence of moderate moralism. 3 Gaut, Berys. ‘The Ethical Criticism of Art.’Aesthetics and Ethics: Essay at the Intersection. Ed. Jerrold Levinson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998. 182–203. 4 Gaut, Berys. Art, Emotion and Ethics. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007. 7 This monograph provides the most exhaustive treatment of the issues and defends the claim that, where relevant, whenever a work is morally flawed it is of lesser value as art and wherever it is morally virtuous the work’s value as art is enhanced. Chapters 7 and 8 defend concern ethical knowledge and chapter 10 is a development of the article cited above concerning emotional responses. Chapter 3 also gives a useful conceptual map of the issues and options in the debate. 5 Jacobson, Daniel. ‘In Praise of Immoral Art.’Philosophical Topics 25 (1997): 155–99. 9 A wide ranging and extended treatment of relevant issues which objects to generalising moral treatments of our responses to art works and defends the idea that particular works can be better because of rather than despite their moral defects. 6 Kieran, Matthew. ‘Forbidden Knowledge: The Challenge of Cognitive Immoralism.’Art and Morality. Ed. Sebastian Gardner and José Luis Bermúdez. London: Routledge, 2003. 56–73. 11 A general argument for immoralism is elaborated by outlining when, where and why a work’s morally problematic character can contribute to its artistic value for principled reasons (through enhancing moral understanding). 7 Kieran, Matthew. Revealing Art. London: Routledge, 2005. Chapter 4. 13 This chapter argues against both aestheticism and straightforward moralism about art, elaborating a defence of immoralism in relation to visual art whilst ranging over issues from pornographic art to the nature and demands of different genres in art. 8 Lamarque, Peter. ‘Cognitive Values in the Arts: Marking the Boundaries.’ Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Ed. Matthew Kieran. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006, 127–39. 15 This article concisely outlines and defends a sophisticated aestheticism that denies the importance of truth to artistic value. 9 Stolnitz, Jerome. ‘On the Cognitive Triviality of Art.’British Journal of Aesthetics 32.3 (1992): 191–200. 17 This article articulates and defends the claim that no knowledge of any interesting or significant kind can be afforded by works appreciated and evaluated as art. 10 Walton, Kendall. ‘Morals in Fiction and Fictional Morality, I.’Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Suppl. 68 (1994): 27–51. 19 This article builds on some comments from Hume to develop the idea that when engaging with fictions it seems impossible imaginatively to enter into radically deviant moral attitudes. Online Materials ‘Aesthetics and Ethics: The State of the Art.’American Society of Aesthetics online (Jeffrey Dean):. ‘Art, Censorship and Morality’ downloadable podcast of Nigel Warburton interviewing Matthew Kieran at Tate Britain (BBC/ou Open2.net as part of the Ethics Bites series):. ‘Art, Morality and Ethics: On the (Im)Moral Character of Art Works and Inter‐Relations to Artistic Value.’Philosophy Compass 1.2 (2006): 129–43 (Matthew Kieran):. ‘Ethical Criticism of Art.’Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Ella Peek):. ‘Fascinating Fascism.’New York Review of Books Piece Discussing Leni Riefenstahl (Susan Sontag):. ‘The Beheading of St. John the Baptist (1450s), Giovanni de Paolo’ (Tom Lubbock):. Vladimir Nabokov and Lionel Trilling discuss Lolita (CBS):. Sample Syllabus Topic I Autonomism/aestheticism • Anderson, James C. and Jeffrey T. Dean. ‘Moderate Autonomism.’British Journal of Aesthetics 38.2 (1998): 150–66. • Beardsley, Monroe. Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1958. Chapter 12. • Kant, Immanuel. The Critique of Judgement.Trans. James Creed Meredith. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1952 [1790]. • Lamarque, Peter. ‘Cognitive Values in the Arts: Marking the Boundaries.’Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Ed. Matthew Kieran. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006, 127–39. • ——. ‘Tragedy and Moral Value.’Australasian Journal of Philosophy 73.2 (1995): 239–49. • Lamarque, Peter and Stein Olsen. Truth, Fiction and Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. Chapter 10. • Stolnitz, Jerome. ‘On the Cognitive Triviality of Art.’British Journal of Aesthetics 32.3 (1992): 191–200. Topic II Imaginative Capacities, Intelligibility and Resistance • Moran, Richard. ‘The Expression of Feeling in Imagination.’Philosophical Review 103.1 (1994): 75–106. • Nichols, Shaun. ‘Just the Imagination: Why Imagining Doesn’t Behave Like Believing’. Mind & Language 21.4 (2006): 459–74. • Stokes, Dustin. ‘The Evaluative Character of Imaginative Resistance’. British Journal of Aesthetics 46.4 (2006): 387–405. • Tanner, Michael. ‘Morals in Fiction and Fictional Morality, II’. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Suppl. Vol. 68 (1994): 51–66. • Walton, Kendall (1994). ‘Morals in Fiction and Fictional Morality, I’. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Suppl. Vol. 68 (1994): 27–51. • Weinberg, Jonathan. ‘Configuring the Cognitive Imagination.’New Waves in Aesthetics. Eds. K. Stock and K. Thomson‐Jones. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. 203–23. Topic III Moralism and Emotions • Carroll, Noël. ‘Moderate Moralism.’British Journal of Aesthetics 36.3 (1996): 223–37. • Carroll, Noël. ‘Art, Narrative and Moral Understanding.’Aesthetics and Ethics: Essay at the Intersection. Ed. Jerrold Levinson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998.126–60. • Gaut, Berys. Art, Emotion and Ethics. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007. Chapter 10. • ——. ‘The Ethical Criticism of Art.’Aesthetics and Ethics: Essay at the Intersection. Ed. Jerrold Levinson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998. 182–203. • Hume, David. ‘Of the Standard of Taste.’Selected Essays. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993 [1757]. 133–53. • Kieran, Matthew. ‘Emotions, Art and Immorality.’Oxford Handbook to the Philosophy of Emotions. Ed. Peter Goldie. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009. 681–703. • Tolstoy, Leo. What is Art?. London: Penguin, 2004. Chapters 5 and 15. Topic IV Moralism and Knowledge • Aristotle. Poetics. Trans. M. Heath. London: Penguin, 1996 [367–322 BC]. • Carroll, Noël. ‘The Wheel of Virtue: Art, Literature and Moral Knowledge.’Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 60.1 (2002): 3–26. • Gaut, Berys. Art, Emotion and Ethics. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007. Chapters 7 and 8. • Gaut, Berys. ‘Art and Cognition.’Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Ed. Matthew Kieran. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. 115–26. • Kieran, Matthew. ‘Art, Imagination and the Cultivation of Morals.’Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 54.4 (1996): 337–51. • Nussbaum, Martha. ‘Finely Aware and Richly Responsible: Literature and the Moral Imagination.’Love’s Knowledge. New York: Oxford UP, 1990. 148–68. • Plato. The Republic. Trans. D. Lee. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974. Book 10. Topic V Immoralist Contextualism • Harold, James. ‘Immoralism and the Valence Constraint.’British Journal of Aesthetics 48.1 (2008): 45–64. • Jacobson, Daniel. ‘In Praise of Immoral Art.’Philosophical Topics 25 (1997): 155–99. • ——. ‘Ethical Criticism and the Vices of Moderation.’Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Ed. Matthew Kieran. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. 342–55. • John, Eileen. ‘Artistic Value and Moral Opportunism.’Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Ed. Matthew Kieran. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. 331–41. • Kieran, Matthew. ‘Forbidden Knowledge:The Challenge of Cognitive Immoralism.’Art and Morality. Ed. Sebastian Gardner and José Luis Bermúdez. London: Routledge, 2003. 56–73. • Kieran, Matthew. Revealing Art. London: Routledge, 2005. Chapter 4. • Patridge, Stephanie. ‘Moral Vices as Artistic Virtues: Eugene Onegin and Alice.’Philosophia 36.2 (2008): 181–93. Focus Questions 1 What is the strongest argument for the claim that the moral character of a work is not relevant to its artistic value? Does artistic or literary criticism tend to concern itself with the truth or morality of works? If so, in what ways? If not, why do you think this is? 2 What different explanations might there be for difficulty with or resistance to imaginatively entering into attitudes you take to be immoral? How might this relate to the way our imaginings work as contrasted with belief? How might different literary or artistic treatments of the same subject matter make a difference? 3 How do narrative works draw on our moral concepts and responses? Can we suspend our normal moral commitments or application of moral concepts in responding emotionally to art works? Should we respond emotionally to art works as we ought to respond to real world events we witness? Why? Why not? 4 How, if at all, do art works convey moral understanding? How, if at all, is this related to the kinds of moral knowledge art works can teach or reveal to us? When, where and why might this be tied to the artistic value of a work? How can we tell where a work enhances our moral understanding as opposed to misleading or distorting it? 5 What art works do you value overall as art which commend or endorse moral values and attitudes that you do not? Is appreciation of them always marred or lessened by the morally dubious aspect? If not, what explains the differences in evaluation? What, if anything, might you learn by engaging with works which endorse moral attitudes or apply moral concepts different from those you take to be justified? How, if at all, might this connect up with what makes them valuable as art? (shrink)

Attempts to account for the phenomenal character of perceptual experiences have so far largely focused on their sensory aspects. The first aim of this article is to support the claim that phenomenal character has another, significant, aspect—the phenomenal realm is suffused with valence. What it’s like to undergo perceptual experiences—from pains to supposedly “neutral” visual experiences—standardly feels good or bad to some degree. The second aim is to argue, by appealing to theoretical and empirical considerations pertaining to the phenomenon of (...) valence-variance, that perceptual valence cannot be accounted for by extending the prevalent representationalist account of phenomenal character. Thus, a revision in the understanding of phenomenal character is called for. Finally, the phenomenon of valence-variance serves to make some headway toward defending a new Attitudinal-Representational Theory of perceptual valence, according to which perceptual valence is constituted by first-order conative attitudes directed toward the representational objects of experiences. (shrink)

There are many prominent examples of artists with autism. However, even when confronted with evidence of these accomplished autistic savants, pragmatic aesthetic theories cannot adequately account for the work of these accomplished artists as artists. This article first examines the nature of autism and explores a prominent psychological theory that purports to explain autistic symptoms. This prominent theory, the theory of mind thesis, holds that autistic symptoms are the result of the failure of persons with autism to make certain types (...) of secondorder propositional attitude attributions. Second, the article describes the work of three visual artists with autism. There can be no doubt that these individuals are in fact artists. Third, the article examines pragmatic aesthetic theory and demonstrates why the pragmatic theory fails to adequately account for the accomplishment of autistic artists. The unique psychological deficits that characterize autism present a challenge to pragmatic aesthetic theories in particular. The conclusion is that the pragmatic theory’s inability to accommodate the artist autistic artist is a profound shortcoming. A revision of the pragmatic theory is called for, as is embracing of the development of the special talents of persons with autism. (shrink)

Why do we paint pictures? We paint them to instruct, to delight or commemorate loved ones, to convey attitudes or emotions, or for money. Jussi A. Saarinen thin.

This study offers an overview of the opposing attitudes towards the image worship in the Early Christianity and the Late Antiquity. It shows that a dichotomy between creation and veneration of images on one side and iconoclastic tendencies on the other side persisted in the Christian tradition throughout the first seven centuries. While the representations of holy figures and holy events increased in number throughout theByzantine Empire, they led to a puritanical reaction by those who saw the practice of image (...) worship as little removed from the anthropomorphic features of polytheistic religious cults. Hence, as the role of images grew so did the resistance against them, and the two contrasting positions in the Christian context initiated the outbreak of the Iconoclastic Controversy, when the theological discourse concerning icons became ever more subtle, culminating in the development of the iconophile and iconoclastic teachings on the holy images. Both the iconophile and the iconoclasts based their apologia on passages from the Synoptic Gospels, evidence of the artistic tradition as well as florilegia or systematic collections of excerpts from the works of the Fathers and other ecclesiastical writers of the early period in support of their claim; much of this evidence is surveyed in this paper, although the Iconoclastic Controversy is not analysed. (shrink)

If I had read Ted Nannicelli’s (2020) thoughtful and wide-ranging book before writing my own, I would not have written the same book that I did, and my book almost certainly would have been better for it. Ted Nannicelli’s 2020 book has many keen insights, and I learnt much from reading it.There is a great deal of overlap in our philosophical interests as well as in our views. Our books were written at the same time—at least, our writing times overlapped (...) significantly—and by the time Nannicelli's was published, mine was already finalized, and it was too late for me to incorporate his insights into my own book. So I welcome the opportunity, however belated, to think carefully about Nannicelli’s ideas in conversation with my own.The first and most important thing to emphasize is my agreement with Nannicelli on many significant matters. Both Nannicelli and I are critical of the overwhelming focus in the ethical criticism of art on what Nannicelli calls ‘perspectivism’, the view that works of art should be judged morally on the basis of the perspective they take up (or attitude they prescribe, or similar). We are also both sceptical about the strength of the arguments concerning the moral-cognitive benefits of art. Both of us think that we need a more expansive toolkit for thinking about art and morality, including attention to the circumstances under which an artwork is produced. (The latter is something that I discuss only briefly, but Nannicelli is right that it is deserving of more careful attention.) Both of us are neutral about specific normative ethical theories. Nannicelli and I are both worried about the problem of relativism and how that affects how we think about moral judgements of artworks. And I think Nannicelli shares my scepticism about the search for easy answers to hard moral questions about the value of art. (shrink)

Violence turns hope and expectation into guilt and shame. This publication discusses the outcome of a philosophical and artistic investigation into complex patterns of behaviour. Negative connotations and positive aspects of guilt and shame are connected convincingly to the artistic process which is used by the artist to produce new work. As a consequence, a different light is shed on the concepts of guilt and shame. The author shows in an intriguing way how adapting an artistic (...) class='Hi'>attitude can help us think in a more peaceful and independent manner. Over Schuld en Schaamte (On Guilt and Shame) thus offers a new surprising insight how violence can be transformed into hope and more rewarding practices. (shrink)

ArgumentThis essay aims to broaden our understanding of relationships between art, science, and technology during the 1960s by juxtaposing two of the most important, and under-examined, figures of this period, the artist Gyorgy Kepes and the engineer Billy Klüver. While these two are generally linked due to their similarities, a closer examination demonstrates significant differences in their outlook. Comparing the organizations they nurtured, Kepes, the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Klüver, Experiments in Art (...) and Technology, provides unique insight into the distinct origins of such organized collaborations between art, science, and technology. It reveals both how the cultural conditions of the 1960s contributed to the perceived need for such agencies and how interactions between art, science, and technology reflected, at once, the culmination of aspirations reaching back to the opening decades of the twentieth century, and a perceived break with the past. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Books ReceivedThe Ahmadis: Community, Gender, and Politics in a Muslim Society. By Antonio Gualtieri. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2004. Pp. xvi + 192. Hardcover $65.00. Paper Cdn $24.95 / U.S. $19.95.American Knees. By Shawn Wong. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2005. Pp. xxi + 229. Paper $14.95.The Art of Worldly Wisdom. By Baltasar Gracian and translated by Joseph Jacobs. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2005. Pp. (...) xiii + 114. Paper $5.95.Bashō's Journey: The Literary Prose of Matsuo Bashō. Translated by David Landis Barnhill. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. Pp. xvii + 191. Hardcover $59.50. Paper $17.95.Bringing the Gods to Mind: Mantra and Ritual in Early Indian Sacrifice. By Laurie L. Patton. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Pp. xv + 289. Hardcover $49.95/£32.50.Buddhist Inclusivism: Attitudes Towards Religious Others. By Kristin Beise Kiblinger. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2005. Pp. viii + 145. Hardcover $89.95.A Chinese Ethics for the New Century: The Ch'ien Mu Lectures in History and Culture, and Other Essays on Science and Confucian Ethics. By Donald J. Munro. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2005. Pp. xlv + 158. Hardcover $33.00.Chinese Theories of Reading and Writing: A Route to Hermeneutics and Open Poetics. By Ming Dong Gu. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. Pp. xiv + 334. Hardcover $85.00.A Dictionary of Cantonese Slang: The Language of Hong Kong Movies, Street Gangs, and City Life. By Christopher Hutton and Kingsley Bolton. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005. Pp. xxiv + 492. Paper $28.00.Ghazālī and the Poetics of Imagination. By Ebrahim Moosa. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2005. Pp. xiii + 349. Hardcover $59.95. Paper $22.50.Going Forth: Visions of Buddhist Vinaya. Edited by William M. Bodiford. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005. Pp. x + 317. Hardcover $48.00.The Harem: Inside the Grand Seraglio of the Turkish Sultans. By N. M. Penzer. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2005. Pp. 277. Paper $14.95.Ideals of the East: The Spirit of Japanese Art. By Kakuzo Okakura. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2005. Pp. xiv + 106. Paper $5.95. [End Page 365]An Illustrated Chinese Materia Medica. By Jing-Nuan Wu. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Pp. 706. Price not given.Jews and Arabs: A Concise History of Their Social and Cultural Relations. By S. D. Goitein. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2005. Pp. xv + 263. Paper $12.95.The Logic of Nothingness: A Study of Nishida Kitarō. By Robert J. J. Wargo. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005. Pp xi + 241. Paper $25.00.The Moral and Political Thought of Mahatma Gandhi. By Raghavan N. Iyer. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp. xiii + 449. Paper Rs 520.00.Nietzsche's Epic of the Soul: Thus Spoke Zarathustra. By T. K. Seung. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2005. Pp. xxviii + 370. Hardcover $83.00. Paper $27.95.Of Guilds, Companies, Corporations, and Governance: A Conceptual Sketch. By Leonardo R. Silos. Makati City, Philippines: Asian Institute of Management, 2005. Pp. xvi + 238. Price not given.The Path to Rome. By Hilaire Belloc. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2005. Pp. ix + 251. Paper $12.95.The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgātā : A Study based on the Evaluation of the Commentaries of Śamkara, Rāmānuja and Madhva. By S. M. Srinivasa Chari. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 2005. Pp. xxvi + 294. Hardcover Rs 575.00.The Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore. By Kalyan Sen Gupta. Burlington, VT: Ash-gate Publishing Company, 2005. Pp. ix + 103. Hardcover $79.95.The Pristine Dao: Metaphysics in Early Daoist Discourse. By Thomas Michael. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. Pp. xi + 170. Hardcover $60.00. Paper $21.95.Three Mountains and Seven Rivers: Prof. Musashi Tachikawa's Felicitation Volume. Edited by Shoun Hino and Toshihiro Wada. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. 2004. Pp. xx + 903. Hardcover Rs. 1800.The Unity of Mystical Traditions: The Transformation of Consciousness in Tibetan and German Mysticism. By Randall Studstill. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2005. Pp. xii + 304. Hardcover @89/$127.00.Writing the World: On Globalization. Edited by David... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Books ReceivedThe Act of Being: The Philosophy of Revelation in Mullā Sadrā. By Christian Jambet. Brooklyn: Zone Books, 2006. Pp. 497. Hardcover $38.95.Analysis in Śaṅkara Vedānta: The Philosophy of Ganeswar Misra. Edited by Bijayananda Kar. New Delhi: Indian Council of Philosophical Research, 2006. Pp. xxv + 190. Hardcover Rs. 240.00.Bhakti and Philosophy. By R. Raj Singh. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2006. Pp. 112. Hardcover $65.00.Brahman and the Ethos of Organization. (...) By Leonard R. Silos. Paseo de Roxas: Asian Institute of Management, 2006. Pp. xix + 344. Price not given.Buddhist Inclusivism: Attitudes Towards Religious Others. By Kristin Beise Kiblinger. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2005. Pp. viii + 145. Hardcover $89.95.Classical Northern Wu Style Tai Ji Quan: The Fighting Art of the Manchurian Palace Guard. By Tina Chunna Zhang and Frank Allen. Berkeley: Blue Snake Books, 2006. Pp. xiii + 203. Paper $21.95.Classical Sāṃkhya and Yoga: An Indian Metaphysics of Experience. By Mikel Burley. London and New York: Routledge, 2007. Pp. xiv + 226. Price not given.Comparative Philosophy and Religion in Times of Terror. Edited by Douglas Allen. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2006. Pp. xiv + 257. Hardcover $62.00. Paper $32.00.Contemplative Science: Where Buddhism and Neuroscience Converge. By B. Alan Wallace. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. Pp. vii + 211. Hardcover $29.50, £19.00.Contexts and Dialogue: Yogācāra Buddhism and Modern Psychology on the Subliminal Mind. By Tao Jiang. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2006. Pp. xi + 198. Paper $20.00.Dialogue Transcultural. Edited by Yue Diayun et al. Nanjing: Jiangsu Peoples Press, 2006. Pp. 335. Price not given.Dōgen on Meditation and Thinking: A Reflection on His View of Zen. By Hee-Jin Kim. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006. Pp. xiii + 169. Hardcover $65.50. Paper $21.95.The Garden of Loneliness: A Translation of Jayshankar Prasad's Āṅsū, "Tears." By Charles S. J. White. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2006. Pp. xv + 136. Hardcover Rs. 295. [End Page 608]The Happening of Tradition: Vallabha on Anumāna in Nyāyalīlāvatī. By Anna-Pya Sjödin. Stockholm: Elanders Gotab, 2006. Pp. 195. Price not given.Head, Eyes, Flesh, and Blood: Giving Away the Body in Indian Buddhist Literature. By Reiko Ohnuma. 2006. Pp. xvii + 372. Hardcover $45.00, £29.00.Hwa Yu T'ai Chi Ch'uan: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Five-Word Song. By Glenn D. Newth. Berkeley: Blue Snake Books, 2007. Pp. xiii + 160. U.S. $18.95. Can $24.95.A Jewish Philosopher of Baghdad: 'Izz al-Dawla Ibn Kammūna (d. 683/1284) and His Writings. By Reza Pourjavady and Sabine Schmidtke. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006. Pp. xii + 274. Hardcover $130.00, €100.Letting Be: Fred Dallmayr's Cosmopolitical Vision. Edited by Stephen F. Schneck. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006. Pp. x + 382. Paper $35.00.Myth and the Existential Quest. By Vassilis Vitsaxis and translated by Deborah Brown Kazazis and Vassilis Vitsaxis. Boston: Somerset Hall Press, 2006. Pp. 301. Hardcover $49.95. Paper $39.95.Nietzsche-Buddha-Zarathustra: Eine West-Ost Konfiguration. By Michael Skowron. Daegu: Kyungpook National University Press, 2006. Pp. 293. Paper $18.00, Won 17,000.Popularizing Buddhism: Preaching as Performance in Sri Lanka. By Mahinda Deegalle. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006. Pp. xiii + 241. Hardcover $65.00. Paper $21.95.Ramana Maharashi: The Sage of Arunachala. By Arvind Sharma. New Delhi: Penquin Group, 2006. Pp. 215. Hardcover Rs. 295.Readings in Han Chinese Thought. Edited and translated by Mark Csikszentmihalyi. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 2006. Pp. xxx + 220. Hardcover $39.95. Paper $14.95.Religions of Korea in Practice. Edited by Robert E. Buswell Jr. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007. Pp. xx + 542. Paper $24.95, £15.95.The Scripture on Great Peace: The Taiping jing and the Beginnings of Daoism. By Barbara Hendrischke. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. Pp. x + 410. Hardcover $60.00, £38.95.The Self 's Awareness of Itself: Bhaṭṭa Rāmakantha's Arguments against the Buddhist Doctrine of No-Self. By Alex Watson. Vienna: Sammlung de Nobili, 2006. Pp. 433. Price not given... (shrink)

Experimental encounters in music and beyond opens a necessary dialogue on experimental practices in the arts and negotiates their place in contemporary society. Going beyond the music-historical usage of the term "experimental", this book reimagines experimentation as an open working definition encompassing multiple forms of artistic attitudes and processes. The texts, images, and sounds offer multiple traces, faces, and spaces, revealing what experimentalism in music and the wider arts entails today. With perspectives from a range of disciplines - from (...) choreography through composition to philosophy and beyond - the different experiences and artistic projects documented and discussed explore the complexity of experimentation in a way that is all the richer for being never-ending."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Advocates of interactionism in the ethical criticism of art argue that ethical value impacts aesthetic value. The debate is concerned with “the intrinsic question”: the question of whether ethical flaws/merits in artworks’ manifested attitudes affect their aesthetic value (Gaut 2007: 9). This paper argues that the assumption that artworks have intrinsic ethical value is problematic at least in regards to a significant subset of works: fictional artworks. I argue that, insofar as their ethical value emerges only from attitudes attributable to (...) actual agents, fictional artworks only have extrinsic ethical value. I show that what is at stake for interactionism is whether ethical judgements concerning artists’ attitudes in a context, rather than manifested attitudes, are ever aesthetically relevant. I conclude that, without buying into extreme actual intentionalism, a still controversial theory of interpretation that ties artworks’ meaning to actual artists, interactionism fails to show that ethical flaws/merits are aesthetic flaws/merits. (shrink)

Resumo Aproximar vivência e criação de si explorando suas relações será um dos objetivos deste artigo, bem como elucidar a capacidade humana de dotar de sentido suas vivências, o que também não deixa de ser uma atitude artística perante a própria existência.To approach living and self creation exploring their relations will be one of the objectives of this paper, as well as to elucidate the human capacity to give meaning to their experiences, which is also an artistic attitude (...) towards existence it self. (shrink)

Advocates of interactionism in the ethical criticism of art argue that ethical value impacts aesthetic value. The debate is concerned with “the intrinsic question”: the question of whether ethical flaws/merits in artworks’ manifested attitudes affect their aesthetic value (Gaut 2007: 9). This paper argues that the assumption that artworks have intrinsic ethical value is problematic at least in regards to a significant subset of works: fictional artworks. I argue that, insofar as their ethical value emerges only from attitudes attributable to (...) actual agents, fictional artworks only have extrinsic ethical value. I show that what is at stake for interactionism is whether ethical judgements concerning artists’ attitudes in a context, rather than manifested attitudes, are ever aesthetically relevant. I conclude that, without buying into extreme actual intentionalism, a still controversial theory of interpretation that ties artworks’ meaning to actual artists, interactionism fails to show that ethical flaws/merits are aesthetic flaws/merits. (shrink)

Much contemporary art seems morally out of control. Yet, philosophers seem to have trouble finding the right way to morally evaluate works of art. The debate between autonomists and moralists, I argue, has turned into a stalemate due to two mistaken assumptions. Against these assumptions, I argue that the moral nature of a work's contents does not transfer to the work and that, if we are to morally evaluate works we should try to conceive of them as moral agents. Ethical (...) autonomism holds that art's autonomy consists in its demand that art appreciators take up an artistic attitude. A work's agency then is in how it merits their audiences' attitudinal switch. Ethical autonomism allows for the moral assessment of art works without giving up their autonomy, by viewing artistic merit as a moral category and art-relevant moral evaluation as having the form of art criticism. (shrink)

In the circular sphere around the Pacific Ocean many volcanos have erupted, and, because of tectonic plates, numerous earthquakes have occurred. In Tonga, especially, the resulting devastation has been beyond our wildest imagination. Regarding such natural phenomena, we could not predict anything. Likewise, the Covid-19 pandemic appeared suddenly, and no one can say when its destruction will end. Protective measures against infection have affected the nature of our social interactions: masking has changed our spatial consciousness; observing social distancing has made (...) us less dependent on one another and has influenced us to seek solitude. As a result, inter-subjectivity—the foundation of ethics—has been broken. All of these effects on our interpersonal relationships have instilled in us a new attitude towards nature, because the human being is a part of nature. This new attitude with nature opens up a new paradigm: dialogues with nature and their co-operative activities must be demanded, and we must wait for nature’s movement and ask for its help. It is, in a way, the traditional artistic attitude toward nature. (shrink)

The debate between autonomists and moralists, I argue, has turned into a stalemate due to two mistaken assumptions. Against these assumptions, I argue that the moral nature of a work's contents does not transfer to the work and that, if we are to morally evaluate works we should try to conceive of them as moral agents. Ethical autonomism holds that art's autonomy consists in its demand that art appreciators take up an artistic attitude. A work's agency then is (...) in how it merits their audiences' attitudinal switch. Ethical autonomism allows for the moral assessment of art works without giving up their autonomy, by viewing artistic merit as a moral category and art-relevant moral evaluation as having the form of art criticism. (shrink)

Many people suspect it is morally wrong to watch the graphically violent horror films colloquially known as gorefests. A prominent argument vindicating this suspicion is the Argument from Reactive Attitudes (ARA). The ARA holds that we have a duty to maintain a well-functioning moral psychology, and watching gorefests violates that duty by threatening damage to our appropriate reactive attitudes. But I argue that the ARA is probably unsound. Depictions of suffering and death in other genres typically do no damage our (...) appropriate reactive attitudes, and until we locate a relevant difference between these depictions in gorefests and in other genres, we should assume that the depictions in gorefests do no damage. I consider and reject three candidate differences: in artistic merit, meaningfulness, and audience orientation. Until genre skeptics identify a relevant difference, we should accept the taste for gory fictions as we would any other morally innocuous variation in taste. (shrink)

Artistic creation is never a hermetic practice within which artists create something completely new without any reference to the past. Such a past, in anglophone literary criticism and aesthetics, is often delineated by the term tradition, while, in Chinese artistic criticism, it is specified by the term gu 古. Both tradition and gu imply that artistic practices, be they in Europe or East Asia, will inevitably encounter the past. What distinguishes these two terms is the different attitudes (...) taken by Chinese and Western artists and art theorists toward the past and the different values underlying these attitudes.In Western art theory and literary criticism, the influences of the past can be roughly divided into the... (shrink)

The attitude of the American classical scholar Basil L. Gildersleeve toward the English may be taken as typical of Americans over the period of his long life. A native of Charleston, South Carolina, a city with deep economic and cultural ties to England, he found his youthful admiration for British scholarship offset by the sufferings of his ancestors in the Revolution and the War of 1812. At mid-century the allegiance of many American intellectuals had switched from England to Germany, (...) viewed idealistically as a place of pure intellectual discovery and artistic creativity. British amateurism held little interest for those who were building the first American research institutions in the 1880s, but as the FirstWorldWar approached, the deficiencies of the German system and the exciting work being done by those around Jane Harrison and Gilbert Murray brought Gildersleeve back to the respect for humane British scholarship that he had learned in his youth in Charleston. (shrink)