The Blackwell Guide to Aesthetics

361 Pages·2003·8.92 MB·English

by  Peter Kivy (ed.)

The Blackwell Guide to
Aesthetics
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Bl ac kwe II
Publishing
0 2004 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd
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First published 2004 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Libnwy of Conpess Cata Log-in.-in- Pub lication Data
The Blackwell guide to aesthetics / edited by Peter Kivy.
p. cm. - (Blackwell philosophy guides)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-631-22130-1 (alk. paper) - ISBN 0-631-22131-X (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Aesthetics. I. Kivy, Peter. 11. Series.
BH39.B556 2004
11 1’.85-dc21
2003010096
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In this new soil a new powth of aesthetic theoyy has spyun8 up; yich in guantity and on
the whole h&h in guaLity. It is too soon to wyite the histoyy of this movement, but not too
Late to contyibute to it.
G. Collingwood
R.
Contents
Notes on Contributors ix
Introduction: Aesthetics Today 1
Part I The Core Issues 13
1 The Origins of Modern Aesthetics: 17 1 1-35 15
Pad GGyer
2 Defining Art: Intension and Extension
45
Geoge Diclzie
3 Art and the Aesthetic 63
Mumh MGelder Euton
4 The Ontology of Art 78
Amie L. Thomusson
5 Evaluating Art 93
Alan Goldmun
6 Interpretation in Aesthetics 109
Luwent Stem
7 Art and the Moral Realm 126
Noel CU~9"Oll
8 Beauty and the Critic's Judgment: Remapping Aesthetics 152
Mary Mothedl
9 The Philosophy of Taste: Thoughts on the Idea 167
Ted Cohen
vii
Contents
10 The Emotions in Art 174
Jenej2r Robinsovc
Part I1 The Arts and Other Matters 193
11 The Philosophy of Literature: Pleasure Restored 195
Peter LamarqGe and Stein Ha~gomO lsen
12 The Philosophy of the Visual Arts: Perceiving Paintings 215
Joseph Margolis
13 The Philosophy of the Movies: Cinematic Narration 230
Berys GaGt
14 The Philosophy of Music: Formalism and Beyond 254
Philip Alperso n
15 The Philosophy of Dance: Bodies in Motion, Bodies at Rest 276
Fvancis Spadott
16 Tragedy 29 1
S~sanF eagin
17 The Aesthetics of Nature and the Environment 306
Donald VI! Crawford
18 Art and the Aesthetic: The Religious Dimension 32 5
Nicholas Wolterstorff
Index 340
viii
Notes on Contributors
Philip Alperson is director of the Temple Society of Fellows in the Humanities
and professor of philosophy at Temple University. He is the editor of several books,
including The Philosophy of the Viszd Arts (1992), VVbat is Mmic?: An Introdm-
tion to the Philosophy of Mmic (1994), Miwsical Worlds: New Directions in the Phi-
losophy of Mimic (1998), and Diversity and Commmity: An Interdisciplinary
Reader (2002). He was the editor of the Jownal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism
from 1993 to 2003.
Noel Carroll is Monroe C. Beardsley professor of philosophy at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison, and a past president of the American Society for
Aesthetics. He is widely published in the fields of aesthetics and philosophy of art,
as well as in film theory. His latest book is Beyond Aesthetics.
Ted Cohen is professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago. He is the
author of various essays in aesthetics, an essay about his grandfather, one essay on
baseball that won a Pushcart Prize, and the book Jokes. He is a past president of
the American Society for Aesthetics.
Donald W. Crawford is professor of philosophy at the University of California,
Santa Barbara. He has published articles on the aesthetics of nature and Kant’s
aesthetics and is the author of ICunt’s Aesthetic Theory (1974). He is a past editor
of the Jownal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism.
George Dickie is professor emeritus of philosophy from the University of Illinois,
Chicago. He is the author of Art and Vahe (ZOOl), Introdz&on to Aesthetics
(1997), The Centwy of Taste (1996), Eval~atinA. rt (1988), The Art Circle
(1984), Art and the Aesthetic (1974), and other works in aesthetics.
Marcia Muelder Eaton is professor of philosophy at the University of Minnesota.
She is the author of several books on aesthetics and the philosophy of art. She has
ix
Notes on Contributors
taught and lectured internationally and is a former president of the American
Society for Aesthetics.
Susan Peagin is editor of the Jownal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism and research
professor of philosophy at Temple University. She is the author of Reading With
Feeling: The Aesthetics of Appreciation (1996), co-editor (with Patrick Maynard)
of Aesthetics (1997), and author of numerous articles on interpretation and appre-
ciation, especially in relation to the visual arts and literature.
Berys Gaut is a senior lecturer in the Department of Moral Philosophy at the
University of St Andrews, Scotland. He has written extensively on aesthetics, phi-
losophy of film, and moral philosophy. He is a co-editor of The Rodedge Com-
panion to Aesthetics (2001) and of The Creation of Art (2003). He is currently
completing a book entitled Art, Emotion, and Ethics.
Alan Goldman is the William R. Kenan, Jr, professor of humanities at the College
of William and Mary. He is the author of six books on aesthetics, ethics, and epis-
temology, including Aesthetic Vahe (19 95) and Practical Rdes: VVben We Need
Them and VVben We Don’t (2002).
Paul Guyer is the Florence R. C. Murray professor in the humanities in the
Department of Philosophy of the University of Pennsylvania. He has written
widely on Kant, the history of philosophy, and the history of aesthetics. His works
on Kant’s aesthetics include ICant and the Claims of Taste (1979, 1997), ICant
and the Experience of Freedom (1993), a new translation of the CritiqGe of the
Power of Jiwdgment (2000, with Eric Matthews), and two anthologies, Essays in
ICant’s Aesthetics (1982) and ICant’s CritiqGe of the Power of Jiwdgment: Critical
Essays (2003). He is currently preparing to write a history of modern aesthetics.
Peter Kivy is Board of Governors professor of philosophy at Rutgers University
and a past president of the American Society for Aesthetics. He has published
numerous articles and books in aesthetics and the philosophy of art. His most
recent books are The Possessor and the Possessed: Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, and
the Idea of Miwsical Genim (200 1) , New Essays on Miwsical Understanding (2001 ) ,
and Introdmtion to a Philosophy of Mimic (2002).
Peter Lamarque is professor of philosophy and head of department at the Uni-
versity of York. He has published widely on fictionality, philosophy of literature,
and aesthetics, including TrGth, Fiction, and Literatwe (1994, with Stein Haugom
Olsen) and Fictional Points of View (1996). He is editor of the British Jownal of
Aesthetics and was also philosophy subject editor for the 10-volume Encyclopedia
of LangGage and Lingt&tics.
Joseph Margolis is Laura Carnell professor of philosophy at Temple University,
and a past president of the American Society for Aesthetics. He has written books
X
Notes on Contributors
and articles on virtually every field of philosophy, including substantial contribu-
tions to the philosophy of art.
Mary Mothersill is professor emeritus at Barnard College and senior scholar at
Columbia University. She is the author of BeaGty Restored (1984) and has written
on various topics in philosophical aesthetics and moral psychology.
Stein Haugom Olsen is chair professor of humanities and head of the Depart-
ment of Philosophy at Lingnan University, Hong Kong. He is the author of The
Strmtwe of Literary Understanding (1978), The End of Literary Theory (1987),
and (with Peter Lamarque) Tmth, Fiction, and Literatwe: A Philosophical Per-
spective (1994), as well as of a number of articles on literary theory, literary criti-
cism, and aesthetics. He is an elected fellow of the Norwegian Academy of Science
and Letters.
Jenefer Robinson is professor of philosophy at the University of Cincinnati. She
is the author of many essays in aesthetics and emotion theory and the editor of
Mmic and Meaning (1997). Her book Passionate EncoGnters: How EmotionsF ~nc-
tion in Literatwe, Mmic, and the Other Arts will be published shortly.
Francis Sparshott taught philosophy at the University of Toronto from 1950 to
199 1. His general works on aesthetics include The Strmtwe of Aesthetics (1963)
and The Theory of the Arts (1982), and he has written two fat books on the phi-
losophy of dance, Off the Gromad (1988) on dance generally and A Measwed Pace
(1995) on dance as an art, though he would rather be known as author of eleven
slim volumes of poetry.
Laurent Stern is professor emeritus of philosophy at Rutgers University in New
Brunswick, New Jersey. He has published articles on interpreting and translating,
and he is working on a book on these topics.
h i e L . Thomasson is associate professor of philosophy at the University of
Miami. She is the author of Fiction and Metaphysics (1999) and of many articles
on metaphysics, philosophy of mind, phenomenology, and philosophy of art. She
is currently working on a book entitled Ordinary Objects and co-editing (with
David W. Smith) a volume of essays on phenomenology and philosophy of mind.
Nicholas Wolterstorff is Noah Porter professor emeritus of philosophical theol-
ogy at Yale University. He has written widely, not only on aesthetics but on epis-
temology, metaphysics, history of philosophy, and philosophy of religion. In
addition to many essays on aesthetics, his two books in the field are Worh and
Worlds of Art (1980) and Art in Action (1980). He is a past president of the
American Philosophical Association, and has delivered the Gifford Lectures at
St Andrews University and the Wilde Lectures at Oxford University.
xi