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Full-Text Articles in Philosophy
Imaginative Intersections: Engaging Aesthetic Experience At The Shofuso Japanese House, Peter L. Doebler
Imaginative Intersections: Engaging Aesthetic Experience At The Shofuso Japanese House, Peter L. Doebler
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
This essay explores how the imagination creates dynamic aesthetic experiences by negotiating the intersection of opposites. The goal is to enrich our thinking about the relation of nature and art within a more comprehensive environmental aesthetics. I focus on a single example, the intersections created by the particular experience of space and time in the paintings of Hiroshi Senju, at the Shofuso Japanese House in Philadelphia. First, I provide a brief introduction to Senju and the work at Shofuso. Next, building on perspectives from within environmental aesthetics and Senju’s own writings, I sketch out a framework for thinking about the …
Art By Jerks, Bernard Wills, Jason Holt
Art By Jerks, Bernard Wills, Jason Holt
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
Is it wrong to enjoy art created by immoral people? Some people express discomfort with listening to or reading the works of artists who have been abusive to others in their personal lives. In this paper, the authors argue that, generally speaking, moral and aesthetic judgment should be kept distinct, as authors and their works formally differ. Indeed, works by morally dubious artists may well contain crucial acts of moral imagination we should not deprive ourselves of as ethical beings. Nonetheless, the authors argue there are limits to how far the ethical and aesthetic can be divorced. Art that is …
Imagination In The Stars: The Role Of The Imagination In Artistic Astronomical Photography, Stephen Chadwick
Imagination In The Stars: The Role Of The Imagination In Artistic Astronomical Photography, Stephen Chadwick
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
In this article I discuss the role the imagination plays in the production of what I call artistic astronomical photographs. I examine the entire creative process, which has been defined as “that stretch of mental and physical activity between the incept and the final touch.”[1] I begin with an examination of some of the ways in which the imagination is exercised in traditional artistic photography and in observational painting, in order to tease out the similarities and differences. Following a brief explanation of the way artistic astronomical photographs are produced, I examine these similarities and differences and, in doing so, …
Address And The Lure Of The Aesthetic: Reflections On Monique Roelofs, The Cultural Promise Of The Aesthetic, Carolyn Korsmeyer
Address And The Lure Of The Aesthetic: Reflections On Monique Roelofs, The Cultural Promise Of The Aesthetic, Carolyn Korsmeyer
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
Monique Roelofs argues that some of the aesthetic power of art is traceable to the way that works address their audiences, promising the creation of cultural community. Such communities become exclusionary when modes of address presume and perpetuate social hierarchies. This paper explores this notion in works where moral and aesthetic precepts seem to conflict and whose address induces attitudes that one would reject in “reality” but that are required for the full appreciative grasp of a narrative.
Dewey And Everyday Aesthetics - A New Look, Kalle Puolakka
Dewey And Everyday Aesthetics - A New Look, Kalle Puolakka
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
John Dewey is frequently mentioned as an important forerunner of everyday aesthetics. In this article, I attempt to provide an updated view of Dewey’s place within everyday aesthetics by drawing attention to aspects in Dewey’s own work and in contemporary interpretations of his philosophy that have not been thoroughly discussed in the context of everyday aesthetics. In the first part, I offer a reading of Dewey’s notion of aesthetic experience that unties its content through noting the important position Dewey ascribes to imagination in aesthetic experience in the later parts of Art as Experience. The second pillar of the pragmatist …
The Problem Of Cinematic Imagination, Rafe Mcgregor
The Problem Of Cinematic Imagination, Rafe Mcgregor
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
The purpose of this paper is two-fold: to identify the problem of cinematic imagination, and then to propose a satisfactory solution. In part one I analyze the respective claims of Dominic McIver Lopes and Roger Scruton, both of whom question the scope of imagination in film, when compared to other art forms, on the basis of its perceptual character. In order to address these concerns I develop a hybrid of Gregory Currie’s model of cinematic imagination and Kendall Walton’s theory of make-believe in section two. Section three offers a reply to Lopes and Scruton, examining the problem in terms of …
A Cognitive Theory Of The Aesthetic Experience, Gianluca Consoli
A Cognitive Theory Of The Aesthetic Experience, Gianluca Consoli
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
This paper aims at naturalizing the aesthetic experience on the basis of cognitive sciences. In traditional philosophical aesthetics, the aesthetic experience requires a specific attitude and a characteristic work of imagination. Today, cognitive sciences offer a rich set of empirically corroborated concepts useful in explaining these notions in naturalistic terms. This paper extends these concepts to explain how the aesthetic experience is integrated and how it affords knowledge.
Davidson On Rorty's Postmetaphysical Critique Of Intentionalism, Kalle Puolakka
Davidson On Rorty's Postmetaphysical Critique Of Intentionalism, Kalle Puolakka
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
In this article I shall address the standing of intentionalist theories of interpretation through Richard Rorty’s critique. Rorty’s criticism arises from the position literature holds in the post metaphysical, liberal culture Rorty sketches As a counterbalance to Rorty’s critique, I shall develop an intentionalist theory of interpretation drawing on Donald Davidson’s late philosophy of language and his view of literary interpretation that have sadly not been taken into proper consideration in the on-going debate in analytic aesthetics on the role of authorial intentions in interpretation. The prospects of Davidson’s intentionalism for meeting Rorty’s criticism are related to the position of …
Can We Get Inside The Aesthetic Sensibility Of The Archaic Past?, Frederic Will
Can We Get Inside The Aesthetic Sensibility Of The Archaic Past?, Frederic Will
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
This essay is about getting inside the sensibility of the archaic past.[1] Can we get into the creative mind of the painter of The Sorcerer? Can we reconstruct the sensibility of prehistoric humans? Can we recover the humor of the prehistoric artist? Can we do it? After all, sense equipment is the same in men and women of all ages, and though each age inflects its sense usages uniquely, there should remain an underlying continuity among sensibilities. Shouldn't we be able to return into earlier forms of those usages? Can we tell whether we have been successful in accomplishing …
Cockroaches, Or Worlds As Images, Nathalie Blanc
Cockroaches, Or Worlds As Images, Nathalie Blanc
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
The cockroach is an insect of tropical origin whose presence in urban space draws our attention to the fact that the city is not only an artificial and controlled universe but also a porous one because of the interstices through which the animals slip. This article analyzes the role of animals in cities, and more particularly of the cockroach, in the city dweller's imagination and in the construction of an aesthetic experience of urban life. Imagination, metaphor, and domestication are the clues to understanding a sharp, active thought of the lived environment. One will thus approach the place of aesthetics …
The Color Of The Sublime Is White, Jeffrey Downard
The Color Of The Sublime Is White, Jeffrey Downard
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
In this paper, I examine Melville's discussion in Moby Dick of the whiteness of the whale from the perspective of a Kantian account of the sublime. My aim, in the first instance, is to see if the comparison helps to shed light on Melville's puzzling discussion of the color white and why this color serves to heighten the feeling of being overwhelmed by terror when confronted with something extremely large or powerful. In turn, I intend to use Melville's discussion of whiteness to put pressure on some of the philosophical assumptions behind a Kantian analysis of the sublime. In particular, …