Part I: Classic Sources

^Xn I ill Mb Alternative Table of Contents ix Preface and Acknowledgments xvi Source Acknowledgments xvii Part I: Classic Sources 1 Introduction 3 Paul Oskar Kristeller 2 Ion 16 Plato 3 The Republic 24 Plato 4 Symposium 34 Plato 5 Poetics 41 Aristotle 6 Ennead I, vi 57 Plotinus 7 De Musica 64 St. Augustine 8 On the Reduction of the Arts to Theology 72 St. Bonaventure 9 Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times 77 Third Earl of Shaftesbury VI CONTENTS 10 An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue 87 Francis Hutcheson 11 Of the Standard of Taste 103 David Hume 12 A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful 113 Edmund Burke 13 Laocoon 123 Gotthold Lessing 14 Critique of Judgement 131 Immanuel Kant Part II: Modern Theories 15 Introduction 163 Christopher Janaway 16 Letter of an Aesthetic Education of Man 167 Friedrich Schiller 17 Philosophy of Art 170 Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling 18 The Philosophy of Fine Art 180 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 19 The World as Will and Representation 193 Arthur Schopenhauer 20 The Beautiful in Music 217 Eduard Hanslick 21 The Birth of Tragedy 222 Friedrich Nietzsche 22 What is Art? 233 Leo Tolstoy 23 "Psychical Distance" as a Factor in Art and an Aesthetic Principle 243 Edward Bullough 24 Art 261 Give Bell 25 Aesthetics 270 Benedetto Croce 26 The Principles of Art 282 JR. G. Collingwood 27 Art as Experience 296 John Dewey CONTENTS VI1 28 Feeling and Form 317 Susanne hanger 29 The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction 327 Walter Benjamin 30 The Origin of the Work of Art 344 Martin Heidegger 31 Aesthetic Theory 358 TheodorA dorno 32 Truth and Method 370 Hans-Georg Gadamer 33 Introduction 391 Susan L. Feagin and Aaron Meskrn 34 Aesthetic Problems of Modern Philosophy 396 Stanley CaveII 35 The Role of Theory in Aesthetics 409 Morris Weitz 36 The Art world 417 Arthur Danto 37 What is Art? An Institutional Analysis 426 George Dickie 38 When is Art? 438 Nelson Goodman 39 Identifying Art 445 Noel Carroll 40 The Myth of the Aesthetic Attitude 455 George Dickie 41 Art and Its Objects 466 Richard Wollheim 42 What a Musical Work Is 479 ] err old Levinson 43 Aesthetic Concepts 494 Frank Sib ley 44 Beauty Restored 509 Mary Mothersill 45 Categories of Art 521 Kendall Walton Vlll C O N T E N T S 46 Appreciation and the Natural Environment 538 Allen Carlson 47 The Intentional Fallacy 547 W. K. Wimsatt, Jr. and Monroe Beardsley 48 The Postulated Author: Critical Monism as a Regulative Ideal 556 Alexander Neharnas 49 Art, Intention, and Conversation 568 Noel Carroll 50 The Ethical Criticism of Art 589 Berys Gaut 51 Expressive Properties of Art 602 Guy Sircetto 52 Style and Personality in the Literary Work 616 Jenefer Robinson 53 Emotions in the Music 628 Peter Kivy 54 Fearing Fictions 637 Kendall Walton 55 Oppressive Texts, Resisting Readers, and the Gendered Spectator: The "New" Aesthetics 651 Mary Devereaux Index 664 PPN: 27510012X Titel: Aesthetics : a comprehensive anthology / edited by Steven M. Cahn and Aaron Meskin. - . - Malden [u.a.] : Blackwell, 2008 ISBN: 978-1-4051-5434-5; 1-405-15434-9(hbk.)No price; 1-405-15435-7(pbk)No price hbk. Bibliographischer Datensatz im SWB-Verbund.

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Doing Justice to Traditional Aesthetic Theories: Weitz Reconsidered
TRAMES, 2002, 6(56/51), 3, 266–279 DOING JUSTICE TO TRADITIONAL AESTHETIC THEORIES: WEITZ RECONSIDERED Marek Volt University of Tartu Abstract. In the very first lines of his famous article – ‘The Role of Theory is Aesthetics’ – Morris Weitz tells us that each of the great art theories (Emotionalism, Voluntarism, Formalism, Intuitionism, Organicism) converges in a logically vain attempt to provide the defining properties of art. He tries to examine some of the aesthetic theories in order to see if they include adequate statements about the nature of art. But instead of giving us exact descriptions of these theories, he provided us with only a very scant summary. Thus, even if Weitz were correct in thinking that all theories converged in an essential definition of art, he does not provide any further arguments for his conviction. Some aestheticians (Diffey, Tilghman, Matthews, Snoeyenbos) have tried to do justice to the traditional theories by suggesting that aesthetic theories were not attempting to offer essentialist definitions of art. Unfortunately, those critics left untouched the aesthetic theories offered by Weitz. Therefore, in order to evaluate (1) Weitz’s account of aesthetic theories and (2) to see if the criticisms concerning his account strike home, it is necessary to consider just theories mentioned by Weitz. My paper confirms a view that within aesthetic theories a variety of purposes can be recognised. For instance, the explanation and re-evaluation of art, and the completion of metaphysical system. I. Weitz and his critics The famous article of Morris Weitz (1968) – ‘The Role of Theory in Aesthetics’ – has raised many objections since it was published.1 Perhaps the chief objection is that Weitz did not take into account the possibility that art can be defined in terms of non-manifest properties.
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The New Role of Theory in Aesthetics
RECOGNITION AND RECONCILIATION: THE NEW ROLE OF THEORY IN AESTHETICS by Kristin Amber Hrehor A thesis submitted to the Department of Philosophy In conformity with the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Queen’s University Kingston, Ontario, Canada (September, 2007) Copyright © Kristin Amber Hrehor, 2007 Abstract George Dickie’s institutional theory of art has been subject to extensive debate over the past 30 years. It has been both revered and deplored, garnering such attention for the seemingly controversial way in which Dickie answers the question, “What is art?” In Dickie’s view, an object derives its existence as a work of art in the context of the informal institution of the “artworld,” a concept which was borrowed from Arthur Danto’s earlier work on the theoretical context surrounding works of art. Whether one finds the idea appealing or appalling, it is one that quite simply cannot be ignored, since the empirical validity of the institutional structure of art and the sorts of problems it can cause, especially in our particular time, are so remarkably clear. Another significant feature of Dickie’s institutional theory is that it provides a definition of art, a problem that philosophers of art have attempted to solve for the past few centuries. Dickie’s theory inclines one to dismiss other candidates for definitions as implausible, such as those put forth by R.G. Collingwood and Leo Tolstoy, since, as Dickie insists, an acceptable definition of art must be able to account for the many different kinds of practices that are all referred to as “art.” Both Collingwood and Tolstoy advance restricted conceptions of art that are meant to confine the use of the term “art” to a specific kind of creative activity.
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Aesthetics (HSA020N207A) | University of Roehampton
09/23/21 Aesthetics (HSA020N207A) | University of Roehampton Aesthetics (HSA020N207A) View Online (Module Validation) 156 items Further Reading - additional to the weekly readings (53 items) The birth of tragedy and other writings - Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Raymond Geuss, Ronald Speirs, 1999 Book | Further Reading The Disjunctive Theory of Art: The Cluster Account Reformulated - F. Longworth, A. Scarantino, 2010-03-10 Article | Further Reading The Lyotard reader - Jean-Franc ̧ ois Lyotard, Andrew E. Benjamin, 1989 Book | Further Reading On photography - Sontag, Susan, 1979 Book | Essential Reading The principles of art - Collingwood, R. G., 1938 Book | Further Reading The century of taste: the philosophical odyssey of taste in the eighteenth century - Dickie, George, 1996 Book | Further Reading Aesthetics: a critical anthology - Dickie, George, Sclafani, R. J., Roblin, Ronald, c1989 Book | Further Reading An introduction to the philosophy of art - Richard Thomas Eldridge, 2014 Book | Further Reading Schopenhauer - Patrick Lancaster Gardiner, 1963 Book | Further Reading The Routledge companion to aesthetics - Gaut, Berys Nigel, Lopes, Dominic, 2005 Book | Further Reading Languages of art: an approach to a theory of symbols - Goodman, Nelson, 1968 Book | Further Reading Philosophy of the arts: an introduction to aesthetics - Graham, Gordon, 1997 1/11 09/23/21 Aesthetics (HSA020N207A) | University of Roehampton Book | Further Reading The sociology of art - Arnold Hauser, 2013 Book | Further Reading Emotion and the Arts - Mette Hjort,
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31762100154713.Pdf (2.570Mb)
Working papers : the artist as critical consciousness by Larry Eugene Shelby A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF APPLIED ARTS Approved: airman ,''Exaiftining Committee Montana State University © Copyright by Larry Eugene Shelby (1975) Abstract: I. An Inquiry into the Definition of Art and Artist. This paper inquires into the nature and relevance of ex-isting definition of "Art" and "Artist." There is an analogy between the manner which art as an institution and a dictionary definition function. If language (or art) is to remain viable, it must be open to the continual revision necessary as part of the constantly changing social environment. In the sense that a dictionary is a reference book, an "inbuilt" dictionary is part of each of our mental equipment. The inbuilt dictionary is best altered through the educational system. Lexical items which have become irrelevant to the situations which they are to describe should be restructured. II. On the De-Definition/Re-Definition of Art. This essay is a rebuttal to Harold Rosenberg's article "On The De-Definition of Art" chosen because it is typical of arguments for defining art by morphological characteristics (i.e., formalist criticism). Approaches of this type have failed to deal with questions raised by "conceptual" artists regarding the existence, function and future of art, and, by implication, the education of the artist. III. Art: An Open Textured Concept. A condensed version of Morris Weitz' essay "The Role of Theory in Aesthetics" was provided. As a theory of aesthetics it is quite sufficient but Weitz presupposes that art is always of an aesthetic nature.
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Final Thesis
A DEFENSE OF AESTHETIC ANTIESSENTIALISM: MORRIS WEITZ AND THE POSSIBLITY OF DEFINING ‘ART’ _____________________________ A Thesis Presented to The Honors Tutorial College Ohio University _____________________________ In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for Graduation from the Honors Tutorial College with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Art History _____________________________ By Jordan Mills Pleasant June, 2010 ii This thesis has been approved by The Honors Tutorial College and the Department of Philosophy ___________________________ Dr. Arthur Zucker Chair, Department of Philosophy Thesis Advisor ___________________________ Dr. Scott Carson Honors Tutorial College, Director of Studies Philosophy ___________________________ Jeremy Webster Dean, Honors Tutorial College iii This thesis has been approved by The Honors Tutorial College and the Department of Art History ___________________________ Dr. Jennie Klein Chair, Department of Art History Thesis Advisor ___________________________ Dr. Jennie Klein Honors Tutorial College, Director of Studies Art History ___________________________ Jeremy Webster Dean, Honors Tutorial College iv Dedicated to Professor Arthur Zucker, without whom this work would have been impossible. v Table Of Contents Thesis Approval Pages Page ii Introduction: A Brief History of the Role of Definitions in Art Page 1 Chapter I: Morris Weitz’s “The Role of Theory in Aesthetics” Page 8 Chapter II: Lewis K. Zerby’s “A Reconsideration of the Role of the Theory in Aesthetics. A Reply to Morris Weitz”
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Morris Weitz Aili W
University of Dayton eCommons Philosophy Faculty Publications Department of Philosophy 2014 Morris Weitz Aili W. Bresnahan University of Dayton, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.udayton.edu/phl_fac_pub Part of the History of Philosophy Commons eCommons Citation Bresnahan, Aili W., "Morris Weitz" (2014). Philosophy Faculty Publications. 4. https://ecommons.udayton.edu/phl_fac_pub/4 This Encyclopedia Entry is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Philosophy at eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Philosophy Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Word Count: 2,494 [Main body text: 1,189; Bibliography: 1,305] Weitz, Morris (1916-1981), American philosopher of aesthetics who focused primarily on ontology, interpretation, and literary criticism. Weitz’ Initial Theory of Art. Morris Weitz’ initial theory of art was provided in his book, Philosophy of the Arts (Weitz 1950). Here Weitz calls his theory of art “empirical” and “organic,” and he defined “art” as “an organic complex or integration of expressive elements embodied in a sensuous medium” (51). By “empirical” he means that his theory answers to the evidence provided by actual works of art. “Organic,” for Weitz, means that each element is to be considered in relation to the others in a living and not merely mechanical way. Weitz also has a broad understanding of “expressive,” which refers to an artistic property that functions as a semiotic sign, either of a specific emotional feeling, an emotional quality, or another sign of an emotional feature.
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The Fear of Aesthetics in Art and Literary Theory Sam Rose
The Fear of Aesthetics in Art and Literary Theory Sam Rose New Literary History, Volume 48, Number 2, Spring 2017, pp. 223-244 (Article) Published by Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/nlh.2017.0011 For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/663805 Access provided at 2 May 2019 15:33 GMT from University of St Andrews The Fear of Aesthetics in Art and Literary Theory Sam Rose eading the preface to the new edition of the Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, one might think that the battle over the status of aes- Rthetics is over. According to the narrative of its editor Michael Kelly, aesthetics, held in generally low esteem at the time of the 1998 first edition, has now happily overcome its association with “an alleg- edly retrograde return to beauty,” or its representation as “an ideology defending the tastes of a dominant class, country, race, gender, sexual preference, ethnicity, or empire.”1 The previously “rather pervasive anti- aesthetic stance” of the 1990s passed away with that decade.2 Defined as “critical reflection on art, culture, and nature,” aesthetics is now a respectable practice once again.3 The publication of the Encyclopedia’s latest iteration is a timely moment to review the current state of its much-maligned subject. The original edi- tion of 1998 faced major difficulties, with Kelly writing that his requests for contributions were greeted not only with silence from some, but also with responses from angry callers keen to tell him how misguided the entire project was.4 And while Kelly emphasizes the change toward a more positive view, in some critics, it seems, the fear of aesthetics in art and literary theory has only increased.
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Barry University
MORAVIAN COLLEGE COURSE SYLLABUS Spring 2012 PHIL 199 Special Topics: Introduction to Aesthetics 3b (TR 10:20-11:30) Office Hours: Tuesdays 1-2 and Wednesdays 1-2 Instructor: Dr. Bernie Cantens Visiting Instructor: Dr. Arash Naraghi Classroom: Comenius 218 Office: Comenius Hall 107 Phone/E-Mail: (610) 861-1589/ [email protected] Web Page: http://berniephilosophy.com/ Text (PAB) Philosophies of Art and Beauty: Selected Readings in Aesthetics from Plato to Heidegger Edited by Albert Hofstadter and Richard Kuhns. University of Chicago Press, 1964. ISBN 0-226-34812-1 (IA) Introduction to Aesthetics: An Analytic Approach George Dickie.Oxford University Press, 1997. ISBN 978-0-19-511304-4 * Make sure you bring the text to every class! Course Description The course is a historical and contemporary introduction to the philosophy of beauty and art. Central questions include: What is the nature of beauty? What is art? Are there objective aesthetic values? Are there objective criteria for the evaluation of art? Are there objective interpretations of art? 100-Level Course This course is meant as a first course in philosophy. It will introduce students to basic vocabulary and basic philosophical concepts and theories. Course Goals The objectives of this course are the following: 1) to study the origin and nature of theories of beauty in ancient Greece; 2) to survey the historical development and evolution of the theories of beauty from ancient Greece to the present; 3) to study theories of art from Plato and Aristotle to the present; 4) to study aesthetic-attitude theories of beauty; 5) to study metacriticism theories of beauty; 6) to develop a framework of some of the central problems in aesthetics through four issues: (i) intentionalist criticism, (ii) symbolism in art, (iii) metaphor, and iv) expression; 7) to apply theoretical knowledge about art and beauty to practical examples of art and beauty; and 8) to study some of the contemporary theories of evaluating art.
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11 12 Aesthetics in the Academy
Aesthetics in the Academy Dominic M . McIver Lopes During the fall of 1998 the American Society for Aesthetics conducted a survey of the chairs of philosophy departments in North America in order to gauge the status of aesthetics (or the philosophy of art) in the American academy. In particular, the survey was designed to ascertain what proportion have philosophers ofart on staff, what aesthetics courses are offered, what the demand for those courses is, and how many graduate departments are training students with a competence in aesthetics. AMERICAN SOCIETY FORAESTHETICS 1. The Survey and Its Reliability AN ASSOCIATIO N FOR AESTHETICS, CRITICISM AN D THEORY OF THE ARTS The survey was sent to 368 philosophy department chairs, including every department with a doctoral program in philosophy and a random selection of other departments. Respondents VOLUME 20 NUMBER 2 FALL 2000 were assured that their responses would be kept confidential and reported only as aggregate data. (A copy of the survey and the raw aggregate data are available at the Society's web site, The Lack of Historical Perspective: < aesthetics-online.org>.) 5 The Topic Revisited One hundred and fifty departments returned the survey-a very high response rate of Elmer Duncan 41 percent. The response rate of the departments with doctoral programs was 85 percent, ensuring a reliable picture of the status of aesthetics in graduate schools. Review ofJoseph Margolis, With one exception, the responding institutions appear representative. Whether catego 8 What, After All, Is a Work ofArt? rized by geographical location, type (private or public), size of overall institutional enrollment or size ofenrollment in philosophy, they correspond closely to the benchmark provided by Review of Claire Detels, the APA's much larger 1994 survey of Philosophy in America (Schacht 1997: 2-5).
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Download This PDF File
Book Reviews Nigel Warburton, The Art Question (London; New York: Routledge, 2003), pp. xii, 147. This is a short, admirably lucid, introduction to the philosophy of art centred around the question “What is Art?” Warburton follows tradition in understanding this Socratic question as a demand for the nature or essence of art; or, in modern analytic terms, the specification of the necessary and sufficient conditions for something to count as a work of art. The book aims “to lay bare a range of indefensible positions, revealing the counter-arguments and counter-examples that undermine these positions” (p. 4). After a brief opening chapter on the relation of the art question to philosophy, Warburton discusses in successive chapters, the limitations and inadequacies of Clive Bell’s Theory of Significant Form, R.G. Collingwood’s Expressive Theory, the Family Resemblance Theory of Morris Weitz, and the Institutional Theory of George Dickie. The book ends by casting doubt on whether art has an essence at all, and so, on the whole project of pursuing the art question. Despite the freshness and ease of the writing style, the approach is rather hackneyed. Although Warburton does a good job of summarizing the relevant theories, particularly Collingwood, the book cannot help but strike one as a rehearsal of all too familiar criticisms of an all too familiar project. Surely we know by now that essentialist definitions in any area of philosophy confront a dilemma: either they are trivial, or false. One horn is the danger of vicious circularity, defining the key concept narrowly in terms that simply presuppose it e.g.
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“The Role of Theory in Aesthetics”1
“The Role of Theory in Aesthetics”1 Morris Weitz Theory has been central in aesthetics and is still the preoccupation of the philosophy of art. Its main avowed concern remains the determination of the nature of art which can be formulated into a definition of it. It construes definition as the statement of the necessary and sufficient properties of what is being defined, where the statement purports to be a true or false claim about the essence of art, what characterizes and distinguishes it from everything else. Each of the great theories of art—Formalism, Voluntarism, Emotionalism, Intellectualism, Intuitionism, Organicism—converges on the attempt to state the defining properties of art. Each claims that it is the true theory because it has formulated correctly into a real definition the nature of art; and that the others are false because they have left out some necessary or sufficient property. Many theorists contend that their enterprise is no mere intellectual exercise but an absolute necessity for any understanding of art and our proper evaluation of it. Unless we know what art is, they say, what are its necessary and sufficient properties, we cannot begin to respond to it adequately or to say why one work is good or better than another. Aesthetic theory, thus, is important not only in itself but for the foundations of both appreciation and criticism. Philosophers, critics, and even artists who have written on art, agree that what is primary in aesthetics is a theory about the nature of art. Is aesthetic theory, in the sense of a true definition or set of necessary and sufficient properties of art, possible? If nothing else does, the history of aesthetics itself should give one enormous pause here.
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Exploring the Definition of Art Through Deep Net Visualization
Exploring the definition of art through deep net visualization J.P. Lewis1;2 I Chen Yeh3 Agata Migalska4 Samuel B. Johnson3 Ruth West3 1SEED Electronic Arts 2Victoria University 3xREZ Art + Science Lab, University of North Texas 4Wroclaw University of Science and Technology [email protected] [email protected] Abstract The definition of art has been debated for more than 2000 years and continues to be a puzzle. While scientific investigations offer hope that we might resolve this puzzle, machine learning classifiers that discriminate art from non-art images generally do not provide an explicit definition, and brain imaging and psychological theories are at present too coarse to provide a formal characterization. In this work, rather than approaching the problem using a machine learning approach trained on existing artworks, we hypothesize that art can be defined in terms of preexisting properties of the visual cortex. Specifically, we propose that a broad subset of visual art can be defined as patterns that are exciting to a visual brain. Resting on the finding that artificial neural networks trained on visual tasks can provide predictive models of processing in the visual cortex, our definition is operationalized by using a trained deep net as a surrogate “visual brain”, where “exciting” is defined as the activation energy of particular layers of this net. We find that this definition easily discriminates a variety of art from non-art, and further provides a ranking of art genres that is consistent with our subjective notion of “visually exciting”. By applying a deep net visualization technique, we can also validate the definition by generating example images that would be classified as art.
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