•  78
    Pictorial Realism
    Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 53 (3): 277-285. 1995.
    This paper examines a form of pictorial realism that has epistemic import. Gombrich and Schier claim that some pictures are realistic because they convey accurate information. The difficulty is that judgments of realism vary across cultural and historical contexts. Goodman counters that pictures belong to different systems and realistic pictures belong to familiar systems. However, this does not explain the revelatory realism' of pictures in novel systems. I propose that two views can be combine…Read more
  •  304
    The Aesthetics of Photographic Transparency
    Mind 112 (447): 434--48. 2003.
    When we look at photographs we literally see the objects that they are of. But seeing photographs as photographs engages aesthetic interests that are not engaged by seeing the objects that they are of. These claims appear incompatible. Sceptics about photography as an art form have endorsed the first claim in order to show that there is no photographic aesthetic. Proponents of photography as an art form have insisted that seeing things in photographs is quite unlike seeing things face-to-face. T…Read more
  •  29
  • Samuel Scheffler, "Human Morality" (review)
    International Journal of Philosophical Studies 2 (1): 166. 1994.
  •  129
    Pictures, Styles and Purposes
    British Journal of Aesthetics 32 (4): 330-341. 1992.
    Pictures belong to stylistic systems that vary historically and culturally. This variation suggests that styles are conventional. However, styles are not conventional. Styles have perceptual functions that make them apt for use in some contexts and not others.
  •  113
    Shikinen Sengu and the Ontology of Architecture in Japan
    Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 65 (1). 2007.
    Japan's Ise Jingu shrine has been taken down and rebuilt every twenty years for more than a millenium - a practice called "shikinen sengu." A standard ontology of architecture, according to which buildings are material particulars, implies that Ise Jingu is no more than twenty years old. However, a correct ontology of architecture is implicit in practices of architecture appreciation. The Japanese appreciation of Ise Jingu and other buildings in its architectural tradition implies both that it i…Read more
  •  230
    The Myth of (Non-aesthetic) Artistic Value
    Philosophical Quarterly 61 (244): 518-536. 2011.
    Art works realize many values. According to tradition, not all of these values are characteristic of art: art works characteristically bear aesthetic value. Breaking with tradition, some now say that art works bear artistic value, as distinct from aesthetic value. I argue that there is no characteristic artistic value distinct from aesthetic value. The argument for this thesis suggests a new way to think about aesthetic value as it is characteristically realized by works of art
  • Richard Woodfield, ed., Gombrich on Art and Psychology (review)
    Philosophy in Review 17 380-382. 1997.
  •  80
    Imagination, Illusion and Experience in Film
    Philosophical Studies 89 (2-3): 343-353. 1998.
  •  1
    Out of Sight, Out of Mind
    In Matthew Kieran & Dominic McIver Lopes (eds.), Imagination, Philosophy, and the Arts, . 2003.
  • Painting
    In Berys Nigel Gaut & Dominic Lopes (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics, Routledge. 2000.
  •  223
    Directive Pictures
    Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 62 (2). 2004.
    Pictures are principally descriptive. Advertising images highlight features of potential purchases; cartoons open portals to scenes in fictional worlds; snapshots in the family photo album remind us of our past selves and landmark events in our personal histories; works of pictorial art express thoughts or feelings about depicted scenes. In addition, pictures serve a directive or action-guiding function that, though not taken into account by theorists, deserves no less attention than their descr…Read more
  • Le immagini e la mente rappresentazionale
    Discipline Filosofiche 15 (2). 2005.
  •  107
    Pictures and the Representational Mind
    The Monist 86 (4): 632-652. 2003.
    Several recent books indicate that the philosophy of art has embarked upon a new alliance with cognitive science. One impetus for this is the move, beginning in the 70s and 80s, away from general aesthetics to a greater concern with the philosophies of the individual arts. Questions about the nature of art, expression, aesthetic experience and aesthetic properties as generic phenomena are still with us but many philosophers now approach them by means of specialized studies of music, literature, …Read more
  •  155
    Virtues of Art: Good Taste
    Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 82 (1): 197-211. 2008.
    If good taste is a virtue, then an account of good taste might be modelled on existing accounts of moral or epistemic virtue. One good reason to develop such an account is that it helps solve otherwise intractable problems in aesthetics. This paper proposes an alternative to neo-Aristotelian models of good taste. It then contrasts the neo-Aristotelian models with the proposed model, assessing them for their potential to contend with otherwise intractable problems in aesthetics.
  •  457
    Nobody Needs a Theory of Art
    Journal of Philosophy 105 (3): 109-127. 2008.
    The question "what is art?" is often said to be venerable and vexing. In fact, the following answer to the question should be obvious: (R) item x is a work of art if and only if x is a work in practice P and P is one of the arts. Yet (R) has appeared so far from obvious that nobody has given it a moment's thought. The trouble is not that anyone might seriously deny the truth of (R), but rather that they will find it uninformative. After all, the vexing question is pressed upon us by radical chan…Read more
  • Ahora todos somos artistas
    Enrahonar: Quaderns de Filosofía 50 45-57. 2013.
  •  317
    Aesthetic Acquaintance
    Modern Schoolman 86 (3-4): 267-281. 2009.
  •  73
    Beyond Art
    Oxford University Press. 2014.
    This book offers a bold new approach to the philosophy of art. General theories of art don't work: they can't deal with problem cases. Instead of trying to define art, we should accept that a work of art is nothing but a work in one of the arts. Lopes's buck passing theory works well for the avant garde, illuminating its radical provocations
  •  112
    A Philosophy of Computer Art
    Routledge. 2009.
    What is computer art? Do the concepts we usually employ to talk about art, such as ‘meaning’, ‘form’ or ‘expression’ apply to computer art? _A Philosophy of Computer Art_ is the first book to explore these questions. Dominic Lopes argues that computer art challenges some of the basic tenets of traditional ways of thinking about and making art and that to understand computer art we need to place particular emphasis on terms such as ‘interactivity’ and ‘user’. Drawing on a wealth of examples he al…Read more
  •  29
    Four Arts of Photography explores the history of photography through the lens of philosophy and proposes a new understanding of the art form for the 21st century.
  •  27
    Photography and the “Picturesque Agent”
    Critical Inquiry 38 (4): 855-869. 2012.
    Even as art theory and analytic philosophy have failed to connect in their studies of photography, the two disciplines have joined in tying conceptions of the specific character of photography to ideas about automaticity and agency.1 In rough caricature, the philosopher reasons: “An item is a work of art only insofar as it is the product of agency, so a photograph is not an art work insofar it is not the product of artistic agency. After all, in Lady Eastlake's colorful words, the ‘obedience of …Read more
  •  107
    Aesthetic Experts, Guides to Value
    Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 73 (3): 235-246. 2015.
    A theory of aesthetic value should explain the performance of aesthetic experts, for aesthetic experts are agents who track aesthetic value. Aesthetic empiricism, the theory that an item's aesthetic value is its power to yield aesthetic pleasure, suggests that aesthetic experts are best at locating aesthetic pleasure, especially given aesthetic internalism, the view that aesthetic reasons always have motivating force. Problems with empiricism and internalism open the door to an alternative. Aest…Read more
  •  53
    A philosophy of mass art (review)
    Philosophical Review 109 (4): 614-617. 2000.
    The chief sources of aesthetic experience for most people around the world are now the mass broadcasting and recording technologies. Yet analytic aesthetics has had little to say about mass art. Recent accounts of art and the aesthetic, while accommodating the consensus concerning central cases, are largely propelled by problem cases drawn from the avant-garde, and one wonders what the effect will be of adding works of mass art to the equation. One also wonders whether making room for mass art w…Read more
  •  119
    Art Without ‘Art’
    British Journal of Aesthetics 47 (1): 1-15. 2007.
    Some argue that there is no art in some non-Western cultures because members of those cultures have no concept of art. Others argue that members of some non-Western cultures have concepts of art because they have art. Both arguments assume that if there is art in a given culture, then some members of the culture have a concept of art. There are reasons to think that this assumption is false; and if it is false, there are lessons to learn for cross-cultural studies of art both in anthropology and…Read more
  •  119
    Beauty, The Social Network
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 47 (4): 437-453. 2017.
    Aesthetic values give agents reasons to perform not only acts of contemplation, but also acts like editing, collecting, and conserving. Moreover, aesthetic agents rarely operate solo: they conduct their business as integral members of networks of other aesthetic agents. The consensus theory of aesthetic value, namely that an item’s aesthetic value is its power to evoke a finally valuable experience in a suitable spectator, can explain neither the range of acts performed by aesthetic agents nor t…Read more