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243The Myth of (Non-aesthetic) Artistic ValuePhilosophical 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
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Richard Woodfield, ed., Gombrich on Art and Psychology (review)Philosophy in Review 17 380-382. 1997.
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120The Aesthetic Function of Art (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 75 (2): 484-487. 2007.
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102Pictorial RealismJournal 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
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6The Special and General Theory of Realism: Reply to Abell, Armstrong, and McMahonContemporary Aesthetics 4 40. 2006.
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58Reference, Ontology, and Architecture: Response to Rafael de clercqJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 66 (2). 2008.
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321The Aesthetics of Photographic TransparencyMind 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
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32Nicholas Wolterstorff, Art Rethought: The Social Practices of Art. Reviewed by (review)Philosophy in Review 36 (5): 232-234. 2016.
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Samuel Scheffler, "Human Morality" (review)International Journal of Philosophical Studies 2 (1): 166. 1994.
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3The Domain of DepictionIn Matthew Kieran (ed.), Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art, Blackwell. 2005.
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139Pictures, Styles and PurposesBritish 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.
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119Pictures and the Representational MindThe 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
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170Virtues of Art: Good TasteAristotelian 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.
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470Nobody Needs a Theory of ArtJournal 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
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1Out of Sight, Out of MindIn Matthew Kieran & Dominic McIver Lopes (eds.), Imagination, Philosophy, and the Arts, . 2003.
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PaintingIn Berys Nigel Gaut & Dominic Lopes (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics, Routledge. 2000.
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232Directive PicturesJournal 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
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120Drawing in a Social Science: Lithic IllustrationPerspectives on Science 17 (1). 2009.Scientific images represent types or particulars. According to a standard history and epistemology of scientific images, drawings are fit to represent types and machine-made images are fit to represent particulars. The fact that archaeologists use drawings of particulars challenges this standard history and epistemology. It also suggests an account of the epistemic quality of archaeological drawings. This account stresses how images integrate non-conceptual and interepretive content.
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71A Philosophy of Mass Art (review)Philosophical Review 109 (4): 614. 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
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1An Empathic EyeIn Amy Coplan & Peter Goldie (eds.), Empathy. Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives, Oxford Univerity Press. pp. 118-133. 2011.What you see can shape how you feel, and the route from seeing to feeling sometimes involves empathy – as you might empathize with a woman you see grieving the death of her child. But empathy also comes from what you see in pictures. Bellini's Pieta? is one among many paintings, drawings, prints, and photographs that evoke empathy – and are designed to do so. Going further, it seems that episodes of empathy triggered by pictures can help build up a person's capacity for empathic response. Indeed…Read more
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9Conceptual Art Is Not What It SeemsIn Peter Goldie & Elisabeth Schellekens (eds.), Philosophy and conceptual art, Oxford University Press. 2007.Hypotheses in aesthetics should explain appreciative failure as well as appreciative success. They should state the general conditions under which people fail to understand and value works as works of art. This stricture is all the more important when the typical response to conceptual art is one of resistance. Some philosophers explain this by claiming that conceptual art violates traditional theories of art. Others say that it violates folk ontologies of art. In fact, the appreciative failure …Read more
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274Art Media and the Sense Modalities: Tactile PicturesPhilosophical Quarterly 47 (189): 425-440. 1997.It is widely assumed that the art media can be individuated with reference to the sense modalities. Different art media are perceived by means of different sense modalities, and this tells us what properties of each medium are aesthetically relevant. The case of pictures appears to fit this principle well, for pictures are deemed purely and paradigmatically visual representations. However, recent psychological studies show that congenitally and early blind people have the ability to interpret an…Read more
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58From Languages of Art to Art in MindJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 58 (3): 227-231. 2000.
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79Beyond ArtOxford 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
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120A Philosophy of Computer ArtRoutledge. 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
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