Nick Zangwill

In metaphor we appropriate the literal meanings of words, and use them in ways that do not correspond to their functions. I develop this way of understanding metaphor and situate it within a general functional account of literal word meaning. I show how metaphor can be understood within this framework. I address disagreement with metaphors and the role of logically embedded metaphors, and I show how an appropriation understanding of metaphor yields an explanation of these phenomena.Many artifacts have functions that derive in part from the intentions that result in their creation. For example, a coffeemaker has the function of making coffee, which it has partly because someone intended it to make coffee, and this ..

I very much appreciate Daniel Nathan’s thoughtful commentary on Aesthe- tic Creation. He describes my view accurately, with a full understanding of what is moving me, and with some sympathy for my methodological concerns, even if he thinks that I over emphasize some desiderata and even if he cannot endorse the particular aesthetic theory that I argue emerges from the methodological reflections. He makes a number of interesting criticisms. (A) Nathan worries about doodles being classified as art according the aesthetic creation theory. Nathan says that this violates certain intuitions about the nature of art. I query this appeal to intuition. Whose concepts? Which intuitions? Why do such intuitions have evidential weight? We have intuitions abut the physical world: that the earth is flat not round. More to the point we have intuitions about kinds. For example, it is intuitive that a whale is a fish. But such intuitions may be mistaken. Similarly with intuitions about what is art and what is not art. With intuitions I say at least that there is, or should be, a question mark standing over them. We are interested in the world, not in our concepts or intuitions. The question is: what are these things? And the question about concepts is: which do we need to understand the things? Which concepts should we have? Not: which do we have? As Nathan notes, for me, explanation trumps extension if there is a conflict. Or perhaps rather, for me, extension is subsumed under explanation. It is true that there are avant garde works that I exclude that other theories include. And there also are doodles that I include and they exclude. The question is where we go from there. (B) Nathan worries about the success condition. I required that to some extent artists are right about aesthetic/nonaesthetic dependencies. Actually, I would not kill for the success condition. Perhaps aesthetic intent is enough1. A person might form an aesthetic intention but never get round to acting on it, in which case we do not have a work of art..

I shall be concerned with the metaphysical issues that Aesthetic Functionalism raises, and I shall here leave aside questions about whether the theory is extensionally adequate. Aesthetic Functionalism applies to a great many works of art (for example, it applies to most paintings and most music). It may or may not apply to all works of art. If it does not, then I can be taken to be providing a theory of those works that have aesthetic aspirations. To have given an account of their nature would be success enough.