Nick Zangwill

ANTI-FORMALISM has become the consensus in aesthetics. But in my view anti-formalism is not true to our aesthetic experience; it gives a revisionary account of the aesthetic properties that we think we find in works of art. The thesis I think we should hold is not extreme formalism—the view that all or almost all aesthetic properties are formal—but the moderate thesis that many are. This view has not been given its due because so many aestheticians have been convinced by anti-formalist arguments. In this short paper, I propose a systematic method for resisting anti-formalist arguments. The method is to apply one of three strategies. These strategies are repeatable archetypes. I shall show these neutralizing strategies at work with seven objections to formalism.

What is the relation between moral and natural properties? And how do we conceive of this relation? By ‘moral’ properties I will mean properties such as being evil, just or virtuous or having duties or rights; and by ‘natural’ properties I will mean properties such as psychological, sociological and physical properties.1 Suppose we judge that Queen Isabella of Spain was evil in 1492, or at least that many of her actions in 1492 were evil. Then we do not think that she had various natural properties in 1492  such as being a torturer, a bigot and desiring other’s pain  and by an astounding coincidence she or her actions also had the moral property of evil. Rather, we think that she or her..

Can the contemporary concept of the ‘aesthetic’ be defended? Is it in good shape or is it sick? Should we retain it or dispense with it? The concept of the aesthetic is used to characterize a range of judgements and experiences. Let us begin with some examples of judgements which aestheticians classify as aesthetic, so that we have some idea of what we are talking about. These paradigm cases will anchor the ensuing discussion. Once we have some idea of which judgements are classified as aesthetic judgements, we can go on to ponder what, if anything, they have in common.

I argue that an evaluational conception of love collides with the way we value love. That way allows that love has causes, but not reasons, and it recognizes and celebrates a love that refuses to justify itself. Love has unjustified selectivity, due to its arbitrary causes. That imposes a non-tradability norm. A love for reasons, rational love or evaluational love would be propositional, and it therefore allows that the people we love are tradable commodities. A moralized conception of love is no less committed to treating those we love as tradable commodities; it is just that they are tradable moral commodities. An evaluative criterion of adequacy, I suggest, encourages the opposite view ? a non-rational and non-evaluational concept of love. Such a love can set up partial obligations, which may even demand that one sacrifice one's life. Only a love that has causes but not reasons can have the kind of value that we think love has, and thus it would only be rational to pursue and foster such a love

The aesthetic realist interprets many descriptions of music as metaphorical descriptions of aesthetic properties of music. I argue that aesthetic realism requires that nonaesthetic words are used to express both aesthetic and nonaesthetic concepts. But having distinguished the concepts, some plausible account must be given of their relation. A causal account of the relation between the possession of aesthetic and nonaesthetic concepts provides this, since the concepts are distinct but connected. I explore and defend this account. I consider the conditions of aesthetic concept possession and also the appropriation of nonaesthetic words in aesthetic descriptions

I argue that people do not and cannot have religious experiences that are perceptual experiences with theological content and that provide some justification for the belief in God. I discuss William Alston's resourceful defence of this idea. My strategy is to say that religious perception would either have to be by means of one of the ordinary five senses or else by means of some special sixth religious sense. In either case insoluble epistemological problems arise. The problem is with perceiving God as God, which we need to do if reasons to believe in God are to be generated. To do so, we would have to perceive the instantiation of His essential properties – being all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good. But perceiving the instantiation of these properties of God, even by some special sixth religious sense, is impossible. Hence, God cannot be perceived either by the ordinary five senses or by a sixth religious sense. Religious perceptual experiences are a myth. (Published Online February 17 2004).

I defend extreme formalism about the aesthetics of inorganic nature. I outline the general issue over aesthetic formalism as it manifests itself in the visual arts. The main issue is over whether we need to know about the history of artworks in order to appreciate them aesthetically. I then turn to nature and concede that with organic nature we need to know a thing's biological kinds if we are fully to appreciate it. However, with in organic nature I deny that we need to know the deeper nature of the things we experience. What is important, I argue, are the appearances of those things not their real natures. I consider the beauty of clouds, which depends on an illusion of solidity, and I argue that scientific knowledge does not reveal beauty that is not available to the ignoramous. There is only the beauty of appearances, and it does not matter whether those appearances are accurate or illusory

In this volume, Zangwill develops a view of the nature of music and our experience of music that foregrounds the aesthetic properties of music. He focuses on metaphysical issues about aesthetic properties of music, psychological issues about the nature of musical experience, and philosophy of language issues about the metaphorical nature of aesthetic descriptions of music. Among the innovations of this book, Zangwill addresses the limits of literal description, generally, and in the aesthetic case. He also explores the social and political issues about musical listening, which tend to be addressed more in continental traditions

Can a certain sort of property supervene on another sort of property without reducing to it? Many philosophers find the superveniencel irreducibility combination attractive in the philosophy of mind and in moral philosophy (Davidson 1980 and Moore 1903). They think that mental properties supervene upon physical properties but do not reduce to them, or that moral properties supervene upon natural properties without reducing to them. Other philosophers have tried to show that the combination is ultimately untenable, however attractive it might initially appear. Thus Ted Honderich and Jaegwon Kim argue that the combination cannot explain the causal efhcacy of the supervening properties (Honderich 1982, Kim 1984b). And Simon..

onald Dworkin says he does not believe in the metaphysics of morality. He is a 'quietist' about this issue. He thinks that there are no coherent 'external' or 'archimedian' questions that we can raise about the whole discipline of moral thought and talk, and that the only questions we can raise are 'internal' ones about what moral thoughts we should think. Dworkin thinks that some metaphysical debates can go ahead, it is just the metaphysics of morality that is ill-gotten. This is because those other areas of thought involve causal claims about the origins of our thought, as part of their content; but moral thought does not (p. 119). So Dworkin thinks that religious and astrological thought can be assessed in terms of the causal claims they make, but moral thought is not the kind of thought which can be assessed in that way. But is moral thought really answerable to nothing except itself? How convenient for it! Furthermore, does this unanswerability generalize to any form of thought which does not involve causal claims? For example, is the attempt to give mathematics a foundation misguided and worthy of the derision that Dworkin heaps on meta-ethics? Are morality and mathematics as it were free-floating modes of thought held up by nothing? Even if Dworkin is right that some forms of thought are not to be measured in causal terms, the idea that they are answerable to nothing is bizarre.

Aesthetic Formalism has fallen on hard times. At best it receives unsympathetic discussion and swift rejection. At worst it is the object of abuse and derision. But I think that there is something to be said for it. In this paper, I shall try to find and secure the truth in formalism. I shall not try to defend formalism against all of the objections to it.1 Instead I shall articulate a moderate formalist view that draws on aesthetic0nonaesthetic determination and Kant’s distinction between free and dependent beauty. I shall examine four central art forms—painting, sculpture, lit-.

I distinguish two different arguments against cognitivism in Bernard Williams’ writings on moral dilemmas. The first turns on there being a truth of the matter about what we ought to do in moral a dilemma. That argument can be met by appealing to our epistemic shortcomings and to pro tanto obligations. However, those responses make no headway with the second argument which concerns the rationality of the moral regret that we feel in dilemma situations. I show how the rationality of moral regret can be explained on an ‘independent desire’ model. And I show how Williams’ second argument only appears to have force because of a certain faulty way of conceiving of the issue over cognitivism. But Williams’ argument rightly alerts us to the rational role of desire in our moral thought

Must mental properties figure in psychological causal laws if they are causally efficacious? And do those psychological causal laws give the essence of mental properties? Contrary to the prevailing consensus, I argue that, on the usual conception of laws that is in play in these debates, there are in fact lawless causally efficacious properties both in and out of the philosophy of mind. I argue that this makes a great difference to the philosophical relevance of empirical psychology. 1 begin by making the case that revolutions and hurricanes are lawless phenomena, before arguing for a similar thesis about creativity, love, courage, dreams, daydreams, and musings. Furthermore, the empirical research on these phenomena suggests that the philosophical issues may be independent of what empirical psychology can tell us.