Paisley Livingston

It is quite common to draw a distinction between complete and unfinished works of art. For example, it is uncontroversial to think that Vermeer had actually completed View of Delft before inept restorers added layers of coloured varnish to give the picture an antique quality, and there is very good evidence to support the related claim that the artist had not finished the work before he effected several pentimenti, including the painting over of a figure in the foreground on the right. Such beliefs oriented a costly and elaborate restoration that was begun in 1994 and terminated two years later

Did Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, or other "poststructuralist" theorists writing in the wake of May '68 come up with any good ideas about authorship and related topics in the philosophy of literature? The three volumes under review have a common point of departure in that broad question, but offer a number of contrasting responses to it. In what follows I describe and assess some of the various perspectives on offer in these 700 or so pages. The short answer to my initial question comes at the end. Carla Benedetti's book was first published in 1999 in Milan as L'ombra lunga dell'autore: Indagine su una figura cancellata. Professor of Italian and Theory of Literature at the University of Pisa, and Recurrent Visiting Professor at NYU, she clearly shares some of Foucault's basic assumptions about authorship: "It is the reader or viewer who transforms the artist's selections, which in themselves may even be random or compelled, into subjective choices endowed with intentionality: that intentionality that is capable of providing meaning and artistic value to what we are viewing or reading" (p. 12). Benedetti contends that such attributions are a necessary part of the literary and artistic discursive formation of modernity, and she persuasively demonstrates that the author has not "disappeared," in spite of what Barthes and others may have thought or wished. According to Benedetti, authorialism, or the thesis that artistic value can only derive from original authorship, is the product of a modern ideology. She contends that a self-reflexive, late modernist train of thought generates a highly problematic relation to authorship and such related notions as genius, novelty, and creativity. More specifically, Benedetti finds a Batesonian double bind or paradoxical injunction in modernity's incessant demand for an extreme form of novelty. As soon as something innovative has been done, yet another innovation is desired. Not only does it become harder and harder to make a radically new move in the game, but the entire pursuit appears to be hopeless. Although Benedetti does not say so, the key thought was neatly captured by Oscar Wilde when he quipped: "Nothing is so dangerous as being too modern; one is apt to grow old-fashioned quite suddenly." To be old-fashioned is abhorrent, yet to try to obey the injunction to be "absolutely modern" is to risk becoming old-fashioned in a hurry, so failure seems inevitable. One of the constitutive myths of late modernity has it, then, that artistic activity must be recognized as authorless because it is impossible to create some sort of fundamentally novel work of lasting value. For those in the grip of this unsound thought, it seems necessary to conclude that the writer-no-longer-author must be recognized as an essentially uncreative epigone. Benedetti comments rather sweepingly, "All that poststructuralist thought speaks of, in its multifarious elaborations, is merely our supposed irreversible impossibility to create" (p. 202). She links Derrida's rejection of the possibility of decisive epistemological "ruptures" to the same late modernist mythology. Benedetti concludes her book by saying that the late modernist mythology conflates one kind of novelty with the new in general. This distinction sounds promising, but is not developed any further, and this reader was left wondering how the putative crippling error of a vast artistic dispensation could be revealed by means of a distinction between two kinds of newness. I also wonder whether her diagnosis probes deeply enough into the sources and nature of the modish sensibility that leads perversely to the Last Year in Marienbad syndrome. Not everyone is equally interested in trying to be dazzlingly innovative and fashionable; some who do have this inclination manage to produce excellent works of art; and many artists active in the period in question have not worked with the assumptions Benedetti criticizes. Whatever one thinks about Benedetti's Foucauldian premises about authorship, her book is highly informative, engaging, and replete with astute comments on a wide range of European literary and artistic movements and critical trends. With a keen eye for significant detail, she writes elegantly and discusses many fascinating examples, including interesting, lesser-known Italian ones. A variety of perspectives on authorship are presented..

The ever-expanding literature on narrative reveals a striking divergence of claims about the epistemic valence of narrative. One such claim is the oftstated idea that narratives or stories generate both “hot” and “cold” epistemic irrationality. A familiar, rival claim is that narrative has an exclusive capacity to embody or convey important types of knowledge. Such contrasting contentions are not typically presented as statements about the accidents or effects of particular narratives; the ambition, rather, has been to identify a strong link between a single, positive or negative epistemic valence and narrativity, or the traits in virtue of which some discourse, utterance, or series of thoughts is aptly classified as a narrative or story. In this essay I contend that arguments in this vein are dubious.Not only are contentions about the specificity of narrative tenuous and controversial, but even if they were not, there are serious problems with the postulated connections between narrativity and the epistemic merits or demerits of narratives. These difficulties are identified in a critical discussion of prominent examples from the literature. My conclusion is not that there is nothing worth saying about relations between narratives and various epistemic desiderata, but that one prevalent theoretical ambition in this area ought to be renounced in favor of more viable avenues of inquiry

Cet article propose une reconstruction de la théorie de la rationalité dynamique esquissée par Michael Bratman dans Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason. Evaluer la rationalité de l'agent, dit Bratman, ce n'est pas simplement évaluer les raisons d'agir qu'avait l'agent au moment de sa décision. Il faut se demander non seulement si l'agent était rationnel lorsqu'il a formé son intention d'agir, mais aussi s'il l'était encore en gardant ou en abandonnant cette même intention. Il s'agit d'une perspective interne dans la mesure où elle prend en compte les rapports entre l'action, l'intention qui la guide et le processus de délibération qui est en amont de celle-ci. Mais la perspective que nous adoptons lorsque nous évaluons la rationalité de l'agent est aussi externe, car elle fait référence à des conditions dont l'agent n'a pas la maîtrise, comme les dispositions et les habitudes qui lui sont propres et qui se manifestent dans ses comportements non intentionnels. Dans un premier temps, je décris le dilemme que la théorie de Bratman cherche à résoudre ; dans un second temps, je présente les principes que Bratman développe; finalement, j'en évalue les résultats en identifiant certains des problèmes qui restent à résoudre ; je propose de réviser l'un des principes de Bratman en substituant une approche contrefactuelle à l'approche conséquentialiste qu'il propose.This paper reconstructs the theory of dynamic rationality sketched by Michael Bratman in Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason. Evaluating agent's rationality is not just a matter of evaluating the agent's reasons for acting at the moment of a decision. We must ask not only whether it was rational of the agent to form a future-directed intention, but also whether it is rational of the agent to revise or retain that intention when the moment of action arrives. Such judgements are internal to the framework of the agent's ongoing plans, intentions, and the deliberative processes upstream of every decision. Yet they are also external because they refer to unintentional behavior and conditions beyond the agent's purposive control, such as habits and dispositions. I describe the dilemma Bratmans theory attempts to resolve, present Bratmans normative principles, and identify some outstanding problems. I propose a revision of one of Bratmans principles, arguing for a counterfactual evaluation of non-intentional factors as opposed to his consequentialist approach based on the long-term benefits of the agent's habits.

Paisley Livingston here addresses contemporary controversies over the role of "theory" within the humanistic disciplines. In the process, he suggests ways in which significant modern texts in the philosophy of science relate to the study of literature. Livingston first surveys prevalent views of theory, and then proposes an alternative: theory, an indispensable element in the study of literature, should be understood as a Cogently argued and informed in its judgments, this book points the way to a fuller understanding of the special contribution that literary knowledge may make within the human sciences.

What is now generally known as the paradox of art and negative affect was identified as a paradox by the Abbé Jean-Baptiste Du Bos in 1719. In his attempt to explain how people can admire and enjoy representational works that ‘afflict’ them, Du Bos claims that such representations give rise to ‘artificial’ emotions, provide a pleasurable relief from boredom, and offer us epistemic, artistic, and moral rewards. The paper delineates Du Bos’ proposal, considers the question of Du Bos’ originality, and discusses Hume’s brief comments on Du Bos and Fontenelle

We present an analysis of work completion couched in terms of an effective completion decision identified by its characteristic contents and functions. In our proposal, the artist's completion decision can take a number of distinct forms, including a procedural variety referred to as an ‘extended completion decision’. In the second part of this essay, we address ourselves to the question of whether collaborative art-making projects stand as counterexamples to the proposed analysis of work completion

Testimony about episodes of artistic creativity often describes a puzzling combination of deliberate and involuntary elements. For example, Vincent Van Gogh wrote that it was possible for him to make an especially expressive picture, or as he put it, something with “feeling” in it, because the picture had already spontaneously taken form in his mind before he started drawing. He added, however, that if there was something worthwhile in the picture, this was “not by accident but because of real intention and purpose.” Reflection on such testimony and on his own experience as a poet led Paul Valéry to conclude that artistic creation always involves a combination of “conscious acts” and “spontaneous formation”; only their relative proportion varies. If this point is granted, the outstanding and notoriously difficult problem is to understand how such different elements combine in the creative process. In other words, how is inspiration, or the work of the muse, related to the artist’s deliberations, plans, rational choices, and intentional actions? In what follows I shall develop a conjecture that falls within the conceptual space defined by two extreme theses--the popular, inspirationist idea that artistic creativity is a sudden, involuntary, and ultimately inexplicable event, and the dubious, rationalistic counterthesis, which characterizes artistic creation as a principled, deliberate selection from amongst an array of previously known options, each of which is associated with an expected quantity of artistic value. In my first section I discuss Henri Poincaré’s reflections on creativity in his 1908 essay, “L’Invention mathématique.” Although some of Poincaré’s ideas have been restated and elaborated upon in the literature on creativity, I contend that his most important claims still merit a closer look. Taking Poincairé’s general model as my point of departure, I sketch a new conjecture about artistic creativity in section 2; I also discuss a kindred proposal by Jon Elster. In section 3 I further illustrate and explain this conjecture with reference to Virginia Woolf’s artistic breakthrough in the writing of Jacob’s Room. In my final section I take up and respond to objections that may be raised against these claims about artistic creativity.

The current essay describes aspects of C. I. Lewis’s rarely cited contributions to aesthetics, focusing primarily on the conception of aesthetic experience developed in An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation. Lewis characterized aesthetic value as a proper subset of inherent value, which he understood as the power to occasion intrinsically valued experiences. He distinguished aesthetic experiences from experiences more generally in terms of eight conditions. Roughly, he proposed that aesthetic experiences have a highly positive, preponderantly intrinsic value realized through contemplation, where the experience is indicative of the object’s reliable and characteristic inherent value. Objections to this account motivate a revised, neo-Lewisian proposal.

l Carroll's criticisms of my essay on C. I. Lewis's conception of aesthetic experience, I discuss reasons given in support of axiological accounts of aesthetic experience, including Lewis's contentions about the intrinsic valence of all experiences and his emphasis on the interests motivating philosophical classifications of experience. I also respond to Carroll's remarks about a possible explanatory requirement on a conception of aesthetic experience and the idea that artists have aesthetic experiences as they make a work of art.

An intorduction to an English translation of Bernad Bolzano´s On the Concept of the Beautiful. A neglected gem in the history of aesthetics, Bolzano’s essay on beauty is best understood when read alongside his other writings and philosophical sources. This introduction is designed to contribute to such a reading. In Part I, I identify and discuss three salient ways in which Bolzano’s account can be misunderstood. As a lack of familiarity with Bolzano’s background assumptions is one source of these misunderstandings, in Part II, I elucidate some of his ideas about the psychological processes involved in the contemplation and enjoyment of beauty. In Part III, I situate Bolzano’s discussion of beauty within the more general framework of his ideas about the nature of philosophy, the relation between philosophy and aesthetics, and the place of the concept of beauty within the latter. Part IV is devoted to Bolzano’s discussion of some of his philosophical antecedents, including Kant. In Part V, I raise some objections to Bolzano’s account and indicate how his advocates might respond to them

It has often been claimed that adequate aesthetic judgements must be grounded in the appreciator's first-hand experience of the item judged. Yet this apparent truism is misleading if adequate aesthetic judgements can instead be based on descriptions of the item or on acquaintance with some surrogate for it. In a survey of responses to such challenges to the apparent truism, I identify several contentions presented in its favour, including stipulative definitions of ‘aesthetic judgement’, assertions about conceptual gaps between determinate aesthetic properties and even the most perfect descriptions, and claims about the holistic and sensibility-relative character of aesthetic qualities and values. With reference to considerations advanced by Frank Sibley, Alan H. Goldman, and particularists and anti-particularists in meta-ethics, I contend that strong versions of the apparent truism lack sufficient warrant. Two successors are proposed, however. One reframes the thesis in terms of our contingently limited descriptive and theoretical capacities with regard to a subset of the aesthetic qualities of extraordinary works; the second involves a shift from epistemic to axiological matters: what even the most perfect descriptions cannot provide, and in some cases spoil, is our gauging of an item's inherent, experiential value.

Philosophical discussion of emotional responses to fiction has been dominated by work on the paradox of fiction, which is often construed as asking whether and how we can experience genuine emotions in reaction to fiction. One may also ask more generally how we ought to respond to fictional works, a question that has to do both with what we should do when reacting to fiction and with what we should and should not let happen to us. It is possible to delineate any principles regarding the rationality, and more generally, the appropriateness of emotional responses to fiction?

People often ask each other “what happens” in a novel or film, and they are inclined to think that some answers are better than others. Some claims about what happens in a story are deemed inaccurate or false, while others are the object of a fairly widespread consensus. The fact that a statement about a narrative discourse is deemed accurate does not mean that it will or should be accepted as an adequate statement about the story told in the discourse. If someone asks me what just happened in a movie, even the most prefect description of the cuts and camera angles will be deemed irrelevant.

_The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Film_ is the first comprehensive volume to explore the main themes, topics, thinkers and issues in philosophy and film. The _Companion_ features sixty specially commissioned chapters from international scholars and is divided into four clear parts: • issues and concepts • authors and trends • genres • film as philosophy. Part one is a comprehensive section examining key concepts, including chapters on acting, censorship, character, depiction, ethics, genre, interpretation, narrative, reception and spectatorship and style. Part two covers authors and scholars of film and significant theories Part three examines genres such as documentary, experimental cinema, horror, comedy and tragedy. Part four includes chapters on key directors such as Tarkovsky, Bergman and Terrence Malick and on particular films including _Memento_. Each chapter includes a section of annotated further reading and is cross-referenced to related entries. _The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Film_ is essential reading for anyone interested in philosophy of film, aesthetics and film and cinema studies