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26Fictional Worlds and the Moral Imagination (edited book)Palgrave-Macmillan. 2021.This edited collection investigates the kinds of moral reflection we can undertake within the imaginative worlds of literature. In philosophical contexts of ethical inquiry we can too easily forget that literary experience can play an important role in the cultivation of our ethical sensibilities. Because our ethical lives are conducted in the real world, fictional representations of this world can appear removed from ethical contemplation. However, as this stimulating volume shows, the dichotom…Read more
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25Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, Linguistic Meaning and MusicParagraph 34 (3): 388-405. 2011.This article undertakes a comparison between Wittgenstein's philosophy of the early and late periods with the musical theories of Wittgenstein's contemporary, Heinrich Schenker, an influential Viennese theorist of tonality, as well as those of their contemporary Arnold Schoenberg. Schenker's reductive analytical procedure was designed to unveil fundamental and uniform ways in which all works of music function, unfolding a deep structure constituting their essence. Schoenberg deplored this line o…Read more
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25Wittgenstein, Henry James, and Epistemological FictionPhilosophy and Literature 13 (1): 75-95. 1989.
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24Book review: Meaning and interpretation: Wittgenstein, Henry James, and literary knowledge (review)Philosophy and Literature 19 (2). 1995.
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23Stanley Cavell on Aesthetic Understanding (edited book)Springer Verlag. 2018.This book investigates the scope and significance of Stanley Cavell’s lifelong and lasting contribution to aesthetic understanding. Focusing on various strands of the rich body of Cavell’s philosophical work, the authors explore connections between his wide-ranging writings on literature, music, film, opera, autobiography, Wittgenstein, and Austin to contemporary currents in aesthetic thinking. Most centrally, the writings brought together here from an international team of senior, mid-career, a…Read more
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22Art as Thought: The Inner Conflicts of Aesthetic IdealismPhilosophical Investigations 9 (4): 257-273. 1986.
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20Jazz improvisation and ethical interaction : a sketch of the connectionsIn Garry Hagberg (ed.), Art and Ethical Criticism, Blackwell. 2008.This chapter contains sections titled: Attentiveness Awareness of the Circumstances of Action Acknowledging the Autonomy of Others Respecting Complexity Memory Respecting Individuality Rethinking the Past The Habit of Resourcefulness Kantian Mutual Respect Genuineness and Insight Sensitivity to the Context of Discourse Excessive Attentiveness The Diversity of Intentional Action.
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20The Interpretation of Music: Philosophical EssaysJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 54 (2): 201-204. 1996.
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19Implication in Interpretation: Wittgenstein, Artistic Content, and ‘The Field of a Word’In Danièle Moyal-Sharrock, Volker Munz & Annalisa Coliva (eds.), Mind, Language and Action: Proceedings of the 36th International Wittgenstein Symposium, De Gruyter. pp. 45-64. 2015.
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19Listening to Music By Martyn Evans London: Macmillan, 1990, viii + 160 pp., £35.00 (review)Philosophy 67 (259): 123-. 1992.
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19Goldman, Alan H. Philosophy and the Novel. Oxford University Press, 2013, 209 pp., $53.40 cloth (review)Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 72 (3): 332-335. 2014.
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18Introduction: Not "Of," "As," or "And," but "In"Philosophy and Literature 41 (1A). 2017.The philosophy of literature, a topic on which we publish numerous articles, concerns what we at the journal take to be engaging and interestingly intricate issues; these include the ontology of fictional characters and the precise nature of our emotional responses to fiction. Philosophy as literature, although we perhaps publish fewer works of this kind, considers philosophical writing from a literary standpoint; issues here include the varying stylistics of philosophical writing over the ages …Read more
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18Review of Stephen Davies, Themes in the Philosophy of Music (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2006 (1). 2006.
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18The Quest for Voice: Music, Politics, and the Limits of PhilosophyJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 58 (1): 85-88. 2000.
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17Art as Language: Wittgenstein, Meaning, and Aesthetic TheoryCornell University Press. 1998.Art as Language systematically considers the implications of the pervasive belief that art is a language or functions like...
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16Music and ImaginationPhilosophy 61 (238). 1986.When we inquire into the nature of works of art we can see at a glance that there is a good deal of evidence against aesthetic idealism, the view that artworks are, in the final analysis, imaginary objects in the minds of their creators. We believe, for instance, that the National Gallery not only contingently but in some sense necessarily weighs more than merely the sum of the empty building, the people in it, and the assorted fixtures. This sum must also include the weight of canvases, the oil…Read more
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16Fiction and Emotion: A Study in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of MindJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 48 (3): 246-248. 1990.
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16Improvisation within the Range of Implication: Cora Diamond, Henry James, and the Adventure of LiteratureIn Maria Balaska (ed.), Cora Diamond on Ethics, Springer Verlag. pp. 103-124. 2021.The paper examines an important theme in Cora Diamond’s work, as this appears particularly in her reply to Martha Nussbaum, namely the theme of moral attention—being sensitive to the complexity of facts as opposed to obtuseness, and the role that improvisation plays for moral attention. To further elucidate what improvisation is I consider its role in music and literature as mimetic portrayals of the complexity of moral life. I use the examples of Coltrane’s jazz music and of James’s rewriting o…Read more
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15Aristotle's Mimesis and Abstract ArtPhilosophy 59 (229): 365-371. 1984.Does non-representational art itself constitute a refutation of any theory of art based upon mimesis or imitation? Our intuitions regarding this question seem to support an affirmative answer: it appears impossible to account for abstract and non-representational art in terms of imitation, because, to put the problem simply, if nothing is copied in a work of art then there can be nothing essentially imitative about it. The very notion of abstract imitative art seems self-contradictory.
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13Fictional Worlds and the Political Imagination (edited book)Palgrave-Macmillan. 2024.There has been a steady stream of articles written on the relations between political thought and the interpretation of literature, but there remains a need for a book that both introduces and significantly contributes to the field – particularly one that shows in detail how we can think more freely and creatively about political possibilities by reading and reflecting on politically significant literature. This volume offers analytically acute and culturally rich ways of understanding how it is…Read more
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13Wittgenstein on Aesthetic Understanding (edited book)Palgrave-Macmillan. 2017.This book investigates the significance of Wittgenstein’s philosophy for aesthetic understanding. Focusing on the aesthetic elements of Wittgenstein’s philosophical work, the authors explore connections to contemporary currents in aesthetic thinking and the illuminating power of Wittgenstein’s philosophy when considered in connection with the interpretation of specific works of literature, music, and the arts. Taken together, the chapters presented here show what aesthetic understanding consists…Read more
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13Fictional Worlds and the Political Imagination (edited book)Palgrave-Macmillan. 2024.There has been a steady stream of articles written on the relations between political thought and the interpretation of literature, but there remains a need for a book that both introduces and significantly contributes to the field – particularly one that shows in detail how we can think more freely and creatively about political possibilities by reading and reflecting on politically significant literature. This volume offers analytically acute and culturally rich ways of understanding how it is…Read more
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12Reflections on George Dickie's "The Century of Taste: The Philosophical Odyssey of Taste in the Eighteenth Century"The Journal of Aesthetic Education 33 (3): 93. 1999.
Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Language |
Aesthetics |
20th Century Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Mind |