Boston University
Department of Philosophy
PhD, 1985
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
  •  161
    Relativism, standards and aesthetic judgements
    International Journal of Philosophical Studies 17 (2). 2009.
    This paper explores the various available forms of relativism concerning aesthetic judgement and contrasts them with aesthetic absolutism. Two important distinctions are drawn. The first is between subjectivism (which relativizes judgements to an individual's sentiments or feelings) and the relativization of aesthetic judgements to intersubjective standards. The other is between relativism about aesthetic properties and relativism about the truth-values of aesthetic judgements. Several plausible…Read more
  •  184
    Art, authenticity and appropriation
    Frontiers of Philosophy in China 1 (3): 455-476. 2006.
    It is often suggested that artists from one culture (outsiders) cannot successfully employ styles, stories, motifs and other artistic content developed in the context of another culture. I call this suggestion the aesthetic handicap thesis and argue against it. Cultural appropriation can result in works of high aesthetic value
  •  9
    Jeanette Bicknell, Why Music Moves Us Reviewed by
    Philosophy in Review 29 (5): 316-317. 2009.
    Review of Why Music Moves Us by Jeanette Bicknell.
  •  2
    Evaluation and the Cognitive Function of Art
    The Journal of Aesthetic Education 29 (4): 65. 1995.
  •  156
    The metaphysics of jazz
    Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 58 (2): 125-133. 2000.
  •  14
    Batteux: The Fine Arts Reduced to a Single Principle
    Oxford University Press UK. 2015.
    The Fine Arts Reduced to a Single Principle by Charles Batteux was arguably the most influential work on aesthetics published in the eighteenth century. It influenced every major aesthetician in the second half of the century, and is the work generally credited with establishing the modern system of the arts: poetry, painting, music, sculpture and dance. Batteux's book is also an invaluable aid to the interpretation of the arts of eighteenth century. And yet there has never been a complete or re…Read more
  •  33
    Still more in defense of colorization
    Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 50 (3): 245-248. 1992.
  •  2
    Art and the Educated Audience
    Journal of Aesthetic Education 44 (3): 29. 2010.
    In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Art and the Educated AudienceJames O. Young (bio)1. IntroductionWhen writing about art, aestheticians tend to focus on the work of art and on the artist who produces it. When they refer to audiences, they typically speak only of the effect that the artwork has on its audience. Aestheticians pay little, if any, attention to the important active role that an audience plays in the workings of a healthy art world. My goal in this essay i…Read more
  •  126
    Resemblance, Convention, and Musical Expressiveness
    The Monist 95 (4): 587-605. 2012.
    Peter Kivy and Stephen Davies developed an influential and convincing account of what features of music cause listeners to hear it as expressive of emotion. Their view (the resemblance theory) holds that music is expressive of some emotion when it resembles human expressive behaviour. Some features of music, they believe, are expressive of emotion because of conventional associations. In recent years, Kivy has rejected the resemblance theory without adopting an alternative. This essay argues tha…Read more
  •  59
    Key, temperament and musical expression
    Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 49 (3): 235-242. 1991.
  •  42
    Critique of Pure Music
    Oxford University Press. 2014.
    James O. Young seeks to explain why we value music so highly. He draws on the latest psychological research to argue that music is expressive of emotion by resembling human expressive behaviour. The representation of emotion in music gives it the capacity to provide psychological insight--and it is this which explains a good deal of its value
  •  145
    The coherence theory of truth
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008.
  •  19
    Relatively Speaking: The Coherence of Anti-Realist Relativism
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 16 (3). 1986.
    The current debate between realists and anti-realists has brought to the fore some ancient questions about the coherence of relativism. Realism is the doctrine according to which the truth of sentences is determined by the way things really are. Truth is thus the result of a relation between sentences and reality. One species of anti-realism holds, on the contrary, the truth results from a relation between sentences within a theory: a sentence is true if warranted by a correct theory.
  •  99
    Art and Knowledge
    Routledge. 2001.
    Almost all of us would agree that the experience of art is deeply rewarding. Why this is the case remains a puzzle; nor does it explain why many of us find works of art much more important than other sources of pleasure. Art and Knowledge argues that the experience of art is so rewarding because it can be an important source of knowledge about ourselves and our relation to each other and to the world. The view that art is a source of knowledge can be traced as far back as Aristotle and Horace. A…Read more
  •  238
    Profound offense and cultural appropriation
    Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 63 (2). 2005.
  •  18
    Inquiry in the Arts and Sciences
    Philosophy 71 (276). 1996.
    In his 1836 lectures to the Royal Institute, the great landscape painter John Constable stated that ‘Painting is a science, and should be pursued as an inquiry into the laws of nature.’ Landscape, he went on to say, should ‘be considered a branch of natural philosophy, of which pictures are but the experiments.’1Constable makes two claims in this striking passage. The first is that painting is a form of inquiry. This is, by itself, a bold claim, but Constable goes on to state that painters and s…Read more
  • Jeanette Bicknell, Why Music Moves Us
    Philosophy in Review 29 (5): 316. 2009.
  •  20
    E. Lepore : "Truth and Interpretation: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson" (review)
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 66 (n/a): 249. 1988.
  •  416
    The Poverty of Musical Ontology
    Journal of Music and Meaning 13 1-19. 2014.
    Aaron Ridley posed the question of whether results in the ontology of musical works would have implications for judgements about the interpretation, meaning or aesthetic value of musical works and performances. His arguments for the conclusion that the ontology of musical works have no aesthetic consequences are unsuccessful, but he is right in thinking (in opposition to Andrew Kania and others) that ontological judgements have no aesthetic consequences. The key to demonstrating this concl…Read more
  •  70
    Some members of the Vienna Circle argued for a coherence theory of truth. Their coherentism is immune to standard objections. Most versions of coherentism are unable to show why a sentence cannot be true even though it fails to cohere with a system of beliefs. That is, it seems that truth may transcend what we can be warranted in believing. If so, truth cannot consist in coherence with a system of beliefs. The Vienna Circle's coherentists held, first, that sentences are warranted by coherence wi…Read more
  •  43
    The Ancient and Modern System of the Arts
    British Journal of Aesthetics 55 (1): 1-17. 2015.
    Paul Oskar Kristeller famously argued that the modern ‘ system of the arts ’ did not emerge until the mid-eighteenth century, in the work of Charles Batteux. On this view, the modern conception of the fine arts had no parallel in the ancient world, the middle-ages or the modern period prior to Batteux. This paper argues that Kristeller was wrong. The ancient conception of the imitative arts completely overlaps with Batteux’s fine arts : poetry, painting, music, sculpture, and dance. Writers from…Read more
  •  48
    A Defence of the Coherence Theory of Truth
    Journal of Philosophical Research 26 89-101. 2001.
    Recent critics of the coherence theory of truth (notably Ralph Walker) have alleged that the theory is incoherent, since its defence presupposes the correctness of the contrary correspondence theory of truth. Coherentists must specify the system of propositions with which true propositons cohere (the specified system). Generally, coherentists claim that the specified system is a system composed of propositions believed by a community. Critics of coherentism maintain that the coherentist’s assert…Read more
  •  19
    Review of noël Carroll, Art in Three Dimensions (review)
    Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2010 (12). 2010.
  •  11
    Aesthetics (edited book)
    Routledge. 2005.
    This four volume set brings together both classic and contemporary writings to provide a comprehensive collection of the most important essays on the subject. All of the various artistic genres are addressed, with sections on film, dance and architecture as well as music, literature and the visual arts. With a new introduction by the editor to guide the reader through the volumes, this major new work will provide student and researcher alike with key writings on aesthetics in one convenient, uni…Read more
  •  15
    Music and the Representation of Emotion
    Frontiers of Philosophy in China 8 (2): 332-348. 2013.