James O. Young

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 scientists inquire in the same way. As controversial as these views are, both of them have been sympathetically entertained in recent years by several philosophers. In particular, Nelson Goodman and Catherine Elgin have maintained that painting, and the other arts, are forms of inquiry, and that they are akin to the sciences in important respects.2I think, however, that Constable is only half right. Although I agree that the arts are forms of inquiry, I will argue that the arts and the sciences employ radically different methods. That the arts and the sciences are very different forms of inquiry might seem to be a point so obvious as to be scarcely worth making. We can, however, appreciate more clearly how the arts can contribute to our knowledge by contrasting its methods with those of science.

It has long been known that Jean-Baptiste Du Bos exercised a considerable influence on Hume’s essays and, in particular, on the ‘Of the Standard of Taste’ and ‘Of Tragedy’. It has also been noted that some passages in the Treatise bear marks of Du Bos’ influence. In this essay, we identify many more passages in the Treatise that bear unmistakable signs of Du Bos’ influence. We demonstrate that Du Bos certainly had a significant impact on Hume as he wrote the Treatise. We go on to argue that Hume’s views on morality are an extension to the moral realm of Du Bos’ views on beauty and criticism. Du Bos may also have influenced Hume’s distinction between ideas and impressions.

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 the sixteenth century on adopted the ancient conception of the imitative arts and anticipated the views of Batteux by 200 years. Batteux simply popularized the rubric ‘fine arts ’

Peter Kivy argues that Handel was the first composer to be regarded as a genius and that only in the eighteenth century was the philosophical apparatus in place that would enable any composer to be conceived of as a musical genius. According to Kivy, a Longinian conception of genius transformed Handel into a genius. A Platonic conception of genius was used to classify Mozart as a genius. Then Kant adopted a Longinian conception of genius and this shaped the perception of Beethoven. Kivy is wrong on all counts. Composers were thought to be geniuses long before Handel. The emergence of philosophical aesthetics in the eighteenth century did little to shape conceptions of musical genius. More specifically, Kivy misrepresents Kant's conception of genius and the role that it plays in the recognition of Beethoven as a musical genius

The view that music can have a positive or negative effect on a person’s character has been defended throughout the history of philosophy. This paper traces some of the history of the ethos theory and identifies a version of the theory that could be true. This version of the theory can be traced to Plato and Aristotle and was given a clear statement by Herbert Spencer in the nineteenth century. The paper then examines some of the empirical literature on how music can affect dispositions to behave and moral judgement. None of this evidence provides much support for the ethos theory. The paper then proposes a programme of research that has the potential to confirm the ethos theory.

I characterise a relativist account of truth as one according to which the truth value of a sentence can vary without its meaning changing. Relativism is to be contrasted with absolutism, which states that the truth values of sentences cannot change, so long as their meanings remain constant. I argue that absolutism follows from the realist account of meaning and truth conditions. According to realism, the meaning of a sentence consists in objective truth conditions and sentences are true if and only if certain objective conditions obtain. Relativism is a consequence of anti‐realism. Anti‐realists believe that the meanings of sentences consist in recognisable conditions and that sentences are true if and only if certain recognisable conditions obtain. I contrast the sorts of relativism which results from partial, empiricism‐based anti‐realisms, and global anti‐realism, which is linked to a coherence theory of knowledge. I offer a few remarks on how global anti‐realists can restrict the scope of their relativism.

Semantic realism is the view that sentences can be true even if speakers cannot know that they are. Anti-realists believe that sentences cannot be true unless speakers can know that they are. The difference between the two positions can be characterized as a dispute about truth conditions. Realists believe that they are objective, that is, they can obtain even though speakers cannot know that they do. Anti-realists believe that truth conditions are always recognizable. Two major lines of argument have been advanced against semantic realism. Dummett initially advanced the first, considered in Part 1 of this book. The other, considered in Part 2, is attributable to Hilary Putnam.