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129The aesthetic peculiarity of multifunctional artefactsBritish Journal of Aesthetics 45 (4): 412-425. 2005.Echoing a distinction made by David Wiggins in his discussion of the relation of identity, this paper investigates whether aesthetic adjectives such as ‘beautiful’ are sortal-relative or merely sortal-dependent. The hypothesis guiding the paper is that aesthetic adjectives, though probably sortal-dependent in general, are sortal-relative only when used to characterize multifunctional artefacts. This means that multifunctional artefacts should be unique in allowing the following situation to occu…Read more
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262Locke's Principle is an Applicable Criterion of IdentityNoûs 47 (4): 697-705. 2011.According to Locke’s Principle, material objects are identical if and only if they are of the same kind and once occupy the same place at the same time. There is disagreement about whether this principle is true, but what is seldom disputed is that, even if true, the principle fails to constitute an applicable criterion of identity. In this paper, I take issue with two arguments that have been offered in support of this claim by arguing (i) that we can have knowledge of past whereabouts, and so …Read more
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344A criterion of diachronic identity based on Locke's PrincipleMetaphysica 6 (1): 23-38. 2005.The aim of this paper is to derive a perfectly general criterion of identity through time from Locke’s Principle, which says that two things of the same kind cannot occupy the same space at the same time. In this way, the paper pursues a suggestion made by Peter F. Strawson almost thirty years ago in an article called ‘Entity and Identity’. The reason why the potential of this suggestion has so far remained unrealized is twofold: firstly, the suggestion was never properly developed by Strawson, …Read more
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5BeautyIn Berys Gaut Gaut & Dominic Lopes (eds.), Routledge Companion to Aesthetics 3rd Edition, Routledge. 2013.This survey chapter focuses on two questions concerning the nature of beauty. First, can “beauty” be defined, and if so, how? Second, what is the relation between beauty and the mind; for example, between being beautiful and being judged beautiful, or between being beautiful and being the object of pleasure?
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394The structure of aesthetic propertiesPhilosophy Compass 3 (5): 894-909. 2008.Aesthetic properties are often thought to have either no evaluative component or an evaluative component that can be isolated from their descriptive component. The present article argues that this popular view is without adequate support. First, doubt is cast on the idea that some paradigmatic aesthetic properties are purely descriptive. Second, the idea that the evaluative component of an aesthetic property can always be neatly separated from its descriptive component is called into question. M…Read more
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197Perceptual indiscriminability: In defence of Wright's proofPhilosophical Quarterly 54 (216): 439-444. 2004.A series of unnoticeably small changes in an observable property may add up to a noticeable change. Crispin Wright has used this fact to prove that perceptual indiscriminability is a non-transitive relation. Delia Graff has recently argued that there is a 'tension' between Wright's assumptions. But Graff has misunderstood one of these, that 'phenomenal continua' are possible; and the other, that our powers of discrimination are finite, is sound. If the first assumption is properly understood, it…Read more
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174CloserSynthese 146 (3). 2005.Criteria of identity should mirror the identity relation in being reflexive, symmetrical, and transitive. However, this logical requirement is only rarely met by the criteria that we are most inclined to propose as candidates. The present paper addresses the question how such obvious candidates are best approximated by means of relations that have all of the aforementioned features, i.e., which are equivalence relations. This question divides into two more basic questions. First, what is to be c…Read more
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317The concept of an aesthetic propertyJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 60 (2). 2002.This paper provides an analysis of the concept of an aesthetic property in non-aesthetic terms.
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2Aesthetic IdealsIn Kathleen Stock & Katherine Thomson-Jones (eds.), New Waves in Aesthetics, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 188-202. 2008.The aim of this chapter is to understand how sortals determine what aesthetic properties an object has. It is argued that Frank Sibley’s notion of an ideal of beauty does not help us to achieve that aim. Instead, it is argued, the special aesthetic relevance of sortals is better understood by reference to the (non-aesthetic) ideas of normality and functionality associated with sortals. In passing, the paper also argues that there must be a maximum degree of beauty if non-comparative judgments of…Read more
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216Two conceptions of response-dependencePhilosophical Studies 107 (2): 159-177. 2002.The traditional conception of response-dependence isinadequate because it cannot account for all intuitivecases of response-dependence. In particular, it is unableto account for the response-dependence of (aesthetic, moral, epistemic ...) values. I therefore propose tosupplement the traditional conception with an alternativeone. My claim is that only a combination of the twoconceptions is able to account for all intuitivecases of response-dependence.
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268Modern Architecture and the Concept of HarmonyBritish Journal of Aesthetics 51 (1): 69-79. 2011.The aim of this paper is to achieve a better understanding of why modern buildings do not easily harmonize with one another. After proposing, and defending, an analysis of the concept of architectural harmony, the paper turns to three possible views on whether we can expect more harmony from modern architecture in the future
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180A note on the aesthetics of mirror reversalPhilosophical Studies 132 (3). 2007.According to Roy Sorensen [Philosophical Studies 100 (2000) 175–191] an object cannot differ aesthetically from its mirror image. On his view, mirror-reversing an object – changing its left/right orientation – cannot bring about any aesthetic change. However, in arguing for this thesis Sorensen assumes that aesthetic properties supervene on intrinsic properties alone. This is a highly controversial assumption and nothing is offered in its support. Moreover, a plausible weakening of the assumptio…Read more
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213Is There a Problem with the Causal Criterion of Event Identity?American Philosophical Quarterly 51 (2): 109-119. 2014.In this paper, we take another look at the reasons for which the causal criterion of event identity has been abandoned. We argue that the reasons are not strong. First of all, there is a criterion in the neighborhood of the causal criterion—the counterfactual criterion—that is not vulnerable to any of the putative counterexamples brought up in the literature. Secondly, neither the causal criterion nor the counterfactual criterion suffers from any form of vicious circularity. Nonetheless, we do n…Read more
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162Aesthetic IneffabilityJournal of Consciousness Studies 7 (8-9): 87-97. 2000.In this paper I argue that recent attempts at explaining aesthetic ineffability have been unsuccessful. Either they misrepresent what aesthetic ineffability consists in, or they leave important aspects of it unexplained. I then show how a more satisfying account might be developed, once a distinction is made between two kinds of awareness.
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58Resemblance and Representation: An Essay in the Philosophy of Pictures, by Ben Blumson (review)British Journal of Aesthetics 56 (3): 317-320. 2016.
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143Huemer on Immigration and the Preservation of CulturePhilosophia 45 (3): 1091-1098. 2017.Libertarian philosopher Michael Huemer has argued recently that there is a prima facie right to immigrate, and, moreover, that concerns people have about the effects of immigration are not strong enough to neutralize or override this prima facie right. In this paper, I focus on one particular concern that Huemer deems insufficiently strong to neutralize or override the prima facie right to immigrate, namely, the concern that unrestricted immigration poses a threat to one’s culture. I argue that …Read more
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431Presentism and the Problem of Cross-Time RelationsPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 72 (2). 2006.Presentism is the view that only present entities exist. Recently, several authors have asked the question whether presentism is able to account for cross-time relations, i.e., roughly, relations between entities existing at different times. In this paper I claim that this question is to be answered in the affirmative. To make this claim plausible, I consider four types of cross-time relation and show how each can be accommodated without difficulty within the metaphysical framework of presentism
Tuen Mun, Hong Kong, China
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics and Epistemology |
Value Theory |
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics and Epistemology |
Value Theory |
PhilPapers Editorships
Aesthetics |