-
233Aesthetic terms, metaphor, and the nature of aesthetic propertiesJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 63 (1). 2005.The paper argues that an important class of aesthetic terms cannot be used as metaphors because it is impossible to commit a category mistake with them. It then uses this fact to provide a general definition of 'aesthetic property'.
-
172Reflections on a Sofa Bed: Functional Beauty and Looking FitJournal of Aesthetic Education 47 (2): 35-48. 2013.This essay argues for two conclusions about functional beauty, as this notion has been understood by Parsons and Carlson in a recent book by the same name. First of all, it is argued that functional beauty either is not a distinct kind of beauty or that the members of this kind are not all and only instances of the property of looking fit. Second, it is argued that functional beauty is relative only to categories corresponding to essential functions. The second conclusion contradicts what Parson…Read more
-
327Women in Philosophy: Problems with the Discrimination HypothesisAcademic Questions 27 (4): 461-473. 2014.A number of philosophers attribute the underrepresentation of women in philosophy largely to bias against women or some kind of wrongful discrimination. They cite six sources of evidence to support their contention: (1) gender disparities that increase along the path from undergraduate student to full time faculty member; (2) anecdotal accounts of discrimination in philosophy; (3) research on gender bias in the evaluation of manuscripts, grants, and curricula vitae in other academic disciplines;…Read more
-
80ArchitectureIn Anna Christina Ribeiro (ed.), The Bloomsbury Companion to Aesthetics, Bloomsbury Academic. 2015.This survey chapter discusses four issues in architectural aesthetics: architectural design, architectural style, the justification of “optical correction”, and the metaphysics of reconstruction.
-
174Lopes on the ontology of japanese shrinesJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 66 (2). 2008.This article is a reply to Dominic McIver Lopes, 'Shikinen Sengu and the Ontology of Architecture in Japan,' published in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 65 (2007). The reply explains how the standard ontology of architecture is able to accommodate Japanese shrines such as Ise Jingu.
-
110The Lazy Person's Approach to DepictionJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 73 (2): 95-104. 2015.It has been argued (for example, by Nelson Goodman and John Hyman) that ‘depicts’ and similar terms such as ‘is a picture of’ and ‘represents’ are semantically ambiguous: sometimes they are two-place predicates expressing a relation, and sometimes they are not. This article takes issue with this claim and develops an alternative theory according to which the ambiguity in question is pragmatic rather than semantic
-
140A Simple Solution to the Paradox of Negative EmotionIn Jerrold Levinson (ed.), Suffering Art Gladly: The Paradox of Negative Emotion in Art, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 111-122. 2013.This chapter offers a new solution to the paradox of negative emotion in art. Crucial to the defense of this new solution is the normative sense of predicates such as 'is moving', 'is touching', 'is powerful', and 'is gripping'. Roughly, the solution itself is that, in their normative sense, these predicates designate aesthetic properties that we enjoy and value experiencing, even tough, in the cases which generate the paradox, the enjoyment comes at a price.
-
344The Metaphysics of Art RestorationBritish Journal of Aesthetics 53 (3): 261-275. 2013.Art restorations often give rise to controversy, and the reason does not always seem to be a lack of skill or dedication on the side of the restorer. Rather, in some of the most famous cases, the reason seems to be a lack of agreement on basic principles. In particular, there seems to be a lack of agreement on how the following two questions are to be answered. First, what is art restoration supposed to achieve, in other words, what is the goal of restoration? Second, how can this goal be achiev…Read more
-
279On some putative graph-theoretic counterexamples to the Principle of the Identity of IndiscerniblesSynthese 187 (2): 661-672. 2012.Recently, several authors have claimed to have found graph-theoretic counterexamples to the Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles. In this paper, I argue that their counterexamples presuppose a certain view of what unlabeled graphs are, and that this view is optional at best.
-
283Building Plans as Natural SymbolsArchitecture Philosophy 1 (1): 61-78. 2014.Carroll William Westfall has claimed that building types can serve as natural symbols of (the purposes served by) activities such as venerating, celebrating, trading, and dwelling. The aim of this paper is to interpret Westfall’s claim in a way that makes it non-trivial and yet worthy of further investigation. In particular, an attempt is made to explain the connection between building types and what they symbolize without appealing to convention. The question is also answered whether a non-conv…Read more
-
182Scruton on rightness of proportion in architectureBritish Journal of Aesthetics 49 (4): 405-414. 2009.In The Aesthetics of Architecture, Roger Scruton makes at least four claims about rightness of architectural proportion. The present paper lists those claims, briefly discusses the way they are related, and, finally, selects one as the topic of discussion: the claim that there cannot be an exact, mathematical definition of rightness of proportion. Scruton’s arguments for this claim are reviewed. The first is found to be substantially correct, whereas the second is found to rely on a mistaken ass…Read more
-
116Autographic and allographic aspects of ritualPhilosophia 29 (1-4): 133-147. 2002.This paper continues Israel Scheffler's investigation of rituals as autographic/allographic. It concludes that the autographic/allographic distinction is more fruitfully applied to rituals as a gradual distinction, distinguishing rituals in terms of their autographic/allographic elements or aspects.
-
192A peculiarity in pearl’s logic of interventionist counterfactualsJournal of Philosophical Logic 42 (5): 783-794. 2013.We examine a formal semantics for counterfactual conditionals due to Judea Pearl, which formalizes the interventionist interpretation of counterfactuals central to the interventionist accounts of causation and explanation. We show that a characteristic principle validated by Pearl’s semantics, known as the principle of reversibility, states a kind of irreversibility: counterfactual dependence (in David Lewis’s sense) between two distinct events is irreversible. Moreover, we show that Pearl’s sem…Read more
-
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
-
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
-
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
Tuen Mun, Hong Kong, China
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics and Epistemology |
Value Theory |
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics and Epistemology |
Value Theory |
PhilPapers Editorships
Aesthetics |