Jerrold Levinson

The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics brings the authority, liveliness, and multi-disciplinary scope of the Handbook series to a fascinating theme in philosophy and the arts. Jerrold Levinson has assembled a hugely impressive range of talent to contribute 48 brand-new essays, making this the most comprehensive guide available to the theory, application, history, and future of the field. This Handbook will be invaluable to academics and students across philosophy and all branches of the arts, both as the reference work of choice and as a stimulus to new research and creativity.

Je voudrais ici réfléchir, de façon provisoire et exploratoire, à la question de savoir en quels sens il est possible de dire que certaines émotions ne pouvaient pas exister avant que certaines œuvres d’art ou certains genres artistiques n’existent, ou qu’elles ne pourraient pas exister s’ils n’existaient pas. Mon but est donc de mieux comprendre le rôle que les arts peuvent jouer, à la fois dans la construction, dans la conception et dans la communication de certaines émotions – émotions qu’on pourrait alors considérer à juste titre comme véritablement originales et inédites.

[Derek Matravers] Jerrold Levinson maintains that he is a realist about aesthetic properties. This paper considers his positive arguments for such a view. An argument from Roger Scruton, that aesthetic realism would entail the absurd claim that many aesthetic predicates were ambiguous, is also considered and it is argued that Levinson is in no worse position with respect to this argument than anyone else. However, Levinson cannot account for the phenomenon of aesthetic autonomy: namely, that we cannot be put in a position to make an aesthetic judgement by testimony alone. Finally, Levinson's views on the ontology of aesthetic properties are considered and found wanting. /// [Jerrold Levinson] Being an aesthetic realist is hard work. Derek Matravers has raised a number of concerns for the brand of aesthetic realism that I have defended in the past, and that I continue to defend, albeit with modification. Much turns on the nature of aesthetic properties, and on the reasons for acknowledging their existence. I here try to provide further illumination on both scores, suggesting in particular that many aesthetic properties can be viewed as manifest higher-order ways of appearing. Toward the end of my discussion the question of whether or not aesthetic properties are response-dependent is addressed, and I offer the tentative conclusion that some are, and some are not.

This essay explores some aspects of the relation between philosophy and music. First, how music can inspire philosophy; second, how philosophy can inspire music. Mathematics as a middle term between music and philosophy, the idea of wholeness in a musical composition or a philosophical text, music as a mode of thought displaying traits such as logic, coherence, and sense—these are some ways in which music and philosophy may be seen to be connected. Also, composers sometimes have explicit recourse to philosophical ideas in advancing their music, there being prominent examples of this in the twentieth century. Lastly, given there is such a thing as the philosophy of music, might there also be the music of philosophy?

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Erotic Art and Pornographic PicturesJerrold LevinsonOnly in primitive art, with its urgent need to evoke the sources of fertility, are the phallus and the vulva emphasized, as it were innocently. By ancient Greek and Roman times there already existed the special category of the pornographic—graphic art or writing supposed, like a harlot, or porne, to sexually stimulate.1IAS REGARDS PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS of the opposition between the erotic and the pornographic, there are a number of reasonable goals one might have: to preserve as many considered intuitions about the opposition as possible; to present the opposition in a clearer light than it enjoys when casually invoked; to modestly "sharpen" the standard opposition that either accounts for our experience in this domain more fully, or allows us to organize our thinking about the domain more perspicuously. I hope in this paper to make progress toward some of those goals. Though the scope of the erotic/pornographic opposition goes beyond the visual, my focus here will be the opposition as it exists in the visual sphere, and even more narrowly, in the sphere of images. In addition to preserving and clarifying a distinction between erotic art and pornography, I hope also to make an intelligible place for erotica, as something intermediate between the other two.Here, then, are some intuitions on the erotic and the pornographic: [End Page 228]1. the erotic and the pornographic are both concerned with sexual stimulation or arousal.2. while the term "erotic" is neutral or even approving, the term "pornographic" is pejorative or disapproving.3. while "erotic art" is a familiar, if somewhat problematic, notion, "pornographic art" seems an almost oxymoronic one.4. whereas pornography has a paramount aim, namely, the sexual satisfaction of the viewer, erotic art, even if it also aims at sexual satisfaction on some level, includes other aims of significance.5. whereas we appreciate (or relish) erotic art, we consume (or use) pornography. In other words, our interactions with erotic art and pornography are fundamentally different in character, as reflected in the verbs most appropriate to the respective engagements.In what follows I try to accommodate all of those intuitions. As I will need a distinction invoked in the first of them (between sexual stimulation and sexual arousal) let me spell that out before proceeding. By sexual stimulation I will mean the inducing of sexual thoughts, feelings, imaginings, or desires that would generally be regarded as pleasant in themselves. By sexual arousal I mean the physiological state that is prelude and prerequisite to sexual release, involving in the male, at least, some degree of erection. And by sexual release I mean something that I take it needs no spelling out.How to differentiate erotic art from pornography, and from erotica as well, is of course not the only important philosophical question about erotic art. Here are two others: 1) How is the erotic aspect of erotic art compatible with the disinterested or distanced frame of mind that seems required for aesthetic engagement with or appreciation of a work of visual art? 2) How is the degree of eroticness of a work of erotic art related to its artistic value? I will briefly address those two questions toward the end of the paper, but most of my effort will be devoted to the prior question, that of the differentiation of erotic art, erotica, and pornography.IIHow, then, to effect that differentiation in the domain of visual images to which I have restricted my inquiry? One possibility would [End Page 229] concern the specific kind of response aimed at. Thus, erotic art might be said to involve images intended to sexually stimulate, but also to reward artistic interest; erotica to involve images intended to sexually stimulate but not to reward artistic interest; pornography to involve images intended to sexually arouse in the interests of sexual release. Another possibility would be by the character of the sexual representation involved, so that pornography would involve sexually explicit images, erotic art would involve sexually inexplicit images, and erotica images would be intermediate in their explicitness, irrespective of the ends for which the images were fashioned. A third possibility would be by...

Je me fixe deux objectifs dans ce texte. Le premier est de situer l’esthétique ou la philosophie de l’art par rapport à la philosophie en général et d’expliquer pourquoi elle a été la préoccupation centrale de tant de philosophes dans la tradition. Mon second objectif est de définir un courant dominant de l’esthétique des trente dernières années, que je nomme « contextualisme », et d’expliquer son importance en ce qui concerne les réflexions des artistes, critiques, théoriciens et publics à propos de l’art. Le contextualisme, en un mot, est la thèse selon laquelle les oeuvres d’art sont, du point de vue ontologique, épistémologique et de la critique, liées à leur contexte de création et de projection ; en dehors de ce contexte, les oeuvres d’art cessent d’être ce qu’elles sont et n’ont plus les qualités et significations qu’elles possèdent en réalité.This essay has two main objectives. The first is to situate aesthetics or philosophy of art in relation to philosophy as a whole, and to suggest why it has been a primary concern of so many philosophers in the tradition. The second is to identify a dominant strand in philosophical aesthetics of the past thirty years or so, which I label contextualism, and to explain its importance to thinking about art on the part of artists, critics, theorists, and audiences. Contextualism, in brief, is the claim that works of art are ontologically, epistemically, and appreciatively bound up with their contexts of creation and projection, outside of which they cease to be what they are and fail to present the qualities and meanings they in fact possess

Le son musical est vibration, et dépend des instruments utilisés. Être fidèle aux instruments prévus par le compositeur ne répond pas à un simple souci d’authenticité. Notre écoute de l’œuvre musicale dépend des gestes instrumentaux pratiqués par les musiciens (gestes que nous voyons au concert, ou que nous supposons si la musique est enregistrée). Les gestes proprement musicaux (liés à l’expressivité de la musique) sont fonction des gestes effectifs pratiqués par l’instrumentiste. Chaque instrument dispose ainsi d’un véritable répertoire gestuel, plus important quand le bras est engagé (violon) que lorsque ce sont seulement les doigts (flûte à bec). La technique de jeu de l’instrument, sa capacité à produire tel ou tel type d’ornement, jouent un rôle important dans la création musicale. L’orchestre, enfin, peut être considéré comme une sorte de grand corps discontinu dont joue le chef d’orchestre

Stephen Yablo has attempted recently to revive the notion of contingent identity, identifying this with a relation of L coincidence between objects that are "distinct by nature but the same in the circumstances" (296). Yablo argues convincingly for the need of essentialist metaphysics to recognize some relation of this sort, a relation of "intimate identity-like connections between things" (296) if it is to acknowledge properly the intuitive difference between (i) the nonidentity of a bust B and a hunk of wax H of which it is composed, and (ii) the nonidentity of the hunk H and the Treaty of Versailles. (i) and (ii) are clearly not on the same level. Even though B, like the Treaty of Versailles, fails to be strictly identical to H, it is very closely, and quite specially, related to it. What this relation is is certainly worth a general inquiry