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313The Oxford handbook of aesthetics (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2003.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…Read more
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35Film Music and Narrative AgencyIn David Bordwell Noel Carroll (ed.), Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies, U Wisconsin Press. 1996.
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334Philosophy and musicTopoi 28 (2): 119-123. 2009.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 recours…Read more
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70Artful intentions: Paisley Livingston, art and intention: A philosophical study. Art and intention: A philosophical study by Livingston, PaisleyJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 65 (3). 2007.
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20Causal history, actual and apparentBehavioral and Brain Sciences 36 (2). 2013.Attention is drawn to the distinction between the actual (or factual) and the apparent (or ostensible) causal history of a work of art, and how the authors' recommendation in the name of understanding works of art blurs that distinction, thus inadvertently reinforcing the hoary idea, against which the authors otherwise rightly battle, that what one needs to properly appreciate an artwork can be found in even suitably framed observation of the work alone
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3An Ontology of Art, by Gregory Currie (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 52 (1): 215-222. 1992.
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14Why There Are No TropesPhilosophy 81 (4): 563-580. 2006.This paper effectively inverts the argument of an earlier paper of mine, “The Particularisation of Attributes”, to argue that there are no necessarily particularised and unshareable attributes of the sort that contemporary metaphysics calls tropes. In that earlier paper I distinguished two kinds of attributes, namely, properties and qualities, and argued that if there were tropes they could only be particularised qualities, i.e. particularisations of, say, redness, rather than particularisations…Read more
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25L’instrument de musique : réflexions sur le geste, l’écoute et la créationMethodos 11. 2011.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 instru…Read more
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42Popular Song as Moral Microcosm: Life Lessons from Jazz StandardsRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 71 51-66. 2012.In a recent paper devoted to my topic, music and morality, my fellow philosopher of music Peter Kivy makes a helpful tripartite distinction among ways in which music could be said to have moral force. The first is by embodying and conveying moral insight; Kivy labels that epistemic moral force. The second is by having a positive moral effect on behavior; Kivy labels that behavioral moral force. And the third is by impacting positively on character so as to make someone a better human being; Kivy…Read more
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64The real problem sustained: Reply to WieandJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 61 (4). 2003.
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28Indication, abstraction, and individuationIn Christy Mag Uidhir (ed.), Art & Abstract Objects, Oxford University Press. pp. 49. 2013.
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Plaisanteries immoralesNouvelle Revue d'Esthétique 6 (2): 143-150. 2010.Résumé Pouvons-nous trouver une plaisanterie raciste ou sexiste à la fois drôle et moralement condamnable? Certains répondent « non », soit en tentant de montrer que l’immoralité disparaît dans le contexte de la plaisanterie, soit en soutenant que de telles plaisanteries ne sont pas réellement drôles ou ne devraient pas être trouvées telles. L’article soutient au contraire que oui! Et c’est de la mauvaise foi que de ne pas le reconnaître. La question est alors de savoir si leur immoralité nuit à…Read more
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1Aesthetic Properties, Evaluative Force, and Differences of SensibilityIn Emily Brady & Jerrold Levinson (eds.), Aesthetic Concepts: Essays After Sibley, Oxford University Press. pp. 61--80. 2001.
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1. the intentional-historical conception of artIn Eric Margolis & Stephen Laurence (eds.), Creations of the Mind: Theories of Artifacts and Their Representaion, Oxford University Press. pp. 74. 2007.
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74Music-Specific Emotion: An Elusive QuarryEstetika: The European Journal of Aesthetics 53 (2): 115-131. 2016.Expressive music, almost everyone agrees, evokes an emotional response of some kind in receptive listeners, at least some of the time, in at least some conditions of listening. But is such an emotional response distinctive of or unique to the music that evokes it? In other words, is there such a thing as music-specific emotion? This essay is devoted to an exploration of that question and others related to it. In the main part of the essay a sixpart component model of a standard emotion is set ou…Read more
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3Sound, gesture, spatial imagination, and the expression of emotion in musicEuropean Review of Philosophy 5 137-150. 2002.
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54Concatenationism, Architectonicism, and the Appreciation of MusicRevue Internationale de Philosophie 4 (4): 505-514. 2006.
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168Music, Art, and MetaphysicsOxford University Press. 2011.This is a long-awaited reissue of Jerrold Levinson's 1990 book which gathers together the writings that made him a leading figure in contemporary aesthetics. These highly influential essays are essential reading for debates on the definition of art, the ontology of art, emotional response to art, expression in art, and the nature of art forms.