Derek Matravers

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Oxford Handbook of AestheticsDerek MatraversThe Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics, edited by Jerrold Levinson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, 821pp., $99.00 Hardback.The aesthetics community has much for which to thank Jerrold Levinson. His papers are required reading on a number of topics in aesthetics, and he is renowned as a generous commentator and critic. The considerable labor he must have expended in editing this book is yet another reason to be grateful for his industry. As well as a useful Preface, which lays out the editor's rationale for the content, the book contains two survey articles and thenforty-six individual articles that, according to the Preface, cover "virtually all the major issues in philosophical aesthetics that are active topics of discussion and research" (p. v). I shall begin this review with a brief overview of the book. I shall then comment on the extent to which it fulfils it stated purpose, on its usefulness in teaching, and what it might show us about the current state of our discipline. Finally, I shall compare it with similar books that are currently available.The first of four parts consists of the two overview articles: the first covering debates on contemporary aesthetics, and the second an account of recent work in the history of aesthetics. The first, by Levinson himself, usefully demarcates the subject before organizing the discussion into three foci of aesthetics (art, the aesthetic property, and the aesthetic experience) and then five problems (the concept of the aesthetic, the definition of art, the ontology of art, representation in art, and expression in art). The piece is skillfully organized, and Levinson's grasp of the details of the various topics is unsurpassed. It is very much a teaser, however, as thebrevity means that only the bare outlines of the various problems get discussed. The second article, by Paul Guyer (once again, it is difficult to think of anyone more suitable to the task) does not attempt to give an overview of the history of aesthetics, but rather an overview of the recent work in the history of modern aesthetics. Although descriptive, this is informed by Guyer's view that the Anglo-American tradition has been unduly restricted in both the history it has studied and in the range of its current concerns. The article aims to be comprehensive: the bibliography takes up eight of its thirty-five pages.The second part, which is the most extensive, consists of twenty-five essays of general issues in aesthetics. It begins with two essays on aesthetic realism. The first, by Nick Zangwill, advocating the position and the second, by John Bender, opposing it. This is the only instance of such a debate: the other twenty-three essays cover all the general issues currently being discussed (at least, this reviewer could not see any obvious gaps). The third part covers aesthetic issues of specific artforms including, it is nice to see, Architecture, Sculpture, Dance, Theatre,Poetry, Photography, and Film as well as Music, Painting, and Literature. [End Page 104] The final part certainly has the most intriguing heading: "Further Directions in Aesthetics." This pushes out the boundaries, including articles that relate aesthetics to evolutionary psychology, cognitive science, the everyday, postmodernism, cultural studies, and the avant-garde.One function of a handbook (or companion) is to offer readers a one-stop place from which to learn what the main issues are in a particular area, what is the orthodox mainstream view, and what are the main points for and against. It is an intriguing matter that fifteen years ago there were few introductions to philosophical aesthetics, and ever fewer handbooks or companions such as this one. I imagine that there are many people who, like me, make use of such books (I look on my shelves and see, as well as the book I am reviewing, six introductions to aesthetics and two Companions) yet who feel that the notion of a philosophical textbook is problematic. It is difficult to be precise about this feeling of unease although, were I to do so, I would point to two issues. The first worry is that presenting a synoptic view of an area...

In 1987 Jerrold Levinson wrote, in a review of George Dickie's _The Art Circle_, that in reading it he felt 'caught in a kind of aesthetic time warp'. I had the same feeling, and indeed have the same feeling when I read papers published since on Dickie's theory. A recent criticism in this journal by Oswald Hanfling is a case in point. To be fair, Hanfling explicit states that he is discussing the 1974 version of the theory rather than Dickie's current views. However, this weakens the paper as a contribution to the current debate. Dickie no longer advocates the 1974 theory, as opposed to the 1984 version. Hanfling also directs most of his argument against the second disjunct of that definition, largely ignoring the first. furthermore, following recent work on the theory by others, Dickie's theory has become a more protean creature than Hanfling suppose. Criticism are rarely decisive; what works against one version of the theory is ineffective against another. In this paper I will argue that the theory as standardly conceived can be broken down into two logically independent parts. Once this is done, the objections current in the literature are not decisive. I will then attempt to evaluate what I take to be the improved version

This study asserts that philosophical interest in the connection between music and the emotions lies in the light it could throw on the nature of expression. Expression in turn is interesting because of the light it could throw on the nature of understanding and of value. Three different sorts of theory are considered: those that rely on experienced resemblance, those that rely on some imaginative state and those that rely on an aroused feeling. It is suggested, following Malcolm Budd, that room might be found for all these accounts

This paper joins recent attempts to defend a notion of aesthetic experience. It argues that phenomenological facts and facts about aesthetic value support the Kantian notion that aesthetic experience lies between, but differs from, pleasures of the agreeable and pleasures stemming from cognitions. It then shows that accounts by Beardsley, Levinson, and Savile fail to resolve clear tensions that surface in attempting to characterize such an experience. An account of aesthetic experience—as involving experienced cognitions that are the bearers of value—is presented. The paper ends on a sceptical note as to whether aesthetic experience can be clearly delimited.

This paper considers the view, recently put forward by David Davies in Art and Performance , that works of art should be identified with the generative performances that result in the object, rather than with the object. It attempts to disarm two of Davies arguments by, first, providing a criterion by which the contextualist can accommodate all and only the relevant generative properties as properties of the work, and, second, providing an alternative explanation for his modal intuitions. Finally, it draws attention to Davies’ difficulties in providing a clear criterion for the identity of the work of art.

About the book: Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art features pairs of newly commissioned essays by some of the leading theorists working in the field today. Brings together fresh debates on eleven of the most controversial issues in aesthetics and the philosophy of art Topics addressed include the nature of beauty, aesthetic experience, artistic value, and the nature of our emotional responses to art. Each question is treated by a pair of opposing essays written by eminent scholars, and especially commissioned for the volume. Lively debate format sharply defines the issues, and paves the way for further discussion. Will serve as an accessible introduction to the major topics in aesthetics, while also capturing the imagination of professional philosophers

There are several interconnected themes in Roger Scruton’s The Aesthetics of Architecture, including an account of aesthetic experience, a criticism of reductive theories of architecture, and an account of the self. Through each of these themes Scruton spins a web of argument which supports some manner of conservatism about architecture, and, even more broadly, a conservatism about culture. In this paper I want, from a broadly Scrutonian perspective, to discuss whether it would be appropriate to use architecture in the same way as some have used the visual arts this century, particularly in 1950s and 60s New York, as a vehicle for criticising certain ingrained habits of seeing. By this I mean art which deliberately frustrates prior expectations of what would be something pleasing to look at. I shall work with an example, which I take to be only a placeholder for any number of candidates, of architecture which pays no regard to symmetry and what I will broadly call ‘laws of proportion’

It is hard not to sympathise with Professor Honderich's starting point. It is easy to feel pessimistic about philosophy's ability to throw light on the nature of consciousness. What, then, to do? One option is to persist with the various current approaches. It is clear that Honderich thinks this would be akin to putting more effort into trying to work out the temporal priority of the chicken and the egg. The thought of the orthodox is that an account of consciousness is going to be either fundamentally materialist or fundamentally dualist. The first of these is untenable as consciousness has other or more than neural properties. The second is untenable for various reasons, Honderich's favoured one being that it renders consciousness as out of space and of a mysterious nature. A second option would be to follow Colin McGinn's lead, and think that the problem is of such a nature that it is necessarily unsolvable (McGinn, 1989). Alternatively, we should be more radical and think creatively, not necessarily respecting our current conceptual boundaries between the mental and the physical, the inside and the outside. The solution, Honderich says, lies in the thought that `my consciousness now consists in the existence of a world' (Honderich, 2004, p. 130). I shall say a little about what I understand by this claim, by raising what I take to be three obvious questions, looking at Honderich's answers them, and inviting some further clarification. Throughout I will address only the question of perceptual consciousness.

This paper examines the views of a philosophical aesthetician who was sympathetic to psychology: Richard Wollheim. It is divided into three parts. The first gives an account of Wollheim’s views on pictorial representation: on ‘seeing-in’, ‘expressive perception’ and ‘visual delight’. The second part discusses the relation between philosophy and psychology. If we regard the first as dealing with constitutive questions, and the second dealing with causal questions, it looks as if they are separate enquiries. However, there are circumstances where the latter looks as if it will inform the former. Wollheim’s view on this issue varied; sometimes he regarded the enquiries as separate, and sometimes not. The third part argues that it is unlikely that psychology will be able to illuminate Wollheim’s views on pictorial representation, and expresses scepticism about the extent to which research on visual preferences has a bearing on aesthetics.

This article assesses the current state of the philosophical debate regarding the expression of emotion in music, or expressive properties of music. It defines the question, explores a few false‐starts and then considers the solution that expressive properties are a matter of a certain ‘way of appearing’ of the music. This solution is associated with Stephen Davies and Jerrold Levinson, whose work is discussed. It is argued that work in this area has reached an impasse, and it is not clear where we should go next.

Derek Matravers introduces students to the philosophy of art through a close examination of eight famous works of twentieth-century art. Each work has been selected in order to best illustrate and illuminate a particular problem in aesthetics. Each artwork forms a basis for a single chapter and readers are introduced to such issues as artistic value, intention, interpretation, and expression through a careful analysis of the artwork. Questions considered include what does art mean in contemporary art practice? Is the artistic value of a painting the same as how much you like it? If a painting isn't of anything, then how do we understand it? Can art be immoral? By grounding abstract and theoretical discussion in real examples the book provides an excellent way into the subject for readers new to the philosophical dimension of art appreciation