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47Macbeth, Throne of Blood, and the Idea of a Reflective AdaptationJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 76 (3): 297-308. 2018.Adaptations have varied relations to their source material, making it hard to formulate a general theory. Avoiding the attempt, we characterize a narrower, more unified class of reflective adaptations which communicate an active and sometimes critical relation to the source's framework. We identify the features of reflective adaptations which give them their distinctive interest. We show how these features are embodied in Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood, an adaptation with a radically shifted p…Read more
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45Imagination, Delusion and HallucinationsMind and Language 15 (1): 168-183. 2000.Chris Frith has argued that a loss of the sense of agency is central to schizophrenia. This suggests a connection between hallucinations and delusions on the one hand, and the misidentification of the subject’s imaginings as perceptions and beliefs on the other. In particular, understanding the mechanisms that underlie imagination may help us to explain the puzzling phenomena of thought insertion and withdrawal. Frith sometimes states his argument in terms of a loss of metarepresentational capac…Read more
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44Aesthetic Explanation and the Archaeology of SymbolsBritish Journal of Aesthetics 56 (3): 233-246. 2016.I argue that aesthetic ideas should play a significant role in archaeological explanation. I sketch an account of aesthetic interests which is appropriate to archaeological contexts. I illustrate the role of aesthetics through a discussion of the transition from signals to symbols. I argue that the opposition in archaeological debate between explanation and interpretation is one we should reject.
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43Imagining and Knowing: The Shape of FictionOxford University Press. 2020.Gregory Currie defends the view that works of fiction guide the imagination, and then considers whether fiction can also guide our beliefs. He makes a case for modesty about learning from fiction, as it is easy to be too optimistic about the psychological insights of authors, and empathy is hard to acquire while not always morally advantageous.
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43On the road to antirealism∗1Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 36 (4): 465-483. 1993.
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43Mimesis as Make-Believe: On the Foundations of the Representational Arts by Kendall Walton (review)Journal of Philosophy 90 (7): 367-370. 1993.
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41Preserving the traces: An answer to noël CarrollJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 58 (3): 306-308. 2000.
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32Image and Mind: Film, Philosophy, and Cognitive SciencePhilosophical Review 107 (1): 138. 1998.In this important and impressive book, Gregory Currie tackles several fundamental topics in the philosophy of film and says much of general interest about the nature of imagination. The first part examines the nature of film representation, rejecting the view that spectators are subject to any kind of cognitive or perceptual illusions. Currie also argues against Walton’s transparency claim, which holds that when we look at a photograph we are literally seeing the object photographed. He instead …Read more
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31Is factuality a matter of content?Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22 (5): 763-763. 1999.Dienes & Perner argue that there is a hierarchy of forms of implicit knowledge. One level of their hierarchy involves factuality, where it may be merely implicit that the state of affairs is supposed to be a real one rather than something imagined or fictional. I argue that the factual or fictional status of a thought or utterance cannot be a matter of concept, implicit or explicit.
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31Frege's RealismInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 21 (1-4): 218-221. 1978.In this note the claim is defended that Frege was a realist in the sense that he attributed causal efficacy to certain abstract objects. The arguments of Dummett and Sluga (cf. Inquiry, Vols. 18, 19, and 20 [1975–77]) to the contrary are criticized.
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30Aesthetics and the Sciences of Mind (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2014.How far should philosophical accounts of the value and interpretation of art be sensitive to the scientific approaches used by psychologists, sociologists, and evolutionary thinkers? A team of experts urge different answers to this question, and explore how empirical inquiry can shed light on problems traditionally regarded as philosophical
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27An Ontology of Art, by Gregory Currie (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 52 (1): 215-222. 1992.
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26Mimesis: Metaphysics, Cognition, Pragmatics (edited book)College Publications. 2012.The concept of mimesis has been central to philosophical aesthetics from Aristotle to Kendall Walton: in plain terms, it highlights the links between a fictional world or a representational practice on the one hand and the real world on the other. The present collection of essays includes discussions of its general viability and pertinence and of its historical origins, as well as detailed analyses of various relevant issues regarding literature, film, theatre, images and computer games. The ind…Read more
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25Review: Was Frege a Linguistic Philosopher? (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 27 (1). 1976.
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25Knowledge of meaningNoûs 17 (3): 522. 1983.Critical discussion of Michael Dummett's views on the knowledge of meaning
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24Dennis Dutton , "The Forger's Art: Forgery and The Philosophy of Art" (review)Philosophical Quarterly 35 (41): 435. 1985.
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22Imagination, Delusion and HallucinationsMind and Language 15 (1): 168-183. 2000.Chris Frith has argued that a loss of the sense of agency is central to schizophrenia. This suggests a connection between hallucinations and delusions on the one hand, and the misidentification of the subject’s imaginings as perceptions and beliefs on the other. In particular, understanding the mechanisms that underlie imagination may help us to explain the puzzling phenomena of thought insertion and withdrawal. Frith sometimes states his argument in terms of a loss of metarepresentational capac…Read more
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22A note on realismPhilosophy of Science 49 (2): 263-267. 1982.In a recent article G. H. Merrill has defended realism against an argument devised by Hilary Putnam. My first aim is to show that Merrill's defence is inadequate. I shall also argue that the proper conclusion of Putnam's argument is somewhat different from the conclusion Putnam himself offers.
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21An Error Concerning NosesJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 75 (1): 9-13. 2017.We identify a strategy for getting beliefs from fiction via three assumptions: a certain causal generality holds in the fiction and does so because causal generalities in fiction are carried over from what the author takes to be fact; the author is reliable on this topic, so what the author takes to be fact is fact. We do not question. While will, in particular cases, be doubtful, the strategy is vulnerable more generally to the worry that what looks like a causal generality may be instead an au…Read more
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20Review of Crispin Wright: Frege's conception of numbers as objects (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 36 (4): 475-479. 1985.
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19Aesthetic Explanation and the Archaeology of SymbolsBritish Journal of Aesthetics 56 (3): 233-246. 2016.I argue that aesthetic ideas should play a significant role in archaeological explanation. I sketch an account of aesthetic interests which is appropriate to archaeological contexts. I illustrate the role of aesthetics through a discussion of the transition from signals to symbols. I argue that the opposition in archaeological debate between explanation and interpretation is one we should reject.
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19Empathy for Objects1In Amy Coplan & Peter Goldie (eds.), Empathy: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives, Oxford University Press. pp. 82. 2011.