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242Musical sympathies: The experience of expressive musicJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 53 (1): 49-57. 1995.
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134Nietzsche and the Re-Evaluation of ValuesProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 105 (2). 2005.This paper offers an account of Nietzsche's re-evaluation of values that seeks to satisfy two desiderata, both important if Nietzsche's project is to stand a chance of success. The first is that Nietzsche's re-evaluations must be capable of being understood as authoritative by those whose values are subject to re-evaluation. The second is that Nietzsche's project must not falsify the values being re-evaluated, by, for example, misrepresenting intrinsic values as instrumental values. Given this, …Read more
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129Arguing About Art: Contemporary Philosophical Debates (edited book)Routledge. 2001.Offering a unique 'debate' format, the third edition of_ _the bestselling_ Arguing About Art_ is ideal for newcomers to aesthetics or philosophy of art. This lively collection presents an extensive range of short, clear introductions to each of the discussions which include: sentimentality appreciation interpretation understanding objectivity nature food horror. With revised introductions, updated suggestions for further reading and new sections on pornography and societies without art, _Arguing…Read more
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122Nietzsche on art and freedomEuropean Journal of Philosophy 15 (2). 2007.There are passages in Nietzsche that can be read as contributions to the free will/determinism debate. When read in that way, they reveal a fairly amateurish metaphysician with little of real substance or novelty to contribute; and if these readings were apt or perspicuous, it seems to me, they would show that Nietzsche's thoughts about freedom were barely worth pausing over. They would simply confirm the impression—amply bolstered from other quarters—that Nietzsche was not at his best when addr…Read more
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117Guilt Before God, or God Before Guilt? The Second Essay of Nietzsche's GenealogyJournal of Nietzsche Studies 29 (1): 35-45. 2005.
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92Why ethics and aesthetics are practically the samePhilosophical Quarterly. forthcoming.Discussion of the relations between ethics and aesthetics has tended to focus on issues concerning judgement: for example, philosophers have often asked whether, or to what extent, ethical considerations of one sort or another should inform aesthetic verdicts. Much less discussed, however, have been the relations between these two domains in their practical aspects. In this paper, I try to defuse a cluster of reasons for believing that practical competence in the ethical domain and practical com…Read more
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91The Philosophy of Music: Theme and VariationsEdinburgh University PressNew and distinctive approaches to five central topics in musical aesthetics are provided in this outstanding book. The topics are: understanding, representation, expression, performance and profundity.
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85Not ideal: Collingwood's expression theoryJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 55 (3): 263-272. 1997.
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84Nietzsche's Conscience: Six Character Studies from the 'Genealogy'Cornell University Press. 1998.Aaron Ridley explores Nietzsche's mature ethical thought as expressed in his masterpiece On the Genealogy of Morals. Taking seriously the use that Nietzsche makes of human types, Ridley arranges his book thematically around the six characters who loom largest in that work—the slave, the priest, the philosopher, the artist, the scientist, and the noble. By elucidating what the Genealogy says about these figures, he achieves a persuasive new assessment of Nietzsche's ethics. Ridley's intellectuall…Read more
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81Perishing of the Truth: Nietzsche's Aesthetic Prophylactics: ArticlesBritish Journal of Aesthetics 50 (4): 427-437. 2010.This paper offers an interpretation of Nietzsche’s well known unpublished remark, ‘Truth is ugly. We possess art lest we perish of the truth.’ I argue that it is not helpful to construe this remark as a claim to the effect that art falsifies the truth by, for example, peddling lies or deceptions. Rather, I suggest, the remark should be taken to refer to the various ways in which art can present us with the truth in such a manner that we do not perish of it. And of these ways, I argue, the most i…Read more
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70Religious Music for Godless EarsMind 119 (476): 999-1023. 2010.The discussion in this paper sets out from two thoughts, one a straightforward empirical observation, the other a worry. The observation is that many who do not believe in God nevertheless regard certain pieces of religious music, such as Bach’s B minor Mass, as among the greatest works of art. The worry is that there must be something compromised or incomplete in the atheist’s experience of such works. Taken together, these thoughts would seem to point to the sceptical conclusion that the high …Read more
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68Bleeding chunks: Some remarks about musical understandingJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 51 (4): 589-596. 1993.
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67Relational Theories of Art: the History of an ErrorBritish Journal of Aesthetics 52 (2): 141-151. 2012.Relational theories of art—paradigmatically, the ‘Institutional’ theory—arose from dissatisfaction with the Wittgenstein-inspired ‘family resemblance’ account of art, and were taken not merely to be preferable in various ways to that account, but actually to falsify it. We argue that this latter thought is rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of the falsification-conditions of a family resemblance account; and we suggest that, once the reasons for this are appreciated, any apparent motivatio…Read more
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65Music, value, and the passionsCornell University Press. 1995.For a century there has been a divergence between what music theorists say music is about and what the ordinary listener actually experiences. Music theory has insisted on a separation of musical experience from the experience of emotions, from the passions. Yet a passionate experience of music is just what most ordinary listeners have. Charting a new course through the minefield of contemporary philosophy of music, Aaron Ridley provides a coherent defense of the ordinary listener's beliefs. Foc…Read more
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61Brilliant PerformancesRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 71 209-227. 2012.I am generally unsympathetic to the project, pursued by many recent philosophers of music, of attempting to specify the identity conditions for musical works – of attempting to specify the conditions that something, typically a performance, must satisfy if it is to count as an instance of this or that work. Call this the identity-project. Elsewhere, I have suggested that any such project is fundamentally misconceived. Here, however, I want simply to explore a couple of the difficulties with whic…Read more
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54Nietzsche and the Arts of LifeIn Ken Gemes & John Richardson (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Nietzsche, Oxford University Press. 2013.This article focuses on how aesthetic values permeate Nietzsche’s philosophy. Artistry is not confined to the creation of conventional works of art but occurs in the form-giving that is essential to all human forms of life. Since Nietzsche was committed to the view that the world is in some basic sense chaotic and meaningless, he held that only by imposing forms can we create a cognizable world. This close association between the conditions of life itself and the aesthetic activity of giving for…Read more
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53Vi *-Nietzsche and the re-evaluation of valuesProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 105 (1): 155-175. 2005.This paper offers an account of Nietzsche's re-evaluation of values that seeks to satisfy two desiderata, both important if Nietzsche's project is to stand a chance of success. The first is that Nietzsche's re-evaluations must be capable of being understood as authoritative by those whose values are subject to re-evaluation. The second is that Nietzsche's project must not falsify the values being re-evaluated, by, for example, misrepresenting intrinsic values as instrumental values. Given this, …Read more
Areas of Specialization
Value Theory |
History of Western Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Value Theory |
History of Western Philosophy |