Darren Hick

Guiding readers through major problems, issues and debates in aesthetics, this is a bias-free introduction for students studying the philosophy of art for the first time. Each chapter of the book begins by considering a particular work of art - from contemporary conceptual art, through literature to TV soap operas - to help students understand and explore key philosophical discussions and ideas. Introducing Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art covers such topics as: definitions and the ontology of art; interpretation and intention; aesthetic properties and evaluation; emotion and the arts; art and morality; natural, environmental, and everyday aesthetics. Chapter summaries and outlines help to navigate the major topics covered, while annotated guides to further reading and 'unresolved questions' sections help to encourage and animate study and discussion beyond the text. For those seeking to master the subject this is the most complete introduction available.

In this paper, I consider a peculiar feature of the aesthetics of collecting comics: collecting to complete a narrative. Unlike other forms of narrative engagement, comics are often read out of narrative sequence, and so collectors hunt for missing issues to fill in an incomplete story, leading to a “gappy” experience of the narrative. This “gappy” experience, I argue, has its own aesthetic quality and value, and I connect my analysis of the experience to both classical Kantian aesthetics and contemporary neuropsychology.

By questions of “canon,” we mean questions of what is fictionally true of some character, story, or world. What is canon is treated as authoritative or official, usually by creators and fans alike. But disputes about canon have arisen as storytellers and publishers have sought to capitalize on the popularity of their characters, churning out more and more stories to meet public demand, and at the same time engaging with growing fan bases. As audiences have become more involved, and as fictional worlds have become messier, the authoritative nature of canon—and who authorizes it—has begun to erode. In this paper, we characterize canon as an article in the evolving relation between authors and audiences. More specifically, we characterize canon as an intangible good, subject to a form of cultural negotiation, resting on a power relation between producers and consumers of fictions. In Part I, we consider the author’s evolving role, and the rights of the creator to a story, character, or world. In Part II, we discuss the emerging activities of fans, particularly as they weigh on issues of canon. In Part III, we discuss canon as being subject to cultural negotiation, highlighting the importance of power dynamics in this negotiation.

Much ink has been spilled in philosophy over the question of whether morality is an objective or subjective matter. In the world of The Good Place, the answer to the moral question seems fairly firmly determined: right and wrong are objective matters, and there is a fact about whether our actions are good or bad. The ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras believed that beauty was a quantifiable principle of nature, and that we could find the source of beauty in the harmony, order, and regularity of beautiful things. In some ways, The Good Place appears to treat aesthetic goodness and badness as if they were objective matters. The Good Place is a sort of extended version of Jean‐Paul Sartre's (1905–1980) existentialist play No Exit. In The Good Place, hell is other people's tastes.