•  112
    Living in an Artworld
    British Journal of Aesthetics (1). 2013.
  •  68
    Pretense and Display Theories of Theatrical Performance
    Organon F: Medzinárodný Časopis Pre Analytickú Filozofiu (4): 632-654. 2009.
    A survey of and a comparison of the relative strengths of two favored views of what theatrical performers do: pretend or engage in a variety of self-display. The behavioral version of the pretense theory is shown to be relatively weak as an instrument for understanding the variety of performance styles available in world theater. Whether pretense works as a theory of the mental capacities that underly theatrical performance is a separate question.
  •  67
    The Art of Theater (edited book)
    Wiley-Blackwell. 2007.
    _The Art of Theater_ argues for the recognition of theatrical performance as an art form independent of dramatic writing. Identifies the elements that make a performance a work of art Looks at the competing views of the text-performance relationships An important and original contribution to the aesthetics and philosophy of theater
  •  65
    Musical noise
    British Journal of Aesthetics 39 (4): 350-363. 1999.
  •  63
    Pyrrhonism in the Political Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes
    British Journal for the History of Philosophy 20 (2): 217-247. 2012.
    The importance of Pyrrhonism to Hobbes's political philosophy is much greater than has been recognized. He seems to have used Pyrrhonist arguments to support a doctrine of moral relativity, but he was not a sceptic in the Pyrrhonist sense. These arguments helped him to develop his teaching that there is no absolute good or evil; to minimise the purchase of natural law in the state of nature and its restrictions on the right of nature; virtually to collapse natural law into civil law; and to make…Read more
  •  56
    The text-performance relation in theater
    Philosophy Compass 4 (4): 614-629. 2009.
    This essay is a survey of positions on the relation between texts and performances in theater. It proposes a simple framework within which to compare and evaluate these positions. The framework also allows us to see a pattern of thinking that reflects the historical fact of the importance of the literary tradition in theater. The essay points out certain challenges facing the positions surveyed and concludes with a brief sketch of the most recent views that have been put on offer. The latest pos…Read more
  •  52
    The Performing Arts
    British Journal of Aesthetics 52 (2): 216-219. 2012.
  •  43
    Acts: Theater, Philosophy, and the Performing Self
    Philosophical Quarterly 65 (261): 856-859. 2015.
  •  36
    Notes on the Experience of Tragedy
    British Journal of Aesthetics 54 (2): 255-265. 2014.
    Gregory Currie offers a statement of an interesting problem about tragedy: ‘(1) We want the fiction be such that something, E, occurs in it; [yet] (2) we react in ways which make it tempting to say we want E not to occur.’ He argues for one way to make (2) more precise with regard to what it is we are tempted to say. I argue he should not so readily have accepted (1). More significantly, however, I argue both that Currie is right to hold we need an account of what the tragic response is before w…Read more
  •  32
    Replies to criticisms
    Journal of Aesthetic Education 43 (3). 2009.
    In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Replies to CriticismsJames R. HamiltonI am grateful to Noël Carroll, David Davies, Sherri Irvin, Aaron Meskin, and Paul Thom for stimulating discussions of The Art of Theater over the past year, culminating in these carefully crafted critical comments on various aspects of the book.1 I especially appreciate the efforts of Sherri Irvin, who edited this special issue and without whose encouragement, enthusiasm, and careful editing this…Read more
  •  32
    Hobbes on Felicity
    Hobbes Studies 29 (2): 129-147. 2016.
    _ Source: _Volume 29, Issue 2, pp 129 - 147 Thomas Hobbes’s concept of felicity is a re-imagining of the Hellenistic concept of _eudaimonia_, which is based on the doctrine that people by nature are happy with little. His concept is based instead on an alternative view, that people by nature are never satisfied and it directly challenges the Aristotelian and Hellenistic concepts of _eudaimonia_. I also will suggest that Hobbes developed it from ideas he found in Aristotle’s _Rhetoric_ as well as…Read more
  •  24
    Theatrical performance and interpretation
    Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 59 (3). 2001.
  •  24
    The art of theater —a précis
    Journal of Aesthetic Education 43 (3). 2009.
    In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Art of Theater—A PrécisJames R. Hamilton (bio)In The Art of Theater I propose and explain a claim that many theater people hold true in some form but, so far as I can tell, have defended in a manner that has had almost no success outside discussions among themselves.1 The claim proposed is that, in an unqualified way, theater is a form of art. By that I mean theatrical performances are what are created in the practice of theater …Read more
  •  23
    Theatrical enactment
    Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 58 (1): 23-35. 2000.
  •  16
    “Illusion” and The Distrust of Theater
    Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 41 (1): 39-50. 1982.
  •  14
    What if there were a religious "form of life"?
    Philosophical Investigations 2 (3): 1-17. 1979.
  •  14
    The Routledge Companion to Performance Philosophy
    Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. forthcoming.
  •  11
    Meeting Hedda Gabler
    Revue Internationale de Philosophie 262 (4): 493-517. 2012.
    A key epistemic puzzle about theatrical performances of fictional narratives has to do with how spectators pick out and recognize the characters they encounter. An adequate solution to the puzzle is constrained by several factors : it should be similar to what we need to say about picking out and recognition of characters in non-fictional narratives ; it should be similar to what we need to say about picking out and recognizing elements in non-narrative performances ; it be it must be sensitive …Read more
  •  11
    The Art of Theater
    Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 66 (3): 301-303. 2008.
  •  9
    The Senses in Performance edited by banes, sally and andré lepecki
    Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 67 (2): 258-261. 2009.
  •  7
    Role Playing and Identity: The Limits of Theatre as Metaphor
    Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 42 (3): 337-339. 1982.
  •  7
    Readings for an Introduction to Philosophy
    with Charles E. Reagan and Benjamin R. Tilghman
    MacMillan Publishing Company. 1976.
  •  6
    Images of Man (review)
    International Philosophical Quarterly 16 (1): 128-129. 1976.
  •  4
    What Performers Do
    In The Art of Theater, Blackwell. 2007.
    This chapter contains section titled: What Performers do and what Audiences can Know The Features of Performers and Choices that Performers Make Theatrical Conventions as Sequences of Features Having Specific “Weight” What is Involved in Reference to Theatrical Styles More about Styles, as Produced and as Grasped Grasp of Theatrical Style and Deeper Theatrical Understanding.
  •  4
    Edwards, Finney, and Mahan on the Derivation of Duties
    Journal of the History of Philosophy 13 (3): 347. 1975.
  •  4
    Hobbes's Creativity
    Springer Nature Switzerland. 2023.
    This book approaches Hobbes's philosophy from a completely new perspective: his creativity. Creativity is the production of something which experts consider to be original, valuable and of high quality. James Hamilton explores Hobbes's creativity by focusing on his development, personality, and motivation in the context of his culture and environment, and on the ways in which he thought creatively, as inferred from his writings. Identification of the ideas which Hobbes drew upon is an important …Read more