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39Beyond Hedonism about Aesthetic ValueIn Larissa Berger (ed.), Disinterested Pleasure and Beauty: Perspectives from Kantian and Contemporary Aesthetics, De Gruyter. pp. 257-274. 2023.In its simplest form, hedonism about aesthetic value, the standard account of aesthetic normativity, holds that an object’s aesthetic value is the value it possesses in virtue of its capacity to provide aesthetic pleasure. I argue that hedonism cannot be true because it cannot reconcile itself with our concern to make true aesthetic judgments. Then I argue for an alternative account of aesthetic normativity that is not only consistent with that concern but the very expression of it. The argument…Read more
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84Simple Theory of Aesthetic ValueJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 81 (1): 98-100. 2023.This article aims to answer the aesthetic-value question
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376Intelligible BeautyAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 96 (1): 147-164. 2022.Arthur Danto argued from the premiss that artworks are essentially cognitive to the conclusion that they are incidentally aesthetic. I wonder why Danto, and the very many of us he persuaded, came to believe that the cognitive and the aesthetic oppose one another. I argue, contrary to Danto’s historical claims, that the cognitive and the aesthetic did not come into opposition until the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, and that they were brought into opposition for reasons of art-critic…Read more
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277Aesthetic AcquaintancePacific Philosophical Quarterly 104 (2): 392-407. 2023.If, as Richard Wollheim says, the Acquaintance Principle is ‘a well-entrenched principle in aesthetics,’ it would be surprising if there were not something true at which those who have asserted it have been aiming. I argue that the Acquaintance Principle cannot be true on any traditional epistemic interpretation, nor on any usability interpretation of the sort Robert Hopkins has recently suggested. I then argue for an interpretation of the principle that treats acquaintance as the end to which j…Read more
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112Punting on the aesthetic questionPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 102 (1): 214-219. 2021.
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1Peter Kivy, Philosophies of Arts: An Essay in Differences (review)Philosophy in Review 18 188-189. 1998.
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1Hume's Aesthetic Theory: Taste and Sentiment (review)Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 61. 2003.
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238Critical CompatibilismIn Matthew Kieran & Dominic McIver Lopes (eds.), Knowing Art: Essays in Epistemology and Aesthetics. pp. 125-136. 2004.Isenbergian particularism is the view that we make no appeal to general principles in criticism. Sibleyan generalism is the view that we do make appeal to general reasons in criticism. I argue that Isenbergian particularism and Sibleyan generalism are compatible one with another. I refer to their conjunction as "critical compatibilism" and argue that we ought to accept it over its rivals: strong particularism (the view that we make appeal neither to general principles nor to general reasons in c…Read more
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338Imagining the Truth: An Account of Tragic PleasureIn Matthew Kieran & Dominic McIver Lopes (eds.), Imagination, Philosophy, and the Arts, . pp. 177-185. 2003.The problem of tragedy is the problem of explaining why tragedy gives us the pleasure that it does, given that it has the content that it has. I propose a series of constraints that any adequate solution to the problem must satisfy. Then I develop a solution to the problem that satisfies those constraints. But I do not claim that the solution I develop uniquely satisfies the constraints I propose. I aim merely to narrow the field of contending solutions, and then to draw attention to an overlook…Read more
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905The Default Theory of Aesthetic ValueBritish Journal of Aesthetics 59 (1): 1-12. 2019.The default theory of aesthetic value combines hedonism about aesthetic value with strict perceptual formalism about aesthetic value, holding the aesthetic value of an object to be the value it has in virtue of the pleasure it gives strictly in virtue of its perceptual properties. A standard theory of aesthetic value is any theory of aesthetic value that takes the default theory as its theoretical point of departure. This paper argues that standard theories fail because they theorize from the de…Read more
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24De Gustibus: Arguing about Art and Why We Do It (review)British Journal of Aesthetics 57 (2): 237-239. 2017.© British Society of Aesthetics 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Society of Aesthetics. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected] you are philosophically uncurious or have no aesthetic life, Peter Kivy’s new book may not be for you. Otherwise you owe it to yourself to read it. Kivy’s question—why we argue about art—has received scant philosophical attention, yet the slightest philosophy is all you need to motivate it. Th…Read more
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195Response-dependence about aesthetic valuePacific Philosophical Quarterly 93 (3): 338-352. 2012.The dominant view about the nature of aesthetic value holds it to be response-dependent. We believe that the dominance of this view owes largely to some combination of the following prevalent beliefs: 1 The belief that challenges brought against response-dependent accounts in other areas of philosophy are less challenging when applied to response-dependent accounts of aesthetic value. 2 The belief that aesthetic value is instrumental and that response-dependence about aesthetic value alone accom…Read more
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282The problem of non-perceptual artBritish Journal of Aesthetics 43 (4): 363-378. 2003.Consider the following three propositions: (R) Artworks necessarily have aesthetic properties that are relevant to their appreciation as artworks. (S) Aesthetic properties necessarily depend, at least in part, on properties perceived by means of the five senses. (X) There exist artworks that need not be perceived by means of the five senses to be appreciated as artworks. The independent plausibility and apparent joint inconsistency of these three propositions give rise to what I refer to as ‘the…Read more
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577The concept of the aestheticStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2017.Introduced into the philosophical lexicon during the Eighteenth Century, the term ‘aesthetic’ has come to be used to designate, among other things, a kind of object, a kind of judgment, a kind of attitude, a kind of experience, and a kind of value. For the most part, aesthetic theories have divided over questions particular to one or another of these designations: whether artworks are necessarily aesthetic objects; how to square the allegedly perceptual basis of aesthetic judgments with the fact…Read more
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75When True Judges Differ: Reply to Durà‐VilàJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 73 (3): 345-348. 2015.I defend my reading of Hume's "Of the Standard of Taste" against objections raised by Victor Durà‐Vilà. Two points are central to my defense. One is that Hume takes the joint verdict of true judges to indicate, rather than constitute, the standard of beauty. Two is that Hume requires a joint verdict because individual verdicts need not be expressive of human nature.
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1360Hume's double standard of tasteJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 52 (4): 437-445. 1994.I attempt to make sense of Hume's enigmatic characterization of the standard of taste as "a rule, by which the various sentiments of men may be reconciled; at least, a decision, afforded, confirming one sentiment, and condemning another." In particular, I take up the questions (a) how the standard could be both a rule and a decision, (b) why it is at least a decision if not a rule, and (c) why, if a rule, it may reconcile various sentiments rather than merely confirm one and condemn another.
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55Rule and verdictJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 53 (3): 319-320. 1995.I defend my reading of Hume's "Of the Standard of Taste" from objections raised by Jeffrey Wieand. I argue that Wieand doesn't take seriously enough Hume's claim that beauty is not a quality of objects, and that taking this claim seriously requires regarding Hume's true judges as ideal.
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51Aesthetics and Morals in the Philosophy of David Hume by Costelloe, Timothy (review)Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 68 (4): 411-413. 2010.
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194Hume and the Value of the BeautifulBritish Journal of Aesthetics 51 (2): 213-222. 2011.Hume is plausibly interpreted as asserting that an artwork is beautiful if and only if it pleases ideal critics. Jerrold Levinson maintains that Hume's commitment to this biconditional gives rise to a problem that occurs neither to Hume nor to his any of his interpreters—the problem of explaining why you should care what pleases ideal critics if you are not one yourself. I argue that this problem arises only if you hold an empiricist theory of aesthetic value—that is, a theory that reduces the a…Read more
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107Hume's principles of taste: A reply to DickieBritish Journal of Aesthetics 44 (1): 84-89. 2004.George Dickie argues that Hume's principles of taste have value-laden properties as their subjects, including those properties we now refer to as ‘aesthetic’. I counter that Hume's principles have value-neutral properties as their subjects, and so exclude those properties we now refer to as ‘aesthetic’. Dickie also argues that Hume's essay on taste provides ‘the conceptual means for recognizing the problem of the interaction of aesthetic properties with other properties of artworks’. I counter t…Read more
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225Against Value Empiricism in AestheticsAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 88 (4): 707-720. 2010.Value empiricists in aesthetics claim that we can explain the value of artworks by appeal to the value of the experiences they afford. I raise the question of the value of those experiences. I argue that while there are many values that such experiences might have, none is adequate to explaining the value of the works that afford the experiences. I then turn to defending the alternative to value empiricism, which I dub the object theory . I argue that if there is some problem attending the objec…Read more
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3Empiricism: Hutcheson and HumeIn Berys Nigel Gaut & Dominic Lopes (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics, Routledge. 2000.
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79Aesthetics and the World at LargeBritish Journal of Aesthetics 47 (2): 169-183. 2007.l Carroll, that there is no reason to think that an aesthetic theory of art cannot do justice to art in its relation to the extra-artistic world. My argument depends on a reinterpretation of the aesthetic theory of Francis Hutcheson, according to which Hutcheson does not hold aesthetic perception to be non-epistemic, as Peter Kivy has maintained.
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182Hume and the Joint Verdict of True JudgesJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 71 (2): 145-153. 2013.Malcolm Budd speaks for many when he locates the "principal weakness" of Hume's account of the standard of taste in Hume's "blithe optimism about the uniformity of response of his true judges of artistic value". I argue that Hume's optimism is not blithe. I argue, in particular, that it follows from Hume's definition of a true judge that true judges will never disagree, and that it follows from his appeal to the test of time that true judges will agree often enough to support the kind of standar…Read more
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100The character and role of principles in the evaluation of artBritish Journal of Aesthetics 42 (1): 37-51. 2002., George Dickie offers an account of artistic principles comprising both a description of their character and a description of the role they play in the evaluation of artworks. According to the former, artistic principles state that certain individual properties of artworks, in isolation from other properties, are always artistic merits; according to the latter, artistic principles serve as premises from which we infer that artworks have artistic merit. I argue not merely that Dickie 's account …Read more
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77Eighteenth Century British AestheticsStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2018.18th-century British aesthetics addressed itself to a variety of questions: What is taste? What is beauty? Is there is a standard of taste and of beauty? What is the relation between the beauty of nature and that of artistic representation? What is the relation between one fine art and another? How ought the fine arts be ranked one against another? What is the nature of the sublime and ought it be ranked with the beautiful? What is the nature of genius and what is its relation to taste? Although…Read more
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