•  19
    A notorious concept in the history of aesthetics, “disinterest,” has begotten a host of myths. This paper explores and challenges “The Myth of the Absent Self ” [MAS], according to which in disinterested experience, “the subject need not do anything other than dispassionately stare at the object, bringing nothing of herself to the table other than awareness” (Riggle 2016, p. 4). I argue that the criticism of disinterest experience grounded in MAS is skewed by two false assumptions: about the nat…Read more
  •  41
    Aesthetic Value: The View from Here
    Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 81 (1): 85-86. 2023.
    Engagements with aesthetic value pervade human life. We choose these shoes because they beautifully match the pants; travel to Petra on account of its beauty; o.
  •  47
    Must Reasons Be Either Theoretical or Practical? Aesthetic Criticism and Appreciative Reasons
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 100 (2): 313-329. 2022.
    ABSTRACT A long debate in aesthetics concerns the reasoned nature of criticism. The main questions in the debate ask whether criticism is based on reasons, whether critics communicate reasons for their audience’s responses, and, if so, how to understand these critical reasons. I argue that a great obstacle to making any progress in this debate is the deeply engrained assumption, shared by all sides of the debate, that reasons can only be either theoretical reasons or practical reasons. My aims a…Read more
  •  27
    Two Thumbs Up: How Critics Aid Appreciation (review)
    Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 80 (1): 116-120. 2022.
  •  413
    Aesthetic Agency
    In Luca Ferrero (ed.), Routledge Handbook for the Philosophy of Agency. pp. 456-466. forthcoming.
    Until very recently, there has been no discussion of aesthetic agency. This is likely because aesthetics has traditionally focused not on action, but on appreciation, while the standard approach identifies ‘agency’ with the will, and, more specifically, with the capacity for intentional action. In this paper, I argue, first, that this identification is unfortunate since it fails to do justice to the fact that we standardly attribute beliefs, emotions, desires, and other conative and affective at…Read more
  •  908
    Aesthetic knowledge
    Philosophical Studies 179 (8): 2507-2535. 2022.
    What is the source of aesthetic knowledge? Empirical knowledge, it is generally held, bottoms out in perception. Such knowledge can be transmitted to others through testimony, preserved by memory, and amplified via inference. But perception is where the rubber hits the road. What about aesthetic knowledge? Does it too bottom out in perception? Most say “yes”. But this is wrong. When it comes to aesthetic knowledge, it is appreciation, not perception, where the rubber hits the road. The ultimate …Read more
  •  329
    Must Reasons be Either Theoretical or Practical? Aesthetic Criticism and Appreciative Reasons
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 100 (2): 313-329. 2021.
    A long debate in aesthetics concerns the reasoned nature of criticism. The main questions in the debate are whether criticism is based on (normative) reasons, whether critics communicate reasons for their audience’s responses, and if so, how to understand these critical reasons. I argue that a great obstacle to making any progress in this debate is the deeply engrained assumption, shared by all sides of the debate, that reasons can only be either theoretical reasons (i.e., those that explain wha…Read more
  •  759
    The authority of pleasure
    Noûs 55 (1): 199-220. 2021.
    The aim of the paper is to reassess the prospects of a widely neglected affective conception of the aesthetic evaluation and appreciation of art. On the proposed picture, the aesthetic evaluation and appreciation of art are non-contingently constituted by a particular kind of pleasure. Artworks that are valuable qua artworks merit, deserve, and call for a certain pleasure, the same pleasure that reveals (or at least purports to reveal) them to be valuable in the way that they are, and constitute…Read more
  •  968
    On Liking Aesthetic Value
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 102 (2): 261-280. 2019.
    According to tradition, aesthetic value is non-contingently connected to a certain feeling of liking or pleasure. Is that true? Two answers are on offer in the field of aesthetics today: 1. The Hedonist answers: Yes, aesthetic value is non-contingently connected to pleasure insofar as this value is constituted and explained by the power of its possessors to please (under standard conditions). 2. The Non-Affectivist answers: No. At best, pleasure is contingently related to aesthetic value. The ai…Read more
  •  62
    Encountering Individuality: Schlegel's Romantic Imperative as a Response to Nihilism
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 54 (6): 567-590. 2011.
    According to Friedrich Schlegel: “The Romantic imperative demands [that] all nature and science should become art [and] art should become nature and science”; “[P]oetry and philosophy should be made unified”, and “life and society [should be made] poetic”. The aim of this paper is to explain why Schlegel believes that this is an imperative that constrains philosophy and ordinary life. I argue that the answer to this question requires that we regard the Romantic imperative as a response to the sk…Read more
  •  68
    The Unboundedness of the Plain; or the Ubiquity of Lilliput? How to Do Things with Thompson Clarke?
    International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 4 (3-4): 225-262. 2014.
    In this essay, we focus primarily on Moore’s “Proof of an External World” and Kant’s “Refutation of Idealism.” We are not exactly commenting on Clarke’s “The Legacy of Skepticism,” interpreting it, although what we do involves us in (some of) that. Instead of directly commenting on it, we do things with Legacy; we read Moore’s Proof and Kant’s Refutation with Clarke in mind. And by way of doing this, we bring onto the stage a post-Legacy Moore, and a post-Legacy Kant. We do not claim to present …Read more
  •  413
    Unity in Variety: Theoretical, Practical and Aesthetic Reason in Kant
    In Konstantin Pollok & Gerad Gentry (eds.), The Imagination in German Idealism and Romanticism, Cambridge University Press. 2019.
    The main task of the paper is to explore Kant’s understanding of what unites the three kinds of judgment that he regards as the signature judgments of the three fundamental faculties of the mind--theoretical, practical and aesthetic judgments--in a way that preserves their fundamental differences. I argue that these are differences in kind not only in degree; or, in the terms I motivate in the paper, differences in form. Thus, I aim to show that (1) the Romantic unity of knowing, doing, and enjo…Read more
  •  1958
    Aesthetic Rationality
    Journal of Philosophy 115 (3): 113-140. 2018.
    We argue that the aesthetic domain falls inside the scope of rationality, but does so in its own way. Aesthetic judgment is a stance neither on whether a proposition is to be believed nor on whether an action is to be done, but on whether an object is to be appreciated. Aesthetic judgment is simply appreciation. Correlatively, reasons supporting theoretical, practical and aesthetic judgments operate in fundamentally different ways. The irreducibility of the aesthetic domain is due to the fact th…Read more
  •  55
    Kant's Aesthetic Theory: The Beautiful and Agreeable: Book Reviews (review)
    British Journal of Aesthetics 50 (3): 317-320. 2010.
    This is a book review of David Berger's "Kant's Aesthetic Theory: The Beautiful and the Agreeable."
  •  559
    Value First: Comments on Mohan Matthen’s ‘The Pleasure of Art’
    Australasian Philosophical Review 1 (1): 79-84. 2017.
    While I welcome Mohan Matthen’s insistence that art is connected to aesthetic pleasure, I worry about his commitment to viewing pleasure as prior to, and constitutive of, the value of art. I raise my reservations by (i) dispelling his criticism of the reversed explanatory direction, and (ii) showing problems for his commitment. As an alternative, I offer an account of pleasure that explains it in terms of the independent value of art—an account that is free of the problems Matthen raises against…Read more
  •  349
    Schematizing without a Concept? Imagine that!
    In Stefano Bacin, Alfredo Ferrarin, Claudio La Rocca & Margit Ruffing (eds.), Kant und die Philosophie in weltbürgerlicher Absicht. Akten des XI. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses, De Gruyter. pp. 59-70. 2013.
    The aim of this paper is to elucidate what Kant describes as the "free lawfulness of the imagination" in judgments of beauty in aesthetic terms, as called for by the distinctive nature of beauty. I argue that the aesthetic activity of the imagination differs from the theoretical activity of the imagination, and that the difference between the two has an aesthetic ground in terms of the special form of beautiful objects and the special value of beauty. In contrast to the theoretical activity of t…Read more
  •  460
    Friedrich Schlegel’s remarks about poetry and reality are notoriously baffling. They are often regarded as outlandish, or “poetically exaggerated” statements, since they are taken to suggest that there is no difference between poetry and reality or to express the view that there is no way out of linguistic and poetic constructions (Bowie). I take all these responses to be mistaken, and argue that Schlegel’s remarks are philosophical observations about a genuine confusion in theoretical approache…Read more
  •  164
    A new look at Kant's view of aesthetic testimony
    British Journal of Aesthetics 50 (1): 53-70. 2010.
    In this paper I explore the following threefold question: first, is there a genuine problem of grounding aesthetic judgement in testimony? Second, if there is such a problem, what exactly is its nature? And lastly, can Kant help us get clearer on the problem? Following Kant, I argue that the problem with aesthetic testimony is explained by norms that govern what it takes to judge a beautiful object aesthetically, rather than theoretically or practically, not by norms that govern what it takes to…Read more
  •  613
    Rationally Agential Pleasure? A Kantian Proposal
    In Lisa Shapiro (ed.), Pleasure: a History, Oxford University Press. pp. 167-194. 2018.
    The main claim of the paper is that, on Kant's account, aesthetic pleasure is an exercise of rational agency insofar as, when proper, it has the following two features: (1) It is an affective responsiveness to the question: “what is to be felt disinterestedly”? As such, it involves consciousness of its ground (the reasons for having it) and thus of itself as properly responsive to its object. (2) Its actuality depends on endorsement: actually feeling it involves its endorsement as an attitude to…Read more
  •  76
    A Tale of Two Faculties
    British Journal of Aesthetics 51 (4): 415-436. 2011.
    The notion of the ‘free harmony of the faculties’ has baffled many of Kant's readers and also attracted much criticism. In this paper I attempt to shed light on this puzzling notion. By doing so, I aim to challenge some of the criticisms that this notion has attracted, and to point to its relevance to contemporary debates in aesthetics. While most of the literature on the free harmony is characterized by what I regard as an ‘extra-aesthetic approach’, I propose ‘an aesthetic approach’ to the har…Read more
  •  92
    19th Century Romantic Aesthetics
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2016.
    The entry aims to explain a core feature of otherwise different variants of romanticism: the commitment to “the primacy of aesthetics.” This commitment is often expressed by the claim that the “aesthetic”—most broadly that which concerns beauty and art—should permeate and shape human life. The entry proposes that this romantic imperative should be understood as a structural or formal demand. On that reading, the romantic imperative requires that we model our epistemological, metaphysical, ethica…Read more