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6What is the relationship between detailed critical analysis and the background assumptions made by a given theory of film spectatorship? In this article, I approach this question by looking at Vittorio Gallese and Michele Guerra's The Empathic Screen in the light of the method of triangulation—the coordination and integration of phenomenological, psychological, and neuroscientific evidence, as set out in my Film, Art, and the Third Culture. In particular, I examine Gallese and Guerra's arguments…Read more
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Experience and explanation in the cinemaIn Bernd Herzogenrath (ed.), Film as philosophy, University of Minnesota Press. 2017.
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16Philosophers and other scholars have often claimed that the arts are not only cognitively valuable but also morally improving (e.g., Nussbaum, 1997). However, their arguments often proceed with little attention to empirical evidence. At the same time, filmmakers and media creators deliberately use devices to direct their audience’s attention, with the intention of impacting viewers’ cognitive, affective, and neurological responses in meaningful ways (Carroll & Seeley, 2013). Whether these device…Read more
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50Book Symposium. Steffen Borge, The Philosophy of FootballSport, Ethics and Philosophy 16 (3): 333-396. 2022.This is a book symposium on Steffen Borge’s The Philosophy of Football. It has contributions from William Morgan, Murray Smith and Brian Weatherson with replies from Borge.
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49Profitability and the Roots of the Global Crisis: Marx’s ‘Law of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall’ and the US Economy, 1950–2007Historical Materialism 20 (4): 39-74. 2012.The relevance of Marx’s theory of value and his ‘law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall’ to the analysis of the financial crisis of 2007–8 and the ensuing global slump is affirmed. The hypertrophic growth of unproductive constant capital, including the wages of ‘socially necessary’ unproductive labour and tax revenues, is identified as an important manifestation of an historical-structural crisis of capitalism, alongside the increasing weight of fictitious capital and the proliferatio…Read more
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53The Necessity of Value Theory: Brenner's Analysis of the 'Long Downturn' and Marx's Theory of CrisisHistorical Materialism 4 (1): 149-169. 1999.The publication last year in New Left Review of Robert Brenner's book-length essay ‘Uneven Development and the Long Downturn: The Advanced Capitalist Economies from Boom to Stagnation, 1950-1998’ has already provoked more discussion and controversy on the socialist Left than any other political-economic analysis in recent memory. Predictably, it has also elicited a number of highly critical response from proponents of Marx's theories of labour value and economic crisis. Amongst other things, Bre…Read more
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23A Tale of Two GapsAustralasian Philosophical Review 2 (2): 189-193. 2018.In ‘Rethinking Nature,’ Shaun Gallagher makes the case for a non-reductive, naturalized phenomenology. In doing so, he seeks to close the metaphysical gap between world and mind by pursuing a ‘world > mind’ strategy, conforming the natural world to the world of reason and experience. Here I assess the merits of this approach by comparison with the alternative ‘mind > world’ strategy, whereby the the world of reason and experience is conformed to the natural world. This latter approach is exempli…Read more
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22Is Psychology Relevant to Aesthetics? A SymposiumEstetika: The European Journal of Aesthetics 56 (1): 87. 2020.
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27Against Nature? or, Confessions of a Darwinian ModernistRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 75 151-182. 2014.A few years ago I gave a paper on the aesthetics of ‘noise,’ that is, on the ways in which non-musical sounds can be given aesthetic shape and structure, and thereby form the basis of significant aesthetic experience. Along the way I made reference to Arnold Schoenberg's musical theory, in particular his notion of Klangfarbenmelodie, literally ‘sound colour melody,’ or musical form based on timbre or tonal colour rather than on melody, harmony or rhythm. Schoenberg articulated his ideas about Kl…Read more
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ConsciousnessIn Paisley Livingston & Carl Plantinga (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Film, Routledge. 2008.
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12Brunette, Peter and David Wills. Screen/Play: Derrida and Film TheoryJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 49 (3): 268-268. 1991.
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15Chatman, Seymour. Coming To Terms: The Rhetoric of Narrative in Fiction and FilmJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 50 (3): 253-253. 1992.
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7Introduction: Film Theory and PhilosophyIn Richard Allen & Murray Smith (eds.), Film theory and philosophy, Oxford University Press. 1997.The introduction discusses the influence of two kinds of philosophy to film theory. It describes and clarifies the characteristic methods and strategies of analytic philosophy and film theory, and continental philosophy and film theory. It is concerned with the description of methods, debates, and principles of analytic philosophy with reference to the contributions of philosophy to film theory. It informs and provides indication of issues, methods, and doctrines. It examines, criticizes, and de…Read more
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2The Wartenberg-Smith Film as Philosophy Debate: A Response to Diana NeivaAmerican Society for Aesthetics Graduate E-Journal 11 (1): 1-6. 2019.
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1Imagining from the Inside: POV, Imagining Seeing, and EmpathyIn Richard Allen & Murray Smith (eds.), Film theory and philosophy, Oxford University Press. pp. 412--30. 1997.
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2Imagining from the Inside: POV, Imagining Seeing, and EmpathyIn Richard Allen & Murray Smith (eds.), Film theory and philosophy, Oxford University Press. 1997.
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275Engaging Characters: Fiction, Emotion, and the Cinema (review)Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 57 (1): 88-89. 1999.
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44Film Theory and Philosophy (review)Philosophical Review 109 (1): 144-7. 2000.This substantial book presents essays by nineteen authors exploring intersections between film theory and philosophy on topics of representation, authorship, ideology, aesthetics, and emotion. The editors explain that film studies has reached a crisis of method after a growth period founded on structural linguistics, psychoanalysis, and Continental philosophy. They wish to alter this foundation and “give momentum to work in an analytic vein”, which requires them to correct the misconception of a…Read more
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19Review of Paisley Livingston, Cinema, Philosophy, Bergman: On Film as Philosophy (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2010 (5). 2010.
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53Regarding film spectatorship: A reply to Richard AllenJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 56 (1): 63-65. 1998.
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7Rhetoric and Representation in Non‐fiction Film (review)British Journal of Aesthetics 41 (2): 222-225. 2001.
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67Rhetoric and representation in non-fiction filmBritish Journal of Aesthetics 41 (2): 222-225. 2001.
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41Film, Art, and the Third Culture: A Naturalized Aesthetics of FilmOxford University Press. 2017.Murray Smith presents an original approach to understanding film. He brings the arts, humanities, and sciences together to illuminate artistic creation and aesthetic experience. His 'third culture' approach roots itself in an appreciation of scientific innovation and how this has shaped the moving media.
Areas of Specialization
Aesthetics |
Philosophy of Film |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Philosophy of Psychology |