•  5
    An enthusiastic review of Simon J. Evnine (Ed.) "A Certain Gesture: Evnine’s Meme Project and its Parerga! Volume 1."
  •  12
    Review: Hooked, by Rita Felski (review)
    British Journal of Aesthetics 63 (2): 286-289. 2023.
    In her new book Hooked, Rita Felski continues a project of criticizing literary criticism that she began in The Limits of Critique (2015).
  •  103
    Imagination as a process
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 106 (2): 434-454. 2023.
    According to recent orthodoxy, imagination is best characterised in terms of distinctive imaginative states. But this view is ill-suited to characterisation of the full range of imaginative activities—creation, fantasy, conceiving, and so on. It would be better to characterise imagination in terms of a distinctive imaginative process, with the various imaginative activities as more determinate implementations of the determinable process.
  •  555
    This chapter explores insights concerning the relations among imagination, imagined selves, and knowledge of one’s own self that are to be found in Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet. The insights are explored via close reading of the text and comparison with contemporaries of Pessoa. First, a tempting account of the importance of imagination in The Book of Disquiet is set out. On this reading, Pessoa is immersed in miasmatic boredom, but able to temporarily rise above it through the restora…Read more
  •  11
    In ‘Listening to Other Minds’, Enrico Terrone provides an account of the mental activity in which we ought to engage to appreciate pop music. He argues that we should ‘play a game of make-believe’ in which we imagine that we can ‘hear … the mind’ of a fictional character. We should use this ability to grasp the thoughts and feelings that the mind contains, and thus undertake ‘exploration’ of the character’s ‘inner life’. This article argues, first, that only a simplified version of the account i…Read more
  •  24
    Apt Imaginings: Feelings for Fictions and Other Creatures of the Mind by Jonathan Gilmore (review)
    Estetika: The European Journal of Aesthetics 58 (1): 95-99. 2021.
    A book review of Jonathan Gilmore. Apt Imaginings: Feelings for Fictions and Other Creatures of the Mind. New York and London: Oxford University Press, 2020, x + 258pp. ISBN978-0-19-009634-2.
  •  59
    Understanding What It's Like To Be (Dis)Privileged
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 102 (2): 320-356. 2021.
    Can a person privileged in some respect understand what it is like to be disprivileged in that respect? Some say yes; some say no. I argue that both positions are correct, because ‘understand what it is like to be disprivileged’ is ambiguous. Sometimes, it means grasp of the character of particular experiences of disprivileged people. Privileged people can achieve this. Sometimes, it means grasp of the general character shared by experiences of disprivileged people. Privileged people cannot achi…Read more
  •  30
    The Moving Image
    In Noël Carroll, Laura T. Di Summa & Shawn Loht (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of the Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures, Springer. pp. 49-69. 2019.
    Films typically provide an experience that is very much like the experience of ordinary motion. It is for this reason that they are commonly known as moving pictures or, slightly more broadly, moving images. Our focus in this chapter is on making sense of that experience. We begin our chapter by exploring the centrality of the experience of movement to film. We turn then to various explanations of that experience. Perhaps film images are transparent and allow us to indirectly see the movement of…Read more
  •  160
    Imagination: A Lens, Not a Mirror
    Philosophers' Imprint 19. 2019.
    The terms "imagination'' and "imaginative'' can be readily applied to a profusion of attitudes, experiences, activities, and further phenomena. The heterogeneity of the things to which they're applied prompts the thoughts that the terms are polysemous, and that there is no single, coherent, fruitful conception of imagination to be had. Nonetheless, much recent work on imagination ascribes implicitly to a univocal way of thinking about imaginative phenomena: the imitation theory, according to whi…Read more
  •  87
    Characterizing the Imaginative Attitude
    Philosophical Papers 48 (3): 437-469. 2019.
    Three thoughts strongly influence recent work on sensory imagination, often without explicit articulation. The image thought says that all mental states involving a mental image are imaginative. The attitude thought says that, if there is a distinctive imaginative attitude, it is a single, monolithic attitude. The function thought says that the functions of sensory imagination are identical or akin to functions of other mental states such as judgment or belief. Taken together, these thoughts cr…Read more
  •  21
    What is Fiction For? Literary Humanism Restored (review)
    Philosophical Quarterly 68 (272): 654-657. 2018.
    Review of Harrison, "What is Fiction For?", and Miller, "Communities in Fiction"
  •  26
    Lonely Arts: The Status of Aesthetics as A Sub‐Discipline
    Metaphilosophy 48 (5): 798-812. 2017.
    This article offers five things: first, a description of the current status of aesthetics as a sub-discipline of philosophy, showing that it's currently not regarded as part of the field's core; second, a case history asserting that the particular interests and approaches of aestheticians active in the twenty years or so after 1945 started trends that have defined the sub-discipline ever since; third, a diagnosis arguing that this definition, which involves a narrow focus on certain questions ab…Read more
  •  96
    Feeling, emotion and imagination: in defence of Collingwood's expression theory of art
    British Journal for the History of Philosophy 26 (4): 759-781. 2018.
    ABSTRACTIn ‘The Principles of Art’, R. G. Collingwood argues that art is the imaginative expression of emotion. So much the worse, then, for Collingwood. The theory seems hopelessly inadequate to the task of capturing art’s extension: of encompassing all the works we generally suppose should be rounded up under the concept. A great number of artworks, and several art forms, have nothing to do with emotion. But it would be surprising were Collingwood philistine enough to think that art is only ev…Read more
  •  125
    Against the Additive View of Imagination
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 94 (2): 266-282. 2016.
    According to the additive view of sensory imagination, mental imagery often involves two elements. There is an image-like element, which gives the experiences qualitative phenomenal character akin to that of perception. There is also a non-image element, consisting of something like suppositions about the image's object. This accounts for extra- sensory features of imagined objects and situations: for example, it determines whether an image of a grey horse is an image of Desert Orchid, or of som…Read more
  •  108
    What's aesthetically interesting or significant about electronic dance music? The first answer I consider here is that dancing is significant. Using literature on groove, dance and expression, I sketch an account of club dancing as expressive activity. I next consider the aesthetic achievements of DJs, introducing two conceptions of what they do. These thoughts lead to discussions of dance music's ontology. I suggest that the fundamental work of dance music is the mix and that mixes require thei…Read more
  •  43
    Dominic Gregory, Showing, Sensing, and Seeming. Reviewed by Nick Wiltsher (review)
    Philosophy in Review 35 (3): 143-145. 2015.
    Review of Dominic Gregory's "Showing, Sensing, and Seeming"
  •  33
    Review of Walter Hopp's "Perception and Knowledge" and Charles Travis' "Perception".
  •  1555
    It is intuitively plausible that art and imagination are intimately connected. This chapter explores attempts to explain that connection. We focus on three areas in which art and imagination might be linked: production, ontology, and appreciation. We examine views which treat imagination as a fundamental human faculty, and aim for comprehensive accounts of art and artistic practice: for example, those of Kant and Collingwood. We also discuss philosophers who argue that a specific kind of imagin…Read more
  •  85
    Electronic dance music has much about it to interest philosophers. In this article, I explore facets of dance music cultures, using the issue of authenticity as a framing question. The problem of sorting real or authentic dance music from mainstream or commercial clubbing can be treated as a matter of history and genre-definition; as a matter of defining scenes or subcultures; and as a matter of blackness. In each case, electronic dance music, and critical discourse surrounding it, offers fresh …Read more