Peter Kivy

The Blackwell guide to aesthetics

Notes on Contributors. Introduction: Aesthetics Today. Part I: The Core Issues:. 1. The Origins of Modern Aesthetics: 1711--35: Paul Guyer (University of Pennsylvania). 2. Defining Art: Intension and Extension: George Dickie (University of Illinois, Chicago). 3. Art and the Aesthetic: Marcia Muelder Eaton (University of Minnesota). 4. The Ontology of Art: Amie L. Thomasson (University of Miami). 5. Evaluating Art: Alan Goldman (College of William & Mary). 6. Interpretation in Aesthetics: Laurent Stern (Rutgers University). 7. Art and the Moral Realm: Noel Carroll (University of Wisconsin -- Madison). 8. Beauty and the Critics Judgment: Remapping Aesthetics: Mary Mothersill (Barnard College). 9. The Philosophy of Taste: Thoughts on the Idea: Ted Cohen (University of Chicago). 10. The Emotions in Art: Jenefer Robinson (University of Cincinnati). Part II: The Arts and Other Matters:. 11. The Philosophy of Literature: Pleasure Restored: Peter Lamarque (University of York) and Stein Haugom Olsen (Lingnan University). 12. The Philosophy of the Visual Arts: Perceiving Pictures: Joseph Margolis (Temple University). 13. The Philosophy of the Movies: Cinematic Narration: Berys Gaut (University of St. Andrews). 14. The Philosophy of Music: Formalism and Beyond: Philip Alperson (Temple University). 15. The Philosophy of Dance: Bodies in Motion, Bodies at Rest: Francis Sparshott (University of Toronto). 16. Tragedy: Susan Feagin (Temple University). 17. The Aesthetics of Nature and the Environment: Donald W. Crawford (University of California, Santa Barbara). 18. Art and the Aesthetic: The Religious Dimension: Nicholas Wolterstorff (Yale University). Index

Opera talk: A philosophical ‘phantasie’

The train of thought that I wish to pursue here was initiated by Edward T. Cones recent essay ‘The World of Opera and its Inhabitants’. To the extent that my views diverge from his I suppose I may be taken for a critical adversary. But I prefer to think of the present effort as more a continuation and development of Professor Cones ideas than an attempt to refute or criticise them. It is in the spirit of ongoing research rather than the more common one, in my profession, of philosophical confrontation that I offer remarks on the general questions, as posed by Cone: ‘How does the world of opera differ from other dramatic worlds? Who are the people that inhabit it, and what sorts of lives do they lead there?’ More particularly, my question is: What is the nature of operatic utterance? How are operatic characters ‘saying’? In the first section of my paper I will present Professor Cones answers to these questions. In the second I will go on what will appear, no doubt, to be a completely tangential excursion into R. G. Collingwoods philosophy of art. But in the final two sections I will try to weave these two seemingly disparate strands together into an answer of my own to the questions that Professor Cone has so insightfully raised. Perhaps ‘an answer of my own’ is too strong a phrase to use, implying something more like disagreement than is actually the case. So a better way of describing my whole enterprise, and the final sections especially, is ‘variations on a theme by Cone’.

Francis Hutcheson : an inquiry concerning beauty, order, harmony, design

Note on the Text.- Editors Introduction.- Preface to the Two Inquiries.- Inquiry Concerning Beauty, Order, Harmony, Design.- Appendix: Hutcheson on Laughter.- Editors Introduction.

Composers and ‘composers’: A response to David Rosen

David Rosen has written a detailed critique of my essay, ‘Opera Talk: A Philosophical “Phantasie”’, which appeared in a recent issue of this journal. I am grateful to him for his interest in what I had to say there. But at the same time I fear that he has misconstrued it. The result is that he has set up a parade of straw men which (not surprisingly) he has knocked – indeed bludgeoned – to the turf. There are a lot of straw men standing in for a lot of real ones, some of the real ones more important than others. It would be a bore for me as well as for my readers were I to run through them all (and if I tried, the vigilant editors of the journal would, quite rightly, put a stop to my profligacy). So I am going to concentrate on a very few of what I take to be the most important ones, and ones that cluster around the same basic issue. In the process, I hope not only to perform the negative task of refuting Rosens ‘refutation’, but the positive one of pushing my project forward, at least to the extent of clarifying it.

Thomas Reid's Lectures on the fine arts

Perception.- Aesthetic Perception.- Aesthetic Qualities.- The Connection.- A Note on the Text.- Lectures on the Fine Arts.- Mind and Body.- Taste and the Fine Arts.

In Defense of Musical Representation: Music, Representation and the Hybrid Arts

The importance of Marx Wartofsky’s contribution to our understanding of visual representation hardly needs advertisement on the pages of the present volume, being well known to all his admirers. It is in the spirit of that work, although not, obviously, as a direct contribution to it, that I offer, for this happy occasion, some brief remarks on the problem of musical representation.

Monroe Remembered: Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism on Its Fiftieth Anniversary

When I proposed this symposium for the 2008 annual meeting of the American Society for Aesthetics, the title “Monroe Remembered” already in place, it was with the intention of commemorating not just the philosopher but the man as well. All who were privileged to know him personally— particularly those, like myself, just beginning their careers as philosophers of art—will always remember not only the keen-edged mind of the true philosopher but the kindness and consideration of the true teacher as well. In all the years that I knew Monroe Beardsley, he never responded in anger or annoyance to any question asked of him, no matter how stupid or silly it was. Nor did he ever fail to offer assistance to any young aspirant. He was, in the best sense of the word, a “gentleman,” with emphasis on the gentle. It was one of the great experiences of my life to have known him. But the other purpose of this symposium, and the principal one, is to commemorate Monroe Beardsley’s work as a philosopher of art. For it is very hard to imagine that the philosophy of art, and the American Society for Aesthetics, would have prospered, as soon and as successfully as they did, were it not for Beardsley’s philosophical presence in person and in his magnum opus, which is the subject of this symposium. It is altogether appropriate, for two reasons, that the papers comprising the Beardsley symposium be published in the pages of the Journal of Aesthetic Education. First, Beardsley and his book were mainly instrumental in the education of a whole new generation of philosophers of art in the 1960s who changed the face of the discipline in America and Britain. And second, no one interested in the implications for education of art and the aesthetic can afford not to be acquainted with Beardsley’s imposing contribution to our understanding of both. It is our hope that the present papers will help to make this apparent and be a fitting tribute to Beardsley—both the man and his work.

Music, Language and Cognition: Which Doesn’t Belong?

When the topic of “Music, Language and Cognition” was first proposed to me by the organizers of this Colloquium, I at once was reminded of the game where a child is shown, for example, pictures of an apple, a banana and trumpet and asked “Which one doesn’t belong?” I assume you all know the answer.

Intentional Forgeries and Accidental Versions: A Response to John Dilworth

In my article «How to forge a musical work», I argue that the best way to view an attempted forgery of a lost autograph that accidentally duplicates the lost original is as a version, not a forgery, although I acknowledge the plausibility of J. Levinsons alternate view, that it remains a forgery nevertheless. J. Dilworth, in his article, «A representational theory of artefacts and artworks», defends Levinsons intution against mine. In the present article, I argue that our intuitions here are divided, as they are in the case of fictional literary works that accidentally turn out to be true, where some would say that what we have is still fiction, others that it is accidental historiy.

Are Aesthetic Terms Ungovernable

In the preceding chapter I discussed a distinction between terms the correct application of which it seemed appropriate to ascribe to some special aesthetic sensitivity and terms the application of which seemed to require only the normal five bodily senses and a normally endowed mental capacity. I called the former “taste-terms,” and the latter “non-taste-terms,” and I shall continue to do so, though it must be borne in mind that in so doing I will be using a coined word. I shall mean by a taste-term a term the correct application of which requires a special ability to, as Sibley puts it, notice or see or tell that things have certain qualities. And, as I have tried to show, “taste” does not ordinarily mean that at all. But no harm will be done so long as my use of “taste” is not confused with the ordinary use; so long as no conclusions are drawn which are said to follow from the concept (or concepts) of taste embodied in ordinary language.