Artistic Judgement (eBook)

A Framework for Philosophical Aesthetics

Graham McFee (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2011 | 1. Auflage
196 Seiten
Springer-Verlag
978-94-007-0031-4 (ISBN)

Infos

Artistic Judgement sketches a framework for an account of art suitable to philosophical aesthetics. It stresses differences between artworks and other things; and locates the understanding of artworks both in a narrative of the history of art and in the institutional practices of the art world. Hence its distinctiveness lies in its strong account of the difference between, on the one hand, the judgement and appreciation of art and, on the other, the judgement and appreciation of all the other things in which we take an aesthetic interest. For only by acknowledging this contrast can one do justice to the importance regularly ascribed to art. The contrast is explained by appealing to an occasion-sensitive account of understanding, drawn from Charles Travis directly, but with Gordon Baker (and Wittgenstein) as also proximate rather than remote. On this basis, it argues, first, that we need to offer accounts of key topics only as far as questions might be raised in respect of them (hence, not exceptionlessly); and, second, that we should therefore defend the view that the meaning of artworks can be changed by later events (the historical character of art, or forward retroactivism) and that art has an institutional character, understood broadly on the lines of Terry Diffey’s Republic of Art. Besides providing a general framework, Artistic Judgement also explores the applications of the ideas to specific artworks or classes of them.

Autor

Graham McFee studied at the University of Keele, and at University College London (where he was supervised by Richard Wollheim). Having worked at the University of Brighton since 1974, he was inaugurated Professor of Philosophy there in 1995. Since 2004, he has divided his time between Brighton and California State University Fullerton. He was Vice President of the British Society for Aesthetics from 1999 to 2004. His main interests, outside aesthetics, lie in the philosophy of Wittgenstein and the philosophical study of sport.

Inhalt

Preface 6
Preamble 6
Textual Acknowledgements 9
Other Acknowledgements 9
Abbreviations 10
Permissions 10
Contents 11
1 The Artistic and the Aesthetic: A Distinction Considered 13
1.1 A Crucial Distinction 14
1.2 Transfiguration and Artistic Properties 17
1.3 Some Corollaries of the Distinction 20
1.4 Contrasting Views of the Aesthetic 22
1.5 The Artistic as Sensuous 24
1.6 The Ambiguity of Artistic Properties 27
1.7 An Example: The Case of Marla 29
1.8 Exploring the Contrast: Methodology 32
1.9 Outline of This Work 34
1.10 On Not Defining Art 35
Notes 39
2 Art, Meaning and Occasion-Sensitivity 41
2.1 Meaning Meaning 42
2.2 Exceptions (a): Dealing with Defeasibility 45
2.3 Exceptions (b): Disambiguation 46
2.4 An Occasion-Sensitive View of Meaning and Understanding 48
2.5 Contextualism in Philosophical Aesthetics 53
2.6 Competent Judges 57
2.7 Meaning, Explaining, and Artistic Properties 59
2.8 Meaning, Explanation and Content 63
2.9 The Context of Philosophical Aesthetics 66
Notes 67
3 Art and Life-Issues: Meeting Counter-Cases 69
3.1 Artistic Value and Life-Issues 69
3.2 Life-Issues Connection to Artworks 70
3.3 The Importance of Life-Issues 74
3.4 Learning from Art 75
3.5 Art and Moral Value: Moderate Moralism, Ethicism 79
3.6 A Seven-Part Strategy 84
3.7 Literary Value and Moral Understanding: Nussbaum 87
3.8 A Conflict Between Morality and Art 90
3.9 Conclusion 93
Notes 94
4 Intention, Authorship and Artistic Realism 96
4.1 The Intention of the Artist 96
4.2 Excursus: Hypothetical Intentionalism and Its Discontents 103
4.3 The Embodiment of Artistic Meaning 107
4.4 Making Meaning: The Concept Art 108
4.5 Making Sense: History of Production 112
4.6 Response-Reliance and Artistic Properties 114
4.7 Understanding and Criticism 117
4.8 Criticism and Inference 120
4.9 The Reality of Artistic Properties 123
Notes 126
5 The Historical Character of Art 129
5.1 Precursors and the Past 129
5.2 Art, Change of Meaning and Standard Historicism 130
5.3 Forward Retroactivism, and the Threat of Misperception 134
5.4 Are These Genuine Properties 137
5.5 Reasons and New Evidence 139
5.6 Are These New Properties 141
5.7 Making Sense of the Past 144
5.8 Oeuvre, Action and Understanding 145
5.9 Genre and Artistic Intention 147
5.10 An Argument Against Any Historicism 151
5.11 Historical Character and UnderstandingSome Realism 153
Notes 154
6 The Republic of Art: A Plausible Institutional Account of Art 156
6.1 The Idea of an Institutional Concept 156
6.2 Sketch of an Institutional Account of Art 157
6.3 A More Plausible (than Dickies) Account of Art 159
6.4 Topics for Criticism 161
6.5 Does Dickies Later Theory Fare Better 165
6.6 Wollheims Criticism 166
6.7 Critical Reflections 169
6.8 Can the Institution Be Wrong 173
6.9 The Friends of Jones 175
6.10 What the Account Offers 179
Notes 181
7 Conclusion 183
7.1 The Framework: A Summary 183
7.2 The Aesthetic Reconsidered 186
7.3 Envoi: The Muscular Aesthetic 187
References 189
Index 197

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 13.1.2011
• Reihe/Serie: Philosophical Studies Series
• Reihe/Serie: Philosophical Studies Series
• Zusatzinfo: XII, 196 p.
• Verlagsort: Dordrecht
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Allgemeines / Lexika
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Malerei / Plastik
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Allgemeines / Lexika
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Geschichte der Philosophie
• Schlagworte: Aesthetics • Arts • History of Art • Philosophical aesthetics • philosophy of art
• ISBN-10: 94-007-0031-8 / 9400700318
• ISBN-13: 978-94-007-0031-4 / 9789400700314