I have been dissatisfied with Walton’s make-believe model of appreciator engagement with fiction ever since my first encounter with it as a graduate student.1 What I have always objected to is not the suggestion that such engagement is broadly speaking imaginative; rather, it is the suggestion that it specifically involves de se imaginative activity on the part of appreciators. That is, while I concede that appreciators imagine (de re) of the fictional works they experience that they are thus and so, (...) I deny that they imagine (de se) experiencing an object that is thus and so.2 The main source of my dissatisfaction with the make-believe model is that it is phenomenologically unfamiliar; I have never been aware of de se imaginings of the requisite sort while appreciatively engaged with fiction.3 Of course, one could argue that it nevertheless occurs, albeit sub-consciously. But in order for this manoeuvre to be plausible, it would have to be established that there are appreciative phenomena that can only (or best) be explained by the supposition that appreciators engage in de se imagining, and which cannot be adequately explained by the supposition that they merely engage in de re imagining. Currie, for example, has argued that we need to make the former supposition in order to find a solution to the “problem of personality,” the problem of explaining why our emotional reactions to the plights of fictional characters often differ from our reactions to the similar plights of actual people.4 What I want to argue in this paper is that Currie’s defense of de se imaginative engagement is.. (shrink)

"En fabriquant des outils, en accédant au langage articulé, en s'affranchissant progressivement des contraintes de la sélection naturelle, l'homme a donné toute liberté à son imagination, à ses rêves et à ses émotions. Peu à peu, la conscience du beau s'est imposée à lui, avec l'acquisition de la notion de symétrie, l'émergence du sens de l'harmonie, puis l'apparition de la parure, de l'art mobilier, de l'art pariétal, et même de la musique... Le sens de la beauté est une des aspirations (...) les plus profondes de la nature humaine à la recherche de la transcendance. Mais quand, et comment, ce sentiment de la beauté émerge-t-il? Qu'elle est la signification du beau? Peut-il y avoir une beauté en mathématique? Quelles ont été les grandes étapes de l'évolution de l'art préhistorique? De l'art médiéval? Qu'est-ce que le " Beau idéal "? Peut-on avoir une émotion esthétique? Que signifie le beau dans l'art contemporain? C'est à ces questions essentielles que répondent Henry de Lumley et son équipe, composée d'historiens, de physiciens, de mathématiciens, d'artistes, de philosophes et de théologiens. Ce livre, tiré d'un cycle de conférence tenu au collège des Bernardins, est une grande synthèse qui bouscule les interprétations dominantes sur l'idée de la beauté." [Source : 4e de couv.]. (shrink)

It has seemed to some compelling that construing imagining in relation to fictional events as imagining being aware of those events provides a good explanation of our emotional responses to them. Call this ‘the argument from affective response’. Versions of this argument have been advanced by Kendall Walton and Jerrold Levinson. A more localised version of it, with respect to pornography, is that construing imagining in relation to events represented in pornography as imagining being aware of them provides a good (...) explanation of subsequent arousal. Compelling as this may seem, I argue that it is false. I start by making some distinctions between different kinds of imagining de se, and then focus on the claim that there is a connection between emotional engagement with fiction and implicitly imagining de se, making it more precise in the light of various plausible considerations. I then turn to the case of pornography, examining and rejecting three possible arguments for a necessary connection between imagining, from the inside, being aware of represented events, and being aroused by them. Since versions of these arguments might equally be applied to affective response to fiction more generally, I take it that I have thereby gone at least part way to undermining the argument from affective response. (shrink)

Resumo: Este artigo toma a estética do produto, como objeto de pesquisa, e utiliza uma combinação de teoria e análise de caso para estudar a construção narrativa histórica da estética do produto. Ele concentra-se em explorar os mecanismos da estética do produto, a partir das perspectivas da forma e emoção, a fim de revelar como a expressão estética transmite emoções através de formas de design e explorar, ainda mais, seu impacto no design de produto moderno. O ponto de vista central (...) deste texto é que a estética do produto não é apenas o resultado da expressão visual, mas ela também forma experiências multidimensionais, por meio da construção da forma, da realização da função e da transmissão de emoções. No âmbito da filosofia e estética, a análise de exemplos de design clássico e moderno revela a importância significativa de integrar emoções e formas no desenvolvimento de produtos, em um ambiente de mercado em rápida mudança. Este artigo pode fornecer referências úteis para os designers aplicarem e inovarem na prática do design, além de ajudar a aprofundar sua compreensão da estética emocional do produto. (shrink)

Les émotions peuvent être pénibles, voire néfastes. Pensons par exemple à la peur, la colère, la haine, la jalousie ou au mépris. De telles émotions sont souvent qualifiées de négatives. Mais que sont les émotions négatives et comment se distinguent-elles des émotions positives ? Plus généralement, qu’impliquent-elles pour notre compréhension des émotions ? Et quels sont concrètement leurs effets sur nos pensées et nos vies ? De plus, comment analyser l’ambivalence affective, comme quand on ressent à la fois de l’amour (...) et de la haine ? Réunissant dix contributions rédigées pour l’occasion, Les ombres de l’âme propose des éléments de réponses originaux à ces questions. Ce faisant, cet ouvrage jette les bases d’une philosophie des émotions négatives. (shrink)

El volumen Aesthetic Reason and Imaginative Freedom: Friederich Schiller and Philosophy continúa un esfuerzo que se viene gestando desde hace más de quince años en el ámbito de la investigación filosófica: restituir la figura de Friedrich Schiller como filósofo.

The goal of this dissertation is to demonstrate that construals of our emotional responses to fictions as irrational or merely pseudo-emotional are not the only explanations available to us, and that necessary and sufficient conditions for an emotional response to a fiction can be established without abandoning either its intentionality or the assignment of a causal role to our beliefs. ;Colin Radford's claim that our emotional responses to fictions are irrational and inconsistent is challenged in two ways. First, distinctions (...) can be drawn between our reactions to fiction and indisputably irrational emotional reactions which preclude arriving at Radford's conclusion via an argument from analogy. Further, the conditions for rationality put forward in several analyses of emotion, ranging from that of David Hume to that of Ronald de Sousa, are not violated by our emotional responses to fictions. ;Kendall Walton's contention that such affective reactions are merely quasi-emotions is contested on the ground that the absence of the existentially committed beliefs which Walton allies with all genuine emotional responses does not demonstrate an absence of cognitive content. Existentially uncommitted evaluative beliefs, thoughts, and even beliefs about the world can be linked to our emotional experience of fictions, and can serve a function necessary to the identification of the emotion, a function which Walton assigns to the existentially committed belief. ;In our experience of fictions, the objects of our emotion are various. However, a direct response to a fictional entity or event is characterized in terms of Peter Lamarque's account: as a response to the content of a thought, a response to what has been thought or imagined rather than to the thought itself. The roles played both by evaluative beliefs and beliefs about what can occur in the world are investigated and found to constitute necessary conditions for an emotional response to a fiction. An account of the role of the imagination, which borrows from Boruah, David Novitz, and Susan Feagin, provides another condition which, together with the two preceding, appears sufficient for such a response. (shrink)

Contemporary analytic aestheticians have little interest in the old paradigm of expression theory. They observe that expression theorists tend to locate the essence of art in the externalization of emotion, and they argue persuasively that this tendency is unfortunate. Then they consign expression theorists like Dewey; Collingwood, and Croce to the dustbin of history. This dismissive posture has become standard in aesthetics, for some good reasons. But at least in the case of Dewey, the reasons don't apply. The burden of (...) my dissertation is to make a case for this claim. ;While Dewey does help himself to the vocabulary of expressionism in Art as Experience, he uses it to make arguments less appropriate to a fin-de-siecle expression theorist than to a contemporary cultural critic. He never claims that art is essentially the expression of emotion; he doesn't even agree that emotion is what's expressed in art. His account of expression in art is about the production and reproduction of culture by means of individual agency. It is what Charles Taylor calls expressivism, not expressionism. ;My interpretation of Dewey's aesthetics diverges radically from the one in Alan Tormey's The Concept of Expression, which has become a kind of controlling precedent for the analytic approach to expressionism. I avoid and reject Tormey's reading by locating Dewey's musings on expression in the broader contexts of his conception of the aesthetic, his pragmatist philosophical system, and the tradition of expressivist thought that includes Hamann, Herder, Hegel and Marx. Proceeding in this way not only reveals certain motivations and themes that would otherwise remain obscure, but also highlights certain insights that point toward new, more culturally grounded modes of aesthetic theorizing. I try to recover Dewey's work as a step toward this new aesthetics, an approach that I call, following Cornel West, prophetic aesthetics. (shrink)

In this article we consider, relying in part upon comparative semantic evidence from English and Romanian, two contrasting dimensions of the sense in which our thoughts, including the contents of imagination and memory, and extending to objects of fear, enjoyment, and other emotions directed toward worldly happenings, may be distinctively first-personal, or "de se," to use the terminology introduced in Lewis (1979), and exhibit the phenomenon of immunity to error through misidentification (hereafter: IEM) in the sense of Shoemaker (1968) and (...) elsewhere. The different dimensions of the de se, we will argue, come apart in the following sense: some first-personal propositions, memories, and fears are about oneself as an experiencer of the contents in question, and others not; and some that are about the experiencer are not given as about oneself. (shrink)

L’humanité a inventé environ 12 000 types différents d’instruments de musique, chacun exprimant une facette de l’imagination humaine. Mais on s’étonne que de ce que la philosophie néglige cet objet, dont se sont emparés acousticiens, musicologues, ethnomusicologues et historiens. Relevant le défi d’une exploration philosophique, Bernard Sève défend la thèse originale de la « condition organologique de la musique » : la musique n’est complètement elle-même que lorsqu’elle se sert d’instruments ; la musique, d’une certaine façon, « commence » avec (...) l’instrument. Mais à condition d’ajouter que l’instrument n’est rien sans l’instrumentiste qui le met en œuvre. On peut alors distinguer deux corps de l’instrument : son corps physique, qui peut produire toutes sortes de bruits, et son corps musical, qui ne produit que les sons musicaux voulus ; réciproquement, le musicien qui apprend à jouer d’un instrument transforme son corps physique naturel en corps musicien. Bernard Sève étudie enfin les rapports entre l’instrument et le temps et propose une ontologie de l’œuvre musicale dans laquelle l’instrument joue un rôle essentiel. L’instrument de musique n’est totalement lui-même que lorsqu’il joue, et l’œuvre musicale n’est totalement elle-même que lorsqu’elle est effectivement jouée. Et la musique est le seul art dont les instruments sont utilisés tout au long de la réalisation de l’œuvre : une fois la toile achevée, le peintre n’a plus besoin de son pinceau, mais, la partition terminée, le musicien a plus que jamais besoin des instruments... (shrink)

Patrizia Lombardo | : Stendhal et Musil sont les deux écrivains par excellence qui se sont interrogés sur le type de connaissance qui vient de la littérature. Avant Musil et comme Musil, Stendhal répond à cette question fondamentale en montrant que le roman offre une connaissance des émotions humaines et de leur lien avec les valeurs. Il s’agit à la fois de valeurs éthiques — les situations morales dans lesquelles se trouvent les personnages — et des valeurs esthétiques et proprement (...) littéraires — le tragique, le comique, le tragi-comique, le sublime, etc. Surtout, le roman n’est pas simple représentation du réel, mais aussi du possible. L’analyse de quelques phrases hypothétiques, conjectures et expériences de pensée dans Le Rouge et le Noir, confirme la thèse que la littérature propose une connaissance du possible à travers le travail de l’imagination. | : Stendhal and Musil are deeply concerned with the question of theknowledge value of literature. Like Musil and before him, Stendhalanswered this question by showing the potential of the novel :this literary form presents human emotions and their connection tovalues. The characters deal with various situations, therefore conveyethical values, while aesthetic values —such as the comic, thetragic, the tragic-comic, the sublime- emerge from the way in whichhuman actions and emotions are represented. All these values arebrought about by the style of Stendhal, which is both form and content,both ethical and aesthetic. The analysis of some hypotheticalsentences, conjectures and thought experiments in The Red and the Blackconfirms the thesis later endorsed by Musil, that literature allows forthe knowledge of the possible, thanks to the exercise of theimagination. (shrink)

This paper develops a theory of aesthetic experience from the perspective of the empathetic observer. It suggests that there are some experiences in which empathy and aesthetic experience are indistinguishable. The paper focusses on one of these experiences, namely that of narrative turning points. Empathy involves co-experiencing the situations of others and their emotional states, while aesthetics involves an intense experience from some distance. The two come together when emotions are shared between observer and observed and with some distance. Narratives (...) are one of these forms where sharing and distance can coexist. In particular, narrative turning points involve an intense recursive or oscillating reception structure: Observers who are absorbed by a specific moment imagine and experience alternative developments and alternative versions of the events or take more than one perspective of the moment (as in recognition scenes), thereby mentally looping back and forth. This paper discusses this structure along with its key notions: intensity, narrative empathy, aesthetic experience, empathy triggers, stage effects, and clarity. In diesem Aufsatz wird eine Theorie der Ästhetik ausgehend von der Perspektive des empathischen Beobachters entwickelt. Man könnte von einer Theorie der ästhetischen Anteilnahme sprechen. Die Kernthese des Aufsatzes besteht darin, dass es Erfahrungen gibt, in denen Empathie und ästhetische Erfahrung identisch sind. Eine dieser Erfahrungen steht im Zentrum der Argumentation, nämlich der narrative Wendepunkt. Empathie besteht im Mit-Erleben der Situation eines anderen inklusive der mit ihr verbundenen emotionalen Zustände; ästhetische Erfahrung involviert intensive innere Bewegung bei gleichzeitiger Distanz. Empathie und Ästhetik kommen darin überein, dass Emotionen trotz einer gewissen Distanz von Beobachter und Beobachtetem geteilt werden. Dazu kann es in Narrationen kommen. Narrative Wendepunkte beinhalten eine intensive und rekursive Rückkoppelung oder Oszillation, in denen Beobachter alternative Entwicklungen zu dem gegebenen Augenblick hinzudenken oder mehr als eine Perspektive einnehmen, wie in Wiedererkennungen, und insofern mental hin- und herspringen. Der Aufsatz diskutiert diese Struktur mit ihren Elementen wie Intensität, narrative Empathie, ästhetische Erfahrung, Empathie-Auslöser, Bühnen-Effekte und Klarheit. (shrink)

My contribution to the 'MIMESIS, METAPHYSICS AND MAKE-BELIEVE' conference held in honour of Kendall Walton in the University of Leeds.

Inspired by recent visits to the Disgusting Food Museum (DFM) in Mälmo, SE and “FOOD: Bigger than Your Plate” (2019) at the Victoria & Albert in London, UK, this article explores the saliency of “disgust” given its role in the “attention economy,” hipster allure and emotional encoding. Initially appalled by the DFM’s demonizing national delicacies as disgusting, the author soon realised that doing so has a “silver lining” in terms of attention. One aspect that remains under-explored is the connection between (...) imagination and attention. The relationship between taste and disgust grants us a vehicle for working this out, since human beings are wired for disgust, yet what disgusts is learnt. Unlike basic emotions for which we have salience and/or memories, we deploy our imagination to anticipate disgust. To defeat disgust’s alarmist ploys, “food adventurers” must block their imagination. “Disgusting food” not only grabs people’s attention, but it tends to deceive. (shrink)

In ‘Humean Critics: Real or Ideal?’ (BJA 48 (2008): 20-28), Stephanie Ross argues that four of Hume's five criteria for qualified critics in “Of the Standard of Taste’, namely practise, comparison, freedom from prejudice, and good sense, should be understood as conditions for improving the basic constituent of taste, namely delicacy of perception, in real critics whose judgments can be canonical or guiding for the rest of us, but that delicacy of perception needs to be supplemented by what she calls (...) imaginative fluency and emotional responsiveness to provide a fuller conception of the basic constituents of taste. I support Ross's approach by showing that Hume's immediate successors in Scottish aesthetics Alexander Gerard and James Beattie understood his conception of the qualifications of good critics and supplemented his conception of the basic constituents of taste in precisely the same way that Ross does. (shrink)

Dans Upheavals of Thought, Martha Nussbaum considère « notre manière concrète d’imaginer » l’objet d’une émotion, par exemple la personne que je chéris, ou pour laquelle j’éprouve de la compassion, comme un élément « cognitif » additionnel au sein des émotions, elles-mêmes définies en termes de jugements. Dans Love’s Knowledge, elle montre que l’imagination, qu’elle réfère à la phantasia aristotélicienne, et les émotions, sont essentielles au jugement pratique et à la délibération morale. Tout en présentant la manière dont elle articule (...) ainsi imagination, jugements et émotions, je défends l’idée qu’une autre prise en compte du rôle de l’imagination en lien avec les émotions peut permettre d’étayer une conception « non cognitive » des émotions, que l’on peut rapporter à Hume. (shrink)

SummaryWe need to classify emotions as objectual and non‐objectual. Some of the objectual emotions are dependent on the characterizations of their objects. So in these cases reason guides the emotions. But there are also other cases in which the conceptual dependency goes the other way. in the case of aesthetic judgments and certain types of judgments involving purpose, or compassion, the ability to make these judgments is dependent on being in certain emotional states. Thus in some cases emotions aid and (...) supplement reason.RésuméNous devons classer les émotions comme objectuelles et non objectuelles. Quelques‐unes des émotions objectuelles sont dépendantes des caractéristiques de leurs objets. La raison guide alors les émotions. Mais il y a aussi des cas ou la dépendance conceptuelle suit ?on;autres voies. Dans le cas de jugements esthétiques et de jugements comportant des buts, ou de la compassion, la capacityé de porter ces jugements est dépendante de certains états émotionnels dans lesquels se trouve le sujet. Ainsi, dans certains cas, les émotions aident et completent la raison.ZusammenfassungWir müssen die Gefühle in objektuelle und nicht‐objektuelle einteilen. Einige der objektuellen Gefühle sind von der Charakterisierung ihrer Objekte abhängig. In diesen Fällen lenkt die Vernunft die Gefühle. Es gibt aber auch Fälle, in welchen die begriffliche Abhängigkeit umgekehrt verläuft. Im Falle von ästhetischen Urteilen und von gewissen Urteilen, die Zwecke oder Mitgefühle betreffen, hängt die Fähigkeit, solche Urteile zu fällen, davon ab, dass man sich in bestimmten Gemütszuständen befindet. So kommt es, dass in einigen Fällen Gefühle die Vernunft unterstützen und ergänzen. (shrink)

La notion d'espace sonore est devenue de plus en plus prégnante dans le domaine musical, plus particulièrement dans la musique électroacoustique. Mais comment la définir? Cette simple interrogation, dont la réponse semble évidente soulève cependant, lorsqu'elle est approfondie, une multitude d'ambiguïtés, sources de nouvelles réflexions. Comment l'écoute appréhende-t-elle l'espace? Comment s'immerge-t- elle en lui? Qu'appréhende-t-on lorsqu'on écoute? Et finalement, qu'est-ce qu'un son? Quelles en sont les limites spatiales et temporelles? Lorsque l'écoute se confronte à l'espace sonore, où se situe la (...) frontière entre perception et imagination? Tout au long du présent ouvrage, l'auteur essaie de mettre en évidence l'empreinte effective de l'écoute dans la structuration de l'espace. Il tente de montrer, en s'appuyant sur les théories esthétiques, pourquoi l'espace n'est pas pris en compte par les pensées sur la musique avant le XXe siècle. A partir de cette observation et des dernières recherches phénoménologiques de Maurice Merleau-Ponty, il met en lumière le rôle essentiel du corps de l'auditeur dans notre perception de l'espace. Ensuite, il témoigne de la façon dont les compositeurs, à partir de la seconde moitié du XXe siècle et jusqu'à aujourd'hui, n'ont cessé de développer une implication active de l'écoute, ce qui a progressivement favorisé l'émergence d'un espace musical dynamique et mouvant. Puis, au terme de sa réflexion, à l'aide des travaux sur l'énaction du neurobiologiste Francisco J. Varela, Renaud Meric s'emploie à reconstruire le lien esthétique étroit entre l'espace, l'écoute et l'imagination, lien encore peu examiné, pourtant fondamental pour comprendre notre relation complexe à la musique. (shrink)

The paper elaborates the theory of imagination in Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and Critique of Judgment. From the first Critique to the third Critique, the imagination emerges under different titles such as reproductive, productive or transcendental imagination. The paper shall try to decide whether its functions suggested in the first Critique and its performance in the third Critique are contradictory or developmental with respect to Kant's critical philosophy. Thus, it will examine of the power and the scope of (...) the imagination in the first Critique and of its status and performance in the third Critique. El artículo discute la teoría de la imaginación en la Crítica de la razón pura y la Crítica del juicio de Immanuel Kant. Desde la primera Crítica y hasta la tercera, la imaginación recibe diferentes calificativos, tales como imaginación reproductiva, productiva o trascendental. El trabajo intenta determinar si las funciones de la imaginación sugeridas en la primera Crítica y su papel en la tercera Crítica son contradictorias o si implican más bien un desarrollo respecto de la filosofía crítica de Kant. Para ello, se examina el poder y el alcance de la imaginación en la primera Crítica y su estatus y papel en la tercera. (shrink)

The Creativity in Health and Care Workshops programme was a series of investigative workshops aimed at interrogating the subject of creativity with an over-arching objective of extending the understanding of the problems and possibilities of applying creativity within the health and care sector workforce. Included in the workshops was a concept analysis, which attempted to gain clearer understanding of creativity and innovation within this context. The analysis led to emergent theory regarding the central importance of aesthetics, emotion and empathetic imagination (...) to the generation of creative and innovative outcomes that have the capacity to promote wellbeing in the health and social care workforce. Drawing on expertise in the field, this paper outlines the concept analysis and subsequent reflection. (shrink)

We explore some aspects of the elusive idea of a "teachable moment" with a special emphasis on the role of emotion, intuition, and imagination as well as intuition, paradox and possibility. The teachable moment occurs when students and teachers genuinely share an interest in better understanding something, some situation, or, in the case discussed, some text, and wish to inquire into the object of mutual concern together. Some of the aesthetic elements of John Dewey's theory of inquiry serve as a (...) way to gain insight into the "logic" of creating and sustaining teachable moments. (shrink)

This guide accompanies the following article: Matthew Kieran, ‘Art, Morality and Ethics: On the (Im)moral Character of Art Works and Inter‐Relations to Artistic Value’. Philosophy Compass 1/2 (2006): pp. 129–143, doi: 10.1111/j.1747‐9991.2006.00019.x Author’s Introduction Up until fairly recently it was philosophical orthodoxy – at least within analytic aesthetics broadly construed – to hold that the appreciation and evaluation of works as art and moral considerations pertaining to them are conceptually distinct. However, following on from the idea that artistic value is (...) broader than aesthetic value, the last 15 years has seen an explosion of interest in exploring possible inter‐relations between the appreciative and ethical character of works as art. Consideration of these issues has a distinguished philosophical history but as the Compass survey article suggests (‘Art, Morality and Ethics: On the (Im)Moral Character of Art Works and Inter‐Relations to Artistic Value.’Philosophy Compass 1.2 (2006): 129–43), it is only very recently that figures in the field have returned to it to develop more precisely what they take the relationships to be and why. Consensus is, unsurprisingly, lacking. The reinvigoration of the issues has led sophisticated formalists or autonomists to mount a more considered defence of the idea that aesthetic and literary values are indeed conceptually distinct from the justification or otherwise of the moral perspective or views endorsed in a work (Topic I). The challenges presented by such a defence are many but amongst them are appeals to critical practice (Lamarque and Olsen), scepticism about whether or not art really can give us bona fide knowledge (Stolnitz) and the recognition that truth often seems to be far removed from what it is we value in our appreciation of works (Lamarque). One way to motivate consideration of the relevance of a work’s moral character to its artistic value concerns the phenomena of imaginative resistance. At least sometimes it would seem that, as Hume originally suggested, we either cannot or will not enter imaginatively into the perspective solicited by a work due to its morally problematic character (Topic II). In some cases, it would seem that as a matter of psychological fact, we cannot do so since it is impossible for us to imagine how it could be that a certain attitude or action is morally permissible or good (Walton). The question then is whether or not this is a function of morality in particular or constraints on imaginative possibility more generally and what else is involved. At other times, the phenomena seem to be driven by a moral reluctance to allow ourselves to enter into the dramatic perspective involved (Moran) or evaluation of the attitude expressed (Stokes). Nonetheless, it is far from obvious that this is so of all the attitudes or responses we judge to be morally problematic. After all, it looks like we can and indeed often do suspend or background particular cognitive and moral commitments in engaging with all sorts of works (Nichols and Weinberg). If the moral character of a work interacts with how we appreciate and evaluate them, then the pressing question is this: is there any systematic account of the relationship available to us? One way is to consider the relationship between our emotional responses to works and their moral character (Topic III). After all, art works often solicit various emotional responses from us to follow the work and make use of moral concepts in so doing (Carroll). Indeed, whether or not a work merits the sought for emotional responses often seems to be internally related to ethical considerations (Gaut). Yet, it is not obvious that we should apply our moral concepts or respond emotionally in our imaginative engagement with works as art as we should in real life (Kieran, Jacobson). A different route is via the thought that art can convey knowledge (Topic IV). There might be particular kinds of moral knowledge art distinctively suited to conveying (Nussbaum) or it may just be that art does so particularly effectively (Carroll, Gaut, Kieran). Either way where this can be tied to the artistic means and appreciation of a work it would seem that to cultivate moral understanding contributes to the value of a work and to betray misunderstanding is a defect. Without denying the relevance of the moral character of a work some authors have wanted to claim that sometimes the immoral aspect of a work can contribute to rather than lessen its artistic value (Topic V). One route is to claim that there is no systematic theoretical account of the relationship available and what the right thing to say is depends on the particular case involved (Jacobson). Another involves the claim that this is so when the defect connects up in an appropriate way to one of the values of art. Thus, it has been claimed, only where a work reveals something which adds to intelligibility, knowledge or understanding in virtue of its morally problematic aspect can this be so (Kieran). The latter position looks like it could in principle be held whilst nonetheless maintaining that the typical or standard relationship is as the moralists would have it. Yet perhaps allowing valence change for such reasons is less a mark of principled explanation and more a function of downright inconsistency or incoherence (Harold). The topics themselves and suggested readings given below follow the structure articulated above as further amplified in the Compass survey article. The design and structure given below can be easily compressed or expanded further. Author Recommends 1 Carroll, Noël. ‘Art, Narrative and Moral Understanding.’Aesthetics and Ethics: Essay at the Intersection. Ed. Jerrold Levinson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998. 126–60. 2 This article develops the idea that engaging with narrative art calls on moral concepts and emotions and can thereby clarify our moral understanding. 2 Carroll, Noël. Beyond Aesthetics: Philosophical Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009. 4 Part IV consists of six distinct essays on questions concerning the inter‐relations between art and morality including the essay cited above and the author’s articulation and defence of moderate moralism. 3 Gaut, Berys. ‘The Ethical Criticism of Art.’Aesthetics and Ethics: Essay at the Intersection. Ed. Jerrold Levinson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998. 182–203. 4 Gaut, Berys. Art, Emotion and Ethics. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007. 7 This monograph provides the most exhaustive treatment of the issues and defends the claim that, where relevant, whenever a work is morally flawed it is of lesser value as art and wherever it is morally virtuous the work’s value as art is enhanced. Chapters 7 and 8 defend concern ethical knowledge and chapter 10 is a development of the article cited above concerning emotional responses. Chapter 3 also gives a useful conceptual map of the issues and options in the debate. 5 Jacobson, Daniel. ‘In Praise of Immoral Art.’Philosophical Topics 25 (1997): 155–99. 9 A wide ranging and extended treatment of relevant issues which objects to generalising moral treatments of our responses to art works and defends the idea that particular works can be better because of rather than despite their moral defects. 6 Kieran, Matthew. ‘Forbidden Knowledge: The Challenge of Cognitive Immoralism.’Art and Morality. Ed. Sebastian Gardner and José Luis Bermúdez. London: Routledge, 2003. 56–73. 11 A general argument for immoralism is elaborated by outlining when, where and why a work’s morally problematic character can contribute to its artistic value for principled reasons (through enhancing moral understanding). 7 Kieran, Matthew. Revealing Art. London: Routledge, 2005. Chapter 4. 13 This chapter argues against both aestheticism and straightforward moralism about art, elaborating a defence of immoralism in relation to visual art whilst ranging over issues from pornographic art to the nature and demands of different genres in art. 8 Lamarque, Peter. ‘Cognitive Values in the Arts: Marking the Boundaries.’ Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Ed. Matthew Kieran. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006, 127–39. 15 This article concisely outlines and defends a sophisticated aestheticism that denies the importance of truth to artistic value. 9 Stolnitz, Jerome. ‘On the Cognitive Triviality of Art.’British Journal of Aesthetics 32.3 (1992): 191–200. 17 This article articulates and defends the claim that no knowledge of any interesting or significant kind can be afforded by works appreciated and evaluated as art. 10 Walton, Kendall. ‘Morals in Fiction and Fictional Morality, I.’Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Suppl. 68 (1994): 27–51. 19 This article builds on some comments from Hume to develop the idea that when engaging with fictions it seems impossible imaginatively to enter into radically deviant moral attitudes. Online Materials ‘Aesthetics and Ethics: The State of the Art.’American Society of Aesthetics online (Jeffrey Dean):. ‘Art, Censorship and Morality’ downloadable podcast of Nigel Warburton interviewing Matthew Kieran at Tate Britain (BBC/ou Open2.net as part of the Ethics Bites series):. ‘Art, Morality and Ethics: On the (Im)Moral Character of Art Works and Inter‐Relations to Artistic Value.’Philosophy Compass 1.2 (2006): 129–43 (Matthew Kieran):. ‘Ethical Criticism of Art.’Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Ella Peek):. ‘Fascinating Fascism.’New York Review of Books Piece Discussing Leni Riefenstahl (Susan Sontag):. ‘The Beheading of St. John the Baptist (1450s), Giovanni de Paolo’ (Tom Lubbock):. Vladimir Nabokov and Lionel Trilling discuss Lolita (CBS):. Sample Syllabus Topic I Autonomism/aestheticism • Anderson, James C. and Jeffrey T. Dean. ‘Moderate Autonomism.’British Journal of Aesthetics 38.2 (1998): 150–66. • Beardsley, Monroe. Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1958. Chapter 12. • Kant, Immanuel. The Critique of Judgement.Trans. James Creed Meredith. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1952 [1790]. • Lamarque, Peter. ‘Cognitive Values in the Arts: Marking the Boundaries.’Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Ed. Matthew Kieran. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006, 127–39. • ——. ‘Tragedy and Moral Value.’Australasian Journal of Philosophy 73.2 (1995): 239–49. • Lamarque, Peter and Stein Olsen. Truth, Fiction and Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. Chapter 10. • Stolnitz, Jerome. ‘On the Cognitive Triviality of Art.’British Journal of Aesthetics 32.3 (1992): 191–200. Topic II Imaginative Capacities, Intelligibility and Resistance • Moran, Richard. ‘The Expression of Feeling in Imagination.’Philosophical Review 103.1 (1994): 75–106. • Nichols, Shaun. ‘Just the Imagination: Why Imagining Doesn’t Behave Like Believing’. Mind & Language 21.4 (2006): 459–74. • Stokes, Dustin. ‘The Evaluative Character of Imaginative Resistance’. British Journal of Aesthetics 46.4 (2006): 387–405. • Tanner, Michael. ‘Morals in Fiction and Fictional Morality, II’. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Suppl. Vol. 68 (1994): 51–66. • Walton, Kendall (1994). ‘Morals in Fiction and Fictional Morality, I’. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Suppl. Vol. 68 (1994): 27–51. • Weinberg, Jonathan. ‘Configuring the Cognitive Imagination.’New Waves in Aesthetics. Eds. K. Stock and K. Thomson‐Jones. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. 203–23. Topic III Moralism and Emotions • Carroll, Noël. ‘Moderate Moralism.’British Journal of Aesthetics 36.3 (1996): 223–37. • Carroll, Noël. ‘Art, Narrative and Moral Understanding.’Aesthetics and Ethics: Essay at the Intersection. Ed. Jerrold Levinson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998.126–60. • Gaut, Berys. Art, Emotion and Ethics. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007. Chapter 10. • ——. ‘The Ethical Criticism of Art.’Aesthetics and Ethics: Essay at the Intersection. Ed. Jerrold Levinson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998. 182–203. • Hume, David. ‘Of the Standard of Taste.’Selected Essays. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993 [1757]. 133–53. • Kieran, Matthew. ‘Emotions, Art and Immorality.’Oxford Handbook to the Philosophy of Emotions. Ed. Peter Goldie. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009. 681–703. • Tolstoy, Leo. What is Art?. London: Penguin, 2004. Chapters 5 and 15. Topic IV Moralism and Knowledge • Aristotle. Poetics. Trans. M. Heath. London: Penguin, 1996 [367–322 BC]. • Carroll, Noël. ‘The Wheel of Virtue: Art, Literature and Moral Knowledge.’Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 60.1 (2002): 3–26. • Gaut, Berys. Art, Emotion and Ethics. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007. Chapters 7 and 8. • Gaut, Berys. ‘Art and Cognition.’Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Ed. Matthew Kieran. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. 115–26. • Kieran, Matthew. ‘Art, Imagination and the Cultivation of Morals.’Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 54.4 (1996): 337–51. • Nussbaum, Martha. ‘Finely Aware and Richly Responsible: Literature and the Moral Imagination.’Love’s Knowledge. New York: Oxford UP, 1990. 148–68. • Plato. The Republic. Trans. D. Lee. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974. Book 10. Topic V Immoralist Contextualism • Harold, James. ‘Immoralism and the Valence Constraint.’British Journal of Aesthetics 48.1 (2008): 45–64. • Jacobson, Daniel. ‘In Praise of Immoral Art.’Philosophical Topics 25 (1997): 155–99. • ——. ‘Ethical Criticism and the Vices of Moderation.’Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Ed. Matthew Kieran. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. 342–55. • John, Eileen. ‘Artistic Value and Moral Opportunism.’Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Ed. Matthew Kieran. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. 331–41. • Kieran, Matthew. ‘Forbidden Knowledge:The Challenge of Cognitive Immoralism.’Art and Morality. Ed. Sebastian Gardner and José Luis Bermúdez. London: Routledge, 2003. 56–73. • Kieran, Matthew. Revealing Art. London: Routledge, 2005. Chapter 4. • Patridge, Stephanie. ‘Moral Vices as Artistic Virtues: Eugene Onegin and Alice.’Philosophia 36.2 (2008): 181–93. Focus Questions 1 What is the strongest argument for the claim that the moral character of a work is not relevant to its artistic value? Does artistic or literary criticism tend to concern itself with the truth or morality of works? If so, in what ways? If not, why do you think this is? 2 What different explanations might there be for difficulty with or resistance to imaginatively entering into attitudes you take to be immoral? How might this relate to the way our imaginings work as contrasted with belief? How might different literary or artistic treatments of the same subject matter make a difference? 3 How do narrative works draw on our moral concepts and responses? Can we suspend our normal moral commitments or application of moral concepts in responding emotionally to art works? Should we respond emotionally to art works as we ought to respond to real world events we witness? Why? Why not? 4 How, if at all, do art works convey moral understanding? How, if at all, is this related to the kinds of moral knowledge art works can teach or reveal to us? When, where and why might this be tied to the artistic value of a work? How can we tell where a work enhances our moral understanding as opposed to misleading or distorting it? 5 What art works do you value overall as art which commend or endorse moral values and attitudes that you do not? Is appreciation of them always marred or lessened by the morally dubious aspect? If not, what explains the differences in evaluation? What, if anything, might you learn by engaging with works which endorse moral attitudes or apply moral concepts different from those you take to be justified? How, if at all, might this connect up with what makes them valuable as art? (shrink)

The aim of this article is to present the disagreement between Moran and Walton on the nature of our affective responses to fiction and to defend a view on the issue which is opposed to Moran’s account and improves on Walton’s. Moran takes imagination-based affective responses to be instances of genuine emotion and treats them as episodes with an emotional attitude towards their contents. I argue against the existence of such attitudes, and that the affective element of such responses should (...) rather be taken to be part of what is imagined. In this respect, I follow Walton; and I also agree with the latter that our affective responses to fiction are, as a consequence, not instances of real emotion. However, this gives rise to the challenge to be more specific about the nature of our responses and explain how they can still involve a phenomenologically salient affective element, given that propositionally imagining that one feels a certain emotion is ruled out because it may be done in a dispassionate way. The answer —already suggested, but not properly spelled out by Walton— is that affectively responding to some fictional element consists in imaginatively re-presenting an experience of emotional feeling towards it. The central thought is that the conscious and imaginative representation of the affective character of an instance of genuine emotion itself involves the respective phenomenologically salient affective element, despite not instantiating it. (shrink)

Articulates an imaginationist solution to the question of how purely instrumental music can be perceived by a listener as having emotional content. Both musicians and laypersons can perceive purely instrumental music without words or an associated story or program as expressing emotions such as happiness and sadness. But how? In this book, Saam Trivedi discusses and critiques the leading philosophical approaches to this question, including formalism, metaphorism, expression theories, arousalism, resemblance theories, and persona theories. Finding these to be inadequate, he (...) advocates an “imaginationist” solution, by which absolute music is not really or literally sad but is only imagined to be so in a variety of ways. In particular, he argues that we as listeners animate the music ourselves, imaginatively projecting life and mental states onto it. Bolstering his argument with empirical data from studies in neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive science, Trivedi also addresses and explores larger philosophical questions such as the nature of emotions, metaphors, and imagination. Saam Trivedi is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Brooklyn College, City University of New York. (shrink)

To commemorate Professor Yip Lai drunk, this article analyzes the social construction of beauty in the role. Focus on the imagination in Kant's "first critique" and "third critical" role into the comparison. In the "first critique", the imaginative scope of row rank succumb to emotional information under the force measured. In the "third critique" in the free world and the physical manifestation of the social world, you need to play an active imagination and rich creative role. Lai drunk leaf through (...) the philosophy of science and metaphysics, more step forward, from the mathematical and theoretical physics has been traced back to the aesthetics of the sublime original management of the environment. In this way, Lai In order to disclose the beauty of drunk leaves the constructive role of liaison to the beauty of creation, the beginning and end of performances In order to source of the purpose. In honor of the late Professor Jean Ladrière, this study nalyzes the role of the aesthetic in social construction. It focuses upon the contrasting role of the imagination in Kant's first and third Critiques. In the first Critique the imagination is subservient to the categories in its ordering of the sense data. In the third Critique the realization of freedom in the physical and social world requires that the imagination play an active, indeed creative role. Jean Ladrière reaches further still through the philosophy of science and metaphysics to trace the principles of the aesthetic order from mathematics and speculative physics to the role of the sublime. He thereby uncovers a constructive role for the aesthetic which joins all of creation in a celebration of its Source and End. (shrink)

The paper begins with an overview of various well-known accounts of the musical expression of emotion that have been proposed in recent years. But rather than proceeding to assess the merits and faults of these accounts the paper examines whether a radically new theory by Christopher Peacocke is superior to all of them. The theory, which certainly has a number of attractive features, is based on the idea of metaphorical-as perception. The notion of metaphorical-as perception needs to be elucidated and (...) the examination of Peacocke’s theory takes place by playing it off against a rival theory that is based on a different kind of perception, imaginative-as perception. The paper argues that, as the basis of an account of the musical expression of emotion, imaginative-as perception has all the advantages and none of the apparent defects of metaphorical-as perception. (shrink)

Shows the relevance of Schiller’s thought for contemporary philosophy, particularly aesthetics, ethics, and politics. This book seeks to draw attention to Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) as a philosophical thinker in his own right. For too long, his philosophical contribution has been neglected in favor of his much-deserved reputation as a political playwright. The essays in this collection make two arguments. First, Schiller presents a robust philosophical program that can be favorably compared to those of his age, including Rousseau, Kant, Schelling, and (...) Hegel, and he proves to be their equal in his thinking on morality, aesthetics, and politics. Second, Schiller can also guide us in our more contemporary philosophical concerns and approaches, such as phenomenology, hermeneutics, aesthetics, and politics. Here, Schiller instructs us in our engagement with figures such as Walter Benjamin, Michel Foucault, Jacques Rancière, Roberto Esposito, and others. María del Rosario Acosta López is Associate Professor of Philosophy at DePaul University. She has published several books, including La tragedia como conjuro: el problema de lo sublime en Friedrich Schiller. Jeffrey L. Powell is Professor of Philosophy at Marshall University and the editor of Heidegger and Language. (shrink)

How do we perdure when we and everything around us are caught up in incessant change? But the course of this change does not seem to be haphazard and we may seek the modalities of its Logos in the transformations in which it occurs. The classic term "Metamorphosis" focuses upon the proportions between the transformed and the retained, the principles of sameness and otherness. Applied to life and its becoming, metamorphosis pinpoints the proportions between the vital and the aesthetic significance (...) of life. Where could this metaphysical in-between territory come better to light than in the Fine Arts? In this collection are investigated the various proportions between the vital significance of the constructivism of life and a specifically human contribution made by the creative imagination to the transformatory search for beauty and aesthetic values. Papers by: Lawrence Kimmel, Mark L. Brack, Sheryl Tucker de Vazquez, William Roberts, Jadwiga Smith, Victor Gerald Rivas, Max Statkiewicz, Matti Itkonen, George R. Tibbetts, Linda Stratford, Jorella Andrews, Ingeborg M. Rocker, Stephen J. Goldberg, Leah Durner, Donnalee Dox, Catherine Schear, Samantha Henriette Krukowski, Gary Maciag, Kelly Dennis, Wanda Strukus, Magda Romanska, Patricia Trutty-Coohill, Ellen Burns, Tessa Morrison, Sabine Coelsch-Foisner, Gary Backhaus, Daniel M. Unger, Howard Pearce. (shrink)

The monograph is focused on the subjectivity of aesthetic experience and the problem of rational interpretation of emotionality. The text studies why does an aesthetic experience exist, what is its content and what is its informational role and structure? Has beauty any cognitive value? Can we analyse beauty? In what sense we can think about the information content of aesthetic experience? The second topic of the book is a cognitive role of emotionality and its research. Why we have emotions? What (...) can they tell us about yourself and about the world? The methodology of the study is designed as a phenomenological research of subjective experience that is combined with the newest results in Cognitive science research. --Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

This paper explores the significance of Adam Smith's ideas for defending non-cognitivist theories of aesthetic appreciation of nature. Objections to non-cognitivism argue that the exercise of emotion and imagination in aesthetic judgement potentially sentimentalizes and trivializes nature. I argue that although directed at moral judgement, Smith's views also find a place in addressing this problem. First, sympathetic imagination may afford a deeper and more sensitive type of aesthetic engagement. Second, in taking up the position of the impartial spectator, aesthetic judgements (...) may originate in a type of self-regulated response where we stand outside ourselves to check those overly humanizing tendencies which might lead to a failure in appreciating nature as nature. (shrink)

Ovaj rad bavi se presjekom umjetnosti, imaginacije, emocija i etičkog obrazovanja iz perspektive inovativne sinteze kognitivne teorije emocija i Gestalt pedagogije. Jedan od elemenata ove sinteze kognitivna je teorija emocija kakvu podržava Martha Nussbaum. Emocije se shvaćaju kao procjene koje se odnose na percepciju svijeta oko nas. Emocije su naši stavovi, razumijevanja i evaluacije svijeta iz perspektive naših ciljeva i projekata. To se pokazalo kao odlična polazišna točka za proučavanje emocija i drugih domena unutar etike obrazovanja. U ovom radu uvodim (...) pojam ‘iskustvene imaginacije’ i ukazujem na njezine metodologije koje smo razvili kao dio istraživanja preklapanja Gestalt pedagogije, kognitivne teorije emocija i pristupa etici iz perspektive umijeća življenja. Potom predstavljam sintezu kognitivne teorije emocija i Gestalt pedagogije, nakon čega razjašnjavam koncept iskustvene imaginacije, naglašavam njezinu ulogu u etičkom obrazovanju te zaključujem s nekolicinom osvrta na pristup umijeća življenja etici i etičkom obrazovanju. The paper discusses the intersection between art, imagination, emotions, and ethical education from the perspective of an innovative synthesis of cognitive theory of emotion and Gestalt pedagogy. One of the elements of this synthesis is the cognitive theory of emotion as endorsed by Martha Nussbaum. Emotions are understood as evaluative judgments that are related to our perception of the world around us. Emotions are our attitudes, understandings, and assessments of the world from the perspective of our goals and projects. This proves an excellent starting point from which to address them as an essential part of ethics education. Next, art and imagination are considered as a vehicle by which to address emotions and other domains within ethics education. Here, I introduce the concept of “experiential imagining” and point to the methodologies that sustain it. I have developed this concept as part of my research on the overlap between Gestalt pedagogy, cognitive theory of emotion, and the art of life approaches to ethics. Next, I present the synthesis between cognitive theory of emotion and Gestalt pedagogy. I then illuminate the concept of experiential imagination, emphasise its role in ethics education, and conclude with some reflections on the art of life approach to ethics and ethics education. (shrink)

Table des matières 1. Émotion et situation 2. La performativité de l?émotion 3. Émotion et action 4. L?imaginaire et la facticité du réel 5. La théâtralité originaire de l?agir 6. Jeu et incarnation 7. Croyance, sens, imaginaire 8. La performativité de l?image 9. Le corps de l?image, l?image du corps 10. L?imaginaire et l?épaisseur de la vie 11. La théâtralisation de l?émotion 12. Émotion et influence sociale 13. Conclusion.

Language and imagination play a prominent role in Merleau-Ponty’s early reflections on literature. The “literary use of language” is opposed to usual or ordinary language, and it is also assigned the task of rejuvenating the latter. Merleau-Ponty is here openly inspired by Saussure and more secretly by Bergson. Poetic language is said to effect a coherent deformation of a linguistic code and to liberate signifiers from their subordination under a subjective meaning that directly refers to external objects. Literature also illustrates, (...) in exemplary fashion, the creative power of imagination and the effective force of fictions. This is where the discussion with Sartre comes into the picture. The article explores, in particular, what personal identity and the meaning of real facts owe not only to language but also to the imagination of possibilities. It further investigates the different notions of truth that apply to literary works of art. Literature is also shown to undermine the conception of the relation between fact and meaning, actuality and possibility, reality and fiction, truth and semblance in terms of dual oppositions. Most importantly, literary fictions and narratives can make a real change in the life of writers and readers by unfolding their unrealized personal potentialities, by refining their emotional sensibility, and by distancing them from themselves. In all this, an imaginative mode of ‘projection’ plays a central role. Le langage et l’imagination jouent un rôle de premier plan dans les réflexions de Merleau-Ponty sur la littérature. « L’usage littéraire du langage » est opposé au langage usuel ou ordinaire, et la tâche lui est également dévolue de rajeunir ce dernier. Merleau-Ponty s’inspire ouvertement de Saussure et plus secrètement de Bergson. Le langage poétique est dit effectuer une déformation cohérente du code linguistique et libérer les signifiants de leur subordination à une signification subjective qui réfère directement aux objets externes. La littérature illustre également, de manière exemplaire, la puissance créatrice de l’imagination et la force effective de la fiction. Ici la discussion avec Sartre entre en jeu. Mon article explore en particulier ce que l’identité personnelle et la signification des faits réels doit non seulement au langage, mais également à l’imagination des possibilités. Il discute également les différentes notions de vérité qui s’appliquent aux oeuvres d’art littéraires. Je montre aussi que la littérature empêche de concevoir comme des oppositions duelles les relations entre fait et signification, actualité et possibilité, réalité et fiction, vérité et vraisemblance. Par dessus tout, les fictions et narrations littéraires peuvent provoquer de réels changements dans la vie des écrivains et des lecteurs en déployant leurs potentialités personnelles non réalisées, en affinant leur sensibilité émotionnelle et en se distanciant d’eux-mêmes. Dans tout cela, le mode imaginatif de la projection joue un rôle central.Linguaggio e immaginazione rivestono un ruolo centrale nelle prime riflessioni di Merleau-Ponty sulla letteratura. L’“uso letterario del linguaggio” viene opposto al linguaggio ordinario o quotidiano e al primo viene inoltre assegnato l’incarico di rinnovare il secondo; in questo, Merleau-Ponty si ispira apertamente a Saussure e, in modo meno manifesto, a Bergson. Il linguaggio poetico è ritenuto in grado di imprimere una deformazione coerente a un determinato codice linguistico e di liberare i significanti dalla loro subordinazione a un significato soggettivo che si riferisce direttamente a oggetti esterni. La letteratura, inoltre, illustra in modo esemplare il potere creativo dell’immaginazione e la forza effettiva della finzione letteraria. È qui che entra in gioco la discussione con Sartre. Questo articolo esplora, in particolare, ciò che l’identità personale e il significato dei fatti reali debba non solamente al linguaggio, ma anche all’immaginazione delle possibilità; indaga inoltre le diverse nozioni di verità che possono essere applicate all’opera d’arte letteraria. L’articolo mostra poi come la letteratura possa mettere in discussione il carattere di opposizione binaria della relazione tra fatto e significato, attualità e possibilità, realtà e finzione, verità e verisimiglianza. In maniera significativa, le finzioni e le narrazioni letterarie possono cambiare la vita di scrittori e lettori svelando le loro potenzialità personali irrealizzate, raffinando la loro sensibilità emotiva e ponendoli a distanza da se stessi. In tutto questo, una modalità immaginativa di “proiezione” svolge un ruolo di primaria importanza. (shrink)

Resumo Neste artigo, defender-se-á uma interpretação do filme A Time to Kill, como sendo uma narrativa cinematográfica falível, mesmo sem a presença de um narrador. Neste texto, assume-se, que uma narrativa falível resulta de um defeito estético e ético do filme. Deste modo, a estrutura estética do filme representa a intenção do realizador em contar a sua versão da história, influenciando assim o seu significado e efeito empático. Com o evoluir da narrativa cinematográfica, as regras de inferência tornam-se cada vez (...) mais complexas. Ainda assim, a convenção cinematográfica estabelece um contexto e define limites identificadores para a sua interpretação. Uma história mal contada inibe a reconstrução imaginativa do espectador, no que diz respeito às motivações das personagens e da causalidade narrativa. Portanto, a qualidade narrativa é essencial para o raciocínio narrativo e empatia estética. Se a narrativa oferece uma compreensão do mundo e de outras pessoas, que de outra forma seriam inacessíveis, e se a forma ou o estilo da narrativa determinam a sua eficácia, então, as formas assumidas pelas nossas histórias têm consequências epistemológicas. Palavras-chave : estética, ética, identificação, narrativa falível, narrativa, raçaIn this paper, I argue for an interpretation of A Time to Kill as an unreliable, yet narrator-less, cinematic narrative. In my view, unreliable narration is an aesthetic and ethical flaw of the film rather than of the narrator. Thus, the film’s aesthetic structure represents the director’s storytelling intentions, and influences its meaning and empathic affect. As cinematic narrative evolves, rules of inference become increasingly complex. Still, filmic convention establishes a context and sets identifiable boundaries for interpretation. A poorly told story inhibits the viewer’s imaginative reconstruction of narrative causation and characters’ motives. Thus, narrative quality is essential to narrative reasoning and aesthetic empathy. If narrative provides an understanding of the world and other people that is otherwise inaccessible, and if the form or style of narrative determines its effectiveness, then the forms our stories take have epistemological consequences. Keywords : aesthetics, ethics, identification, narrative, race, unreliable narrative. (shrink)

Abstract:Although many actors report experiencing genuine emotions befitting a specific character’s circumstances, the actors themselves are neither their characters nor in their characters’ circumstances. Moreover, it seems that if our circumstances do not afford certain emotions, we will not experience these emotions. Thus, actors experience “a paradox of onstage emotion.” This article aims to provide a solution to this paradox. I argue that actors’ onstage emotions are repeatable, controllable, scripted, and impersonal; however, everyday genuine emotions are neither repeatable nor controllable (...) nor scripted and are always personal. Therefore, onstage emotions are not genuine emotions. I then argue that imagination is a repeatable and controllable mental state and that it can be scripted and impersonal. Finally, given that imagination is seen as a re-creation of occurrent experiences, I conclude that onstage emotions are not genuine emotions but rather are imaginative emotions—a re-creation of genuine emotions, and the solution of imaginative emotions better accounts for actors’ onstage performance. (shrink)

Marjolaine Deschênes | : C’est surtout de Joan C. Tronto que les ambassadrices du care se réclament en France, davantage que de Carol Gilligan. Je montre ici qu’une certaine tendance du discours français sur le care peut être diagnostiquée comme le symptôme d’une culture désenchantée, dépouillant le monde non de ses dieux, mais de ses dimensions esthétique, artistique et imaginative. Le renversement que ce discours tend à opérer, de la figure morale de l’autonomie à celle de la vulnérabilité, illustrerait ce (...) « symptôme ». C’est plus précisément l’idée du care comme « maintien du monde » chez Tronto que je critique, puisque l’auteure exclut de ces activités les domaines esthétique, artistique et intellectuel. Je discute trois auteures ayant déjà critiqué cette notion de care, qui chacune font progresser mon propos vers ce que je considère être un oubli du monde « existentiellement » habitable chez la philosophe. Enfin je contribue à combler ce qui manque dans la théorie de Tronto, soit un horizon esthétique et une réflexion sur le langage qui s’encastre dans une herméneutique du soi. Je me penche alors sur un care qui consiste à veiller sur la « fragilité du langage politique » chez Paul Ricoeur. Je conclus que s’agissant de faire du care une valeur publique à la fois féministe et soucieuse non seulement de la vie, mais aussi du monde, les activités artistiques, intellectuelles et éducationnelles sont de loin les plus efficaces, contrairement à ce que Tronto semble penser. | : In France, the ambassadresses of care ethics mainly align themselves with Joan C. Tronto’s theory—rather more than with Carol Gilligan’s. Here I want to state that a certain tendency of French discourse of “care” might be diagnosed as a symptom of a disenchanted culture, since it strips the world of its aesthetic, artistic, and imaginative dimensions. I contend that we can find the best illustration of this symptom when that discourse tends to shift from the moral figure of autonomy to the moral figure of vulnerability. More precisely, I aim to challenge Tronto’s idea of “care” as a “maintaining of the world”, since she excludes from it the areas of aesthetics, the arts, and intellectual activities. I shall discuss three authors who have already criticized Tronto’s notion of “care”. Each of them presents an opportunity for me to refine my reflection on what I consider to be Tronto’s disregard for an existentially liveable world. Finally, I help to fill in what is lacking from Tronto’s theory —that is to say, an aesthetic horizon and a real reflection on language, a reflection framed by a hermeneutics of the self. To this end, I focus on a “care” consisting in keeping watch over the “political language’s fragility” in Paul Ricoeur. I conclude by stating that if we really want to make “care” a public value, this feminist value should be concerned not only with life, but also with world. Artistic, intellectual, and educational activities are by far the most efficient at making such a value public. (shrink)

In the Critique of the Power of Judgement, Kant claims that ‘the English taste in gardens or the baroque taste in furniture pushes the freedom of the imagination almost to the point of the grotesque’ (KU 5:242). This paper attempts to reconstruct Kant’s views on the grotesque as a theoretical foundation for the modern conception of the grotesque as a negative aesthetic category. The first section of the paper considers and ultimately rejects the interpretation of the grotesque as a difficult (...) kind of beauty. The second section contrasts the experience of the grotesque with similar experiences of sublimity and dreams. The third section examines the discord between faculties underlying the experience of the grotesque, defining the grotesque as a subclass of ugliness and addressing potential objections to its inclusion in Kant’s aesthetics. The fourth and final section briefly discusses the specificity of the grotesque as a subclass of ugliness. (shrink)

Philosophical accounts of narrative fiction can be loosely divided into two types. Participant accounts argue that some sort of simulation, or 1st person perspective taking plays a critical role in our engagement with narratives. Observer accounts argue to the contrary that we primarily engage narrative fictions from a 3rd person point of view, as either side participants or outside observers. Recent psychological research suggests a means to evaluate this debate. The perception of distance and slope is influenced by the energetic (...) (e.g., task difficulty) and emotional (e.g., anxiety) costs of actions. These effects are limited to increases in the costs of actions agents intend to perform themselves, generalize to cases where participants imagine acting, and demonstrate a role for tacit motor simulation in action planning. If participant accounts are sound, one should, therefore, find similar effects across changes in the interpretation of the costs of actions depicted in static images. We asked people to copy the rough spatial layout of two paintings across different interpretations of the costs of the actions they depicted. We predicted that increasing costs would cause participants to draw distances as longer and hills as steeper. Our results confirm this prediction for the energetic, but not the emotional, costs of actions. (shrink)

R. G. Collingwood thought that to express emotion is to come to understand it and that this is something art can enable us to do. The understanding in question is distinct from that offered by emotion concepts. I attempt to defend a broadly similar position by drawing, as Collingwood does, on a broader philosophy of mind. Emotions and other affective states have a profile analogous to the sensory profiles exhibited by the things we perceive. Grasping that one's feeling exhibits such (...) a profile is to understand it. That understanding differs from any involved in conceptualizing the affect in question. And, I argue, engagement with the expressive character of works of art is one way to gain it. (shrink)