In this paper, we explore what it means for an object to be eerie. We argue that the Eerie is an index of phenomenology’s limits: it is a complex, contradictory moment in the dialectics of subject/...

In this paper, I consider Mark Sagoff’s well-known discussion of the restoration of Michelangelo’s Pietà. Provocatively, he argues that the Pietà should not have been restored to its undamaged state after it was attacked. I argue that Sagoff is mistaken in this. His analysis of restoration is a result of his working view of the Pietà’s identity. Using a modal analysis of counterfactual damage to the Pietà, I argue that the notion of identity at work in his view is deeply (...) problematic. I provide an alternative analysis of the Pietà: one which supports the restoration project, provides an alternative metaphysical basis for the identity of the work, and which still captures certain aesthetic intuitions which Sagoff has correctly identified. Whilst my metaphysical analysis is proposed just on the basis of the case of the Pietà, the metaphysical and conceptual analysis involved would be helpful in considering issues in the identity of artworks more generally. (shrink)

In this paper, I analyse the phenomenon of eeriness as a kind of strange aesthetic experience. Beginning with Fisher’s insight (The Weird and the Eerie, 2017) that we can distinguish weirdness and eeriness from uncanniness, I offer an original account of eeriness. I argue that eeriness is the appearance of an underdetermination in the spatio-temporal location of objects of experience, relative to experiencing agent; this underdetermination results in a destabilisation of the “horizon of object-ivity” within which we make sense of (...) the objects of appearance. This has the existential consequence of destabilising the subject’s sense of being-in-the world. I ground the analysis in examples from both fictional and non-fictional contexts to indicate the generality of the analysis. (shrink)

Kant argues in the Critique of Judgment (CJ) that there are two distinct modes of the sublime. This essay will concentrate on the mathematical mode. It is helpful to begin an examination of the mathematical sublime by elucidating the difference between logical estimation and aesthetic estimation; it is aesthetic estimation under strain, so Kant argues, that instigates the moment of the sublime. Logical estimation forms the cognitive basis of scientific calculations. He argues that scientific enquiry only requires an understanding of (...) the logical relationship of numbers and so does not require an aesthetic experience of those numbers. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider the import of the metaphysics of statues to the decolonizing statues debate. On the one hand, this may seem an odd starting point: after all, the issues surrounding decolonizing statues are political, moral and, perhaps, aesthetic. I agree; however, presuppositions about the nature of statues may well be shaping the political imaginary about decolonizing statues. Indeed, when expressing political and moral claims such as ‘decolonizing statues erases history’, or that ‘decolonizing statues destroys objects that help (...) us to remember a (bygone) past’, I suggest that, from a metaphysical point of view, this relies on a notion of statues as singular objects. Drawing upon material constitution debates in metaphysics, I suggest that thinking about statues as multiple, co-locating objects, might deepen our theoretical understanding of decolonial activism because it allows us to think about the relationship of statues to history and culture in a much more critical way. As such, my analysis is intended to extend our metaphysical understanding of decolonial activism. Furthermore, it stands as a challenge to anyone who thinks that certain effects to history and culture follow, metaphysically speaking, from decolonial activism. (shrink)

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Ahead of Print. What is cultural ‘appropriation’? What is cultural ‘appreciation’? Whatever the complex answer to this question, cultural appropriation is commonly defined as ‘the taking of something produced by members of one culture by members of another’, whilst appreciation is typically understood as mere ‘exploration’: ‘Appreciation explores whatever is there’. These provisional definitions suggest that there is an in-principle distinction between the two concepts that presupposes the following: what is appreciated is already available; what is (...) appropriated was, prior to its being taken, not already there or available. Moreover, perhaps appreciation, when contrasted to appropriation, is unproblematic precisely due to this basic difference. In this paper, we argue that the exclusive disjunction – appropriation or appreciation – rests on a false distinction between the two. We also show that this distinction presupposes a false normative principle that to the extent that x is appreciation rather than appropriation, then x is not – relevant to this issue – a wrong. Against these presuppositions, we defend the view that appropriation is already built into appreciation. This does not mean that we cannot ask questions of appreciation, but that questions of appreciation do not preclude the problematics of appropriation. (shrink)

Learning about feminism can be a revelation for many students. However, for others, it can be a confounding, troubling experience. These difficulties return as problems for the teacher: how to help...