Diversity Reading List

Publisher's note: This book offers a bold new approach to the philosophy of art. General theories of art don't work: they can't deal with problem cases. Instead of trying to define art, we should accept that a work of art is nothing but a work in one of the arts. Lopes's buck passing theory works well for the avant garde, illuminating its radical provocations.

Abstract: The question "what is art?" is often said to be venerable and vexing. In fact, the following answer to the question should be obvious: (R) item x is a work of art if and only if x is a work in practice P and P is one of the arts. Yet (R) has appeared so far from obvious that nobody has given it a moment's thought. The trouble is not that anyone might seriously deny the truth of (R), but rather that they will find it uninformative. After all, the vexing question is pressed upon us by radical changes in art of the avant-garde, and (R) offers no resources to address these changes. With that in mind, here is the case for (R). The challenges posed by the avant-garde are real enough and they need to be addressed, but the vexing question is the wrong question to ask to address them. It does not follow that the question has no good answer. On the contrary, (R) is all the answer we need, if we do not need an answer that addresses the challenges posed by the avant-garde. Moreover, (R) points to a question that we do need answered. So, not only is it true but, in addition, (R) is as informative as we need.

Publisher's Note: Images have power - for good or ill. They may challenge us to see things anew and, in widening our experience, profoundly change who we are. The change can be ugly, as with propaganda, or enriching, as with many works of art. Sight and Sensibility explores the impact of images on what we know, how we see, and the moral assessments we make. Dominic Lopes shows how these are part of, not separate from, the aesthetic appeal of images. His book will be essential reading for anyone working in aesthetics and art theory, and for all those intrigued by the power of images to affect our lives. '...tightly focused and carefully argued... an exceptionally interesting contribution to the philosophy of art: it contains subtle, concise, and convincing discussions of a number of difficult concepts and contentious doctrines... lucid and meticulous'

Abstract:

For the ancient Mexicas, the composition of the human body was similar to that of the cosmos, with both being composed of dense and light substances. The light substance of the human body was divine in nature and formed the different souls of each human being. Some souls were indispensable for human existence while others were unnecessary and often harmful. The dense part of the human body functioned through its union with the souls. Like the different souls, the dense parts of the human body also had specific functions dedicated to different activities. For example, human thought derived primarily from the heart. Souls could be damaged, which could cause them to malfunction and lead to illness and possibly death in the human being. As the souls were divine, each was a conscious being with its own personality; thus there could be disagreements between them. Disharmony could also lead to illness.

Content: Lorand argues against Kivy and others who claim that philosophising about various forms of art needs no theory of art, and suggests that it's time to resume the inquiry into the nature of art. In fact, any satisfactory theorising about any specific issues (such as characteristics of an art form) must be ‘linked to a higher, more general level that functions as its source for basic suppositions and definitions’ (79, such as a theory of art). Lorand then discusses some reasons why one might renounce the classificatory project, including Weitz’s open concept argument. She introduces a distinction between classificatory definitions and the philosophical question. The former depend on the norms, traditions and beliefs present within a given context, and has been the focus of most theories of art. But it only distracts us from the more worthwhile philosophical question about the (elusive) essence of art. A discussion of the distinction between the classificatory and evaluative uses of ‘art’ follows, with Kant, Mothersill and Dickie at its focus. It leads Lorand to arguing for a ‘Platonic’ approach, one focusing on uncovering art’s essence, without the distraction of classification which can merely uncover ‘current social trends’ (93).

Publisher's Note: Baruch Spinoza was born in Amsterdam during a period of unprecedented scientific, artistic, and intellectual discovery. Upon its release, Spinoza's Ethics was banned; today it is the quintessential example of philosophical method. Although acknowledged as difficult, the book is widely taught in philosophy, literature, history, and politics. This introduction is designed to be read side by side with Spinoza's work. As a guide to the style, vocabulary, and arguments of the Ethics, it offers a range of interpretive possibilities to prepare students to become conversant with Spinoza's philosophical method and his challenge to conventional thinking

Abstract: Now THAT THE NEW essentialism is forcing us to reconsider many issues in diverse areas of philosophy, it is appropriate to examine some of the implications of Saul Kripke's work for aesthetics. I shall be focusing on Kripke's "Naming and Necessity." 1 On Kripke's account, the table in my dining room could not have been made out of any other wood than the wood that was, in fact, actually used to make it. It is not merely that this particular kind of wood must have been used, namely oak, but this very piece, otherwise it would not be this particular table. I intend to show how Kripke's line of argument applies to a work of art and to draw the consequences of it for aesthetics. If we do not want to accept these consequences, then we will be forced into a ra- tional reconstruction of the identity issue. My application of Kripke's position is con- fined to painting and sculpture and turns for its example on Michelangelo's David. (Whether or not or how Kripke's analysis and our conclusions can be extended to the other arts is outside the scope of this paper.) Let me be clear about strategy. Through- out I assume without argument Kripke's position. I also assume and, in fact hold, again without argument, that the David is a physical entity. When the consequences of CATHERINE LORD is professor of philosophy at Syra- cuse University. the Kripkean analysis are explored, I engage in a descriptive metaphysics and assume these to be the facts. There is no waffling on the assumption that the David is a physical object. When the consequences of the Kripkean analysis are applied to that assumption, we may not wish to accept them. At that point I engage in a rational reconstruction. The descriptive metaphysics and the rational reconstruction or revisionary meta- physics must not be confused. Following Kripke's analysis, I shall show how it is that Michelangelo could not have made his David out of a different block of marble than the block which he actually used. Since this is counter-intuitive, we may want to protest as follows. Let us pretend that Michelangelo walks into his studio. There are two blocks of marble before him, block A and block B. As the sculptor de- liberates as to which block he will use, he has the work of art in his mind. In fact he has before his mind a perfect image, complete in every detail, of the statue which will result from his efforts. (Here I am not com- mitted to any particular theory of the imagination - one could be Rylean. On any account I see no logical difficulty in supposing that Michelangelo knew exactly what he wanted to do, that he had a representation vivid in every detail of what he would later execute.) We may say, then, that Michelangelo's intention, and I emphasize the word, intention, was to embody a certain idea in matter perhaps even a certain kind of matter, marble, and even perhaps a certain kind of marble. (Again, in speaking of embodying a certain idea, I should not be taken as prejudicing the case in favor of or against any theory of aesthetics.) After examining block A and block B and finding nothing to choose between them, Michelangelo chose block A. Now as far as Michelangelo's intention was concerned it could have been realized in block B. His intention was to create a definite statue which he envisioned in every detail. Accordingly, we seem bound to say that the David might just as readily have been made out of block B as block A. On a Kripkean analysis that is not the case. Had Michelangelo chosen to embody his idea in block B, an entity different from the David would have resulted. It would have looked exactly as the David does in fact look. It might, indeed, have weighed the same amount, etc., but it would not have been identical to the entity to which the David is identical. It would certainly have been a David. ". . . is a David" is a general term which is true of many statues; "the David," as I am using the expression, is a singular term referring to only one. Al- though there is a possible world in which Michelangelo embodies his idea in block B and in which the resulting sculpture comes to be put in the Academia in Florence and even to be enjoyed in precisely the same way as we do in fact enjoy the David, the object of our attention in that possible world is not to be identified with the entity in the Academia, i.e., with the David we ac- tually do enjoy. To grasp Kripke's central contention, let us consider it in its most dramatic formula- tion where he argues that Socrates could not possibly have come from different parents. More precisely, Kripke is willing to allow that the sperm and egg from which Socrates came might possibly have been transplanted from the bodies of his mother and father to the bodies of a different man and woman. Had such a transplantation taken place, Socrates might well have come from differ- ent parents, as the term is ordinarily under- stood. The key issue can be brought out as follows. Suppose that Socrates' parents had died in an earthquake in their early youth at a time before they first met. There is such a possible world. Now suppose that some other Athenian couple gave birth to a son on the precise date on which Socrates, our Socrates, was born. Suppose that this son was snub-nosed like Socrates, indeed looked exactly like him at every stage of his life. We may even suppose that his per- sonality, his genetic make-up, etc. was the same as our Socrates. We can imagine his living a life from birth to death just like the life Socrates lived, even becoming the teacher of Plato and being given the hem- lock. Would that person have been our Socrates? The answer for Kripke is No. Somewhere in outer space there may now, in fact, be a double of Gerald Ford. He may live on a planet qualitatively indistin- guishable in every respect down to the last detail from the planet Earth. He may even be president of a country exactly like ours, etc., but he would not be Gerald Ford even though his name may be "Gerald Ford." Qualitative similarity cannot suffice to es- tablish identity. To return to the table in my dining room, in traditional Aristotelian terms, Kripke in- sists that essential to the table is both its form and its matter, its being a table, on the one hand, and its being made of the very wood it is indeed made of, on the other. Supposing Michelangelo had chosen block B instead of block A for embodying his idea. Suppose also that Leonardo da Vinci had stepped into his studio and absconded with block A.2 Suppose that by some extraordi- nary coincidence Michelangelo and Leo- nardo, working separately, each produced a statue qualitatively indistinguishable from the David which is in the Academia. Which of the two works, that of Michelangelo or that of Leonardo would be the David, Michelangelo's made out of block B or Leo- nardo's made out of block A? Take a simpler case. Suppose that Michelangelo had worked on both blocks of marble and produced two qualitatively indistinguish- able statues. Let the one made from block A find its way to the Uffizi or the Louvre and the one made from block B find its way to the Academia (perhaps in the manner of Kripkean Approach To Identity of Art Work those statues of Daedelus). There is no logical reason why our David should have found its way to the Academia. There is, however, a necessity - an onto- logical necessity - that the David should have been made out of block A, though the truth of the sentence, "The David was made out of block A," cannot be established on the basis of a purely a priori reflection. We have here, then, a necessary a posteriori proposition. And it is the a posteriori char- acter of the proposition that encourages one to suppose that we could have discovered that the David was made out of granite. If we discover that the David is made out of granite, not marble, then we have dis- covered that the David is necessarily made out of granite. This is merely an epistemic possibility. We could even now, in a scepti- cal frame of mind, say that as far as we know David might in fact have been made out of granite. But since, in fact, the David is made out of marble and made from block A, in all possible worlds it is made of marble and from block A. There is no ontologically possible world in which we discover it to be made of granite or out of block B.

Abstract: FEW hold "A poem should not mean, but be" as dogma any longer, but most aestheticians agree that a work of art cannot be exhaustively paraphrased. Few dispute that the aesthetic ex- perience is, in some sense, disinterested, but the terms of that disinterestedness are still debated. I suggest that the work of art and the aesthetic experience are congruent and that an analysis of this congruence reveals both the nature of the import of art and the character of the aesthetic experience. I found my analysis on a faculty framework because I am convinced that neither the aesthetic experience nor the import of art can be illuminated without a fairly rigorous epistemology in which the roles of the imagination and the understanding are clearly defined. My framework is avowedly Kantian, for I think that the very incommensurability of the imagination and the un- derstanding, as emphasized by Kant, does more justice to the phenomenology of the aesthetic experience than an analysis of the cognitive faculties that stresses a difference in degree rather than kind.

Abstract: Advances in reproductive technologies – in particular in genetic screening and selection – have occasioned renewed interest in the moral justifiability of the reasons that motivate the decision to have a child. The capacity to select for desired blood and tissue compatibilities has led to the much discussed 'saviour sibling' cases in which parents seek to 'have one child to save another'. Heightened interest in procreative reasons is to be welcomed, since it prompts a more general philosophical interrogation of the grounds for moral appraisal of reasons-to-parent, and of the extent to which such reasons are relevant to the moral assessment of procreation itself. I start by rejecting the idea that we can use a distinction between 'other-regarding' and 'future-child-regarding' reasons as a basis on which to distinguish good from bad procreative reasons. I then offer and evaluate three potential grounds for elucidating and establishing a relationship between procreative motivation and the rightness/wrongness of procreative conduct: the predictiveness, the verdictiveness, and the expressiveness of procreative reasons.

Abstract: This essay responds to a (1991) Tanner Lecture by Rorty in which he criticizes 'universalist-realist' views in ethics, as exemplified by the work of Lovibond up to 'Feminism and Postmodernism' (where he is discussed, along with Alasdair MacIntyre and Jean-Francois Lyotard, as a specimen postmodern thinker), and promotes his pragmatist philosophy as a congenial intellectual basis for feminism. The essay questions the claims of pragmatism in this respect, and reflects more generally on issues of realism, essentialism, conceptual innovation, and legitimation. It argues that to acknowledge the historically situated character of human existence is not to give up on the idea of an ethically orientated politics. Likewise, it suggests that the risk of flawed or irresponsible generality in political discourse is not all located on the side of realism. Finally, some consideration is given to the notion of gendered identity as a basis for feminist consciousness.