Summary: The gender of both artist and sitter needs to be taken into account when considering the history of portraiture. Explores how and why women were often portrayed in certain…
“A Photograph Steals the Soul”: The History of an Idea
Summary: Traces the origins of, and eventually challenges, the idea that many people in non-industrialized countries refused to have their photographic portrait taken due to the belief that it would…
The Moral Dimension of Japanese Aesthetics
Summary: Saito presents the moral dimension of Japanese aesthetics in terms of two design principles: respect for the quintessential, innate characteristics of things and honor and responsiveness to human needs….
Abhinavabhāratī
Summary: Abhinavagupta’s famed commentary on Bharatamuni’s treatise on drama, the Nāṭyaśāstra, in which he details aesthetic expression and experience according to a theory of rasa, or aesthetic relish. Abhinavagupta’s theory…
Introspecting Phenomenal States
Abstract: This paper defends a novel account of how we introspect phenomenal states, the Demonstrative Attention account (DA). First, I present a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for phenomenal…
Imagining and Fiction: Some Issues
Abstract: In this paper, I survey in some depth three issues arising from the connection between imagination and fiction: (i) whether fiction can be defined as such in terms of…
Thought experiments rethought – and reperceived
Abstract: Contemplating imaginary scenarios that evoke certain sorts of quasi?sensory intuitions may bring us to new beliefs about contingent features of the natural world. These beliefs may be produced quasi?observationally;…
A Serious Proposal to the Ladies: Parts I and II
Publisher’s Note: Mary Astell’s A Serious Proposal to the Ladies is one of the most important and neglected works advocating the establishment of women’s academies. Its reception was so controversial that…
Earth’s Epistemic Fruits for Harmony with God: An Islamic Theodicy
…creature’s survival. Among all creatures, human beings are able to have comprehensive knowledge of God and achieve an active harmony with God in all aspects. The earth is a testing…
Faith and Steadfastness in the face of Counter-Evidence
…aspect of faith and why faith is not only rational, but in addition serves an important purpose in human life. Because faith requires maintaining a commitment to act on the…