Course outline 2008

Faculty of Philosophy

Part II Aesthetics: Paper 11

Syllabus Aesthetic experience and the nature of art: understanding, interpretation, and criticism; evaluation and taste; representation; expression; imagination and originality; art and morality. Some central texts in the history of aesthetics. The prescribed texts are: Plato, Ion, Symposium, and Republic (Books II, III, X). Hume, On the Standard of Taste (originally in Hume's Essays, Moral, Political and Literary but now widely available in a variety of forms e.g. reprinted in The Philosophy of Art, ed. Neill & Ridley, McGraw-Hill 1995). Prerequisites None Description The course deals mainly with some of the epistemological and evaluative questions that arise in connection with the study of art and beauty, and also with some associated issues in the philosophy of mind, and, to a lesser extent, the philosophy of language. While there is a component of the paper which is devoted to the study of certain prescribed historical texts, students who read only these texts would be unlikely to be able to do well on the examination. Objectives Students taking this paper will be expected to acquire a familiarity with a) some of the philosophical issues that are raised by the phenomena of beauty and art and b) some of the main positions that have been taken on these issues, and the arguments that have been advanced to support these positions. Ideally they would also be expected to develop some skill in thinking and arguing clearly about these issues and positions. Teaching To be completed by the office once the lecture list has been finalized. Assessment Students can either sit an examination in which they answer three questions out of at least ten set, or submit two essays, each between 3,000 and 4,000 words long. (See Undergraduate Handbook for further information.) Preliminary Reading Gombrich, E. Goodman, N. Kivy, P. Ridley, A. Black, M. Davidson, D. Art and Illusion (Phaidon, 1977) Languages of Art (Oxford University Press, 1969; 2nd edition Hackett, 1976) The Corded Shell (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980) Musical Sympathies: the Experience of Expressive Music in Journal of Aesthetics & Art Criticism (1995) Metaphor in Proceedings of the Aristotelean Society (1954-5); also reprinted in M. Black Models & Metaphors (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 1963) What Metaphors Mean in Critical Inquiry 5 (1978); also reprinted in Davidson Inquiries into Truth & Interpretation (Oxford, 1984)