ABSTRACT

Aesthetics: 50 Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Thought Experiments is a teaching-focused resource, which highlights the contributions that imaginative scenarios—paradoxes, puzzles, and thought experiments alike—have made to the development of contemporary analytic aesthetics. The book is divided into sections pertaining to art-making, ontology, aesthetic judgements, appreciation and interpretation, and ethics and value, and offers an accessible summary of ten debates falling under each section.

Each entry also features a detailed annotated bibliography, making it an ideal companion for courses surveying a broad collection of topics and readings in aesthetics.

  

Key Features:

  • Uses a problem-centered approach to aesthetics (rather than author- or theory-centered) making the text more inviting to first-time students of the subject
  • Offers stand-alone chapters, allowing students to quickly understand an issue and giving instructors flexibility in assigning readings to match the themes of the course
  • Provides up-to-date, annotated bibliographies at the end of each entry, amounting to an extensive review of the literature on contemporary analytic aesthetics

part I|71 pages

Art-Making

chapter 1|6 pages

Apelles's Horses (Intentionality)

chapter 3|7 pages

The Paradox of Authenticity

chapter 4|7 pages

The Paradox of Creativity

chapter 5|6 pages

The Problem of Genius

chapter 6|7 pages

The Puzzle of Multiple Authorship

chapter 7|7 pages

The Puzzle of Multiple Endings

chapter 8|7 pages

The Revision Puzzle

chapter 9|7 pages

The Time Machine (Design)

part II|71 pages

Ontology

chapter 12|7 pages

Faking Nature (Authenticity)

chapter 13|8 pages

Guernicas (Contextualism)

chapter 14|8 pages

Pot People, Basket Folk (Contextualism)

chapter 15|7 pages

Psychedelic Sounds (Definition of Music)

chapter 16|6 pages

Retitling Art (Titles)

chapter 17|7 pages

The Gallery of Red Squares (Defining Art)

chapter 18|6 pages

The Supercopier (Multiple Artworks)

chapter 19|6 pages

The Wrong Note Paradox

chapter 20|7 pages

Unperformable Music (Musical Ontology)

part III|68 pages

Aesthetic Judgements

chapter 23|7 pages

The Paradox of Good-Bad Art

chapter 24|7 pages

The Paradox of Gustatory Taste

chapter 25|6 pages

The Paradox of Junk Fiction

chapter 26|5 pages

The Paradox of Porn

chapter 27|6 pages

The Puzzle of Historical Criticism

chapter 28|7 pages

The Transmogrifier (Style)

chapter 29|7 pages

The Uniform World (Aesthetic Disagreement)

chapter 30|7 pages

Two Societies (Everyday Aesthetics)

part IV|71 pages

Appreciation and Interpretation

chapter 31|7 pages

Pinny the Who? (Interpretation)

chapter 32|7 pages

The Paradox of Disgust

chapter 33|7 pages

The Paradox of Fiction

chapter 34|7 pages

The Paradox of Portraiture

chapter 35|7 pages

The Paradox of Tragedy

chapter 36|7 pages

The Problem of Museum Skepticism

chapter 37|6 pages

The Puzzle of Acquaintance

chapter 38|7 pages

The Puzzle of Depiction

chapter 39|7 pages

The Puzzle of Musical Profundity

chapter 40|7 pages

The St. Bernard's Face (Music and Emotion)

part V|67 pages

Ethics and Value

chapter 43|6 pages

The Burning Museum (Aesthetic Normativity)

chapter 44|6 pages

The Gamer's Dilemma (Gaming Ethics)

chapter 45|6 pages

The Parable of the Pawn (Virtual Value)

chapter 46|7 pages

The Puzzle of Cultural Appropriation

chapter 47|7 pages

The Puzzle of Cultural Property

chapter 48|6 pages

The Puzzle of Imaginative Resistance

chapter 49|7 pages

The Puzzle of Moral Persuasion

chapter 50|8 pages

Utopia (Games)