The Empirical Case for Moral Beauty

Although formative of modern value theory, the moral beauty view—which states that moral virtue is beautiful and moral vice is ugly—is now mostly neglected by (analytic) philosophers. The two contemporary defences of the view mostly capitalize on its intuitive attractiveness, but to little avail: such considerations hardly convince sceptics of what is nowadays a rather unpopular view. Historically, the view was supported by thought experiments; and although these greatly increase its plausibility, they also raise empirical questions, which they leave unanswered. Here, I offer a novel defence of the moral beauty view, capitalizing on empirical evidence and arguing via an inference to the best explanation.     

Is Perception the Canonical Route to Aesthetic Judgment?

It is commonplace amongst philosophers of art to make claims that postulate important links between aesthetics and perception. In this paper, I focus on one such claim—that perception is the canonical route to aesthetic judgment. I consider a range of prima facie plausible interpretations of this claim, and argue that each fails to identify any important link between aesthetic judgment and perception. Given this, I conclude that we have good reason to be sceptical of the claim that perception is in any way privileged as a source of aesthetic judgment.     

论老庄生态美学思想

从生态学视角探讨老庄道家美学中的生态美学思想,结合当前生态中所出现的主要问题,总结了老庄道家美学对当前生态建设密切相关的五种思想启示,以期对构建和谐社会,保持可持续发展有所助益。     

What Can Be Learned from the Arts About Aging?

This brief article examines some of the theoretical questions raised by aesthetics. Paintings have not only form and content, but are underpinned by philosophical principles that connect art to gerontology. We examine specific theoretical messages of a trend in art that have important implications for conceptualizing humans, including their interactions and surroundings. Three artists are used to illustrate this trend: Cezanne, Picasso, and Pollock. These and other artists of this century foster a heightened awareness of humanistic concerns. Caught between abstract reason and expert systems on the one hand, and the life worlds of older people on the other, gerontology finds itself in a place where art can speak to its deeper concerns in unique ways.     

CRISIS OF BRAIN AND SELF

Abstract. Neuroscientific evidence requires a monistic understanding of brain/mind. Truly appropriating what this means confronts us with the vulnerability of the human condition. Ca-muss absurd and Tillich's despair are extreme expressions of a similar confrontation. This crisis demands a type of courage that is consistent with scientific truth and does not undermine the spiritual dimension of life. That dimension is not a separate substance but the process by which brain/mind meaningfully wrestles with its crisis through aesthetic symbols, religious faith, and ethical affirmation. The validity of these activities does not depend upon human autonomy but instead upon the fact that they exist. Furthermore, they constitute the self, which Dennett calls a "center of narrative gravity."     

A Text of Identity: Frances Brooke and the Rhetoric of the Aging Spinster

Frances Brooke, writing in 1755 in London, England, selected the figure of the aging spinster as her alter ego when she wrote and edited a thirty-seven issue periodical, The Old Maid. Analysis of the periodical and the cultural environment in which Brooke wrote explains her choice of persona in terms of the issues she faced as a woman producing writing to be read largely by male contemporaries. This analysis reveals some of the underlying stereotypes of aging and identity in the period as well as the way these stereotypes could be used by a clever writer.     

The Epistemological Status of Vision and its Implications for Design

Computational theories of vision typically rely on the analysis of two aspects of human visual function: (1) object and shape recognition (2) co-calibration of sensory measurements. Both these approaches are usually based on an inverse-optics model, where visual perception is viewed as a process of inference from a 2D retinal projection to a 3D percept within a Euclidean space schema. This paradigm has had great success in certain areas of vision science, but has been relatively less successful in understanding perceptual representation, namely, the nature of the perceptual encoding. One of the drawbacks of inverse-optics approaches has been the difficulty in defining the constraints needed to make the inference computationally tractable (e.g. regularity assumptions, Bayesian priors, etc.). These constraints, thought to be learned assumptions about the nature of the physical and optical structures of the external world, have to be incorporated into any workable computational model in the inverse-optics paradigm. But inference models that employ an inverse optics plus structural assumptions approach inevitably result in a naïve realist theory of perceptual representation. Another drawback of inference models for theories of perceptual representation is their inability to explain central features of the visual experience. The one most evident in the process and visual understanding of design is the fact that some visual configurations appear, often spontaneously, as perceptually more coherent than others. The epistemological consequences of inferential approaches to vision indicate that they fail to capture enduring aspects of our visual experience. Therefore they may not be suited to a theory of perceptual representation, or useful for an understanding of the role of perception in the design process and product.     

The Cultural Definition of Art

Most modern definitions of art fail to successfully address the issue of the ever‐changing nature of art, and rarely even attempt to provide an account that would be valid in more than just the modern Western context. This article develops a new theory that preserves the advantages of its predecessors, solves or avoids their problems, and has a scope wide enough to account for art of different times and cultures. It argues that an object is art in a given context iff some person(s) culturally competent in this context have afforded it the status of a candidate for appreciation for reasons considered good in this context. This weakly institutional view is supplemented by auxiliary definitions explaining the notions of cultural contexts, competence, and good reasons for affording the status. The relativisation to contexts brings increased explanatory power and scope, and the ability to account for the diversity of art.