In The Aesthetics of Virtual Reality (2022), Grant Tavinor claims that VR is a technologically fancy kind of picturing and, more specifically, that VR headsets elicit proper seeing-in experiences. According to Tavinor, seeing a virtual environment through a stereoscopic headset elicits the same twofold experience as ordinary pictures: users simultaneously perceive the three-dimensional depicted scene – the virtual environment – and the bidimensional surface responsible for displaying such a scene. In this critical note, I argue that this is a wrong characterization of the visual experience VR stereoscopic headsets elicit. I maintain that VR visual experiences are not twofold but onefold. When using a VR headset, we do not perceive the configuration as an organizational structure; our visual system does not represent, even unconsciously, the properties of the configuration as such. My argument proceeds in two directions: first through a phenomenological analysis of VR experience and, second, by corroborating these phenomenological observations with evidence from perceptual psychology. I conclude that, if VR environments are to be considered bona fide pictures, it is not because they elicit a twofold seeing-in experience.
In this paper, I will argue that certain figurative paintings – namely, paintings that depict atmospheres, such as Camille Pissarro’s Snowscape in Louveciennes (1872), can elicit multisensory experiences in their viewers. Viewing such pictures under appropriate circumstances will activate the viewers’ sensory imagination in such a way that they enjoy a genuine multisensory experience. Such an experience does not just involve different sensible qualities. Rather, the different sensible qualities are fused together into a new sensible quality that cannot be experienced through a single sense modality or through the mere co-consciousness of multiple sense modalities.
Winner of the Fabian Dorsch ESA Essay Prize. David Davies advocates a methodological principle he calls the ‘pragmatic constraint’, according to which ontology of art is answerable to epistemology of art, or ‘those features of our creative, critical, appreciative, and individuative practices in the arts that would withstand rational scrutiny’. This principle, while widely endorsed, has faced scepticism, charges of vagueness, and ambiguity concerning what counts as an instance of its correct application. I propose a similar principle that avoids these problems while doing the work for which the pragmatic constraint is meant, and one that is expanded in scope to apply to philosophy of art generally. Drawing on ideas from classical pragmatism, this new ‘pragmatist principle’ holds that (1) philosophy of art should centrally deal with philosophical problems that could arise for a reflective practitioner in the course of artistic practice, and (2) the solutions offered to those problems should be able to make some positive difference for, or tie back into and inform, future artistic practice, with ‘practice’ here including both art’s creation and its reception.
This paper extends the reach of the concept of aesthetic personality, as utilized by Uku Tooming in a recent article, ‘Aesthetic Disagreement with Oneself as Another’, published in Estetika (2023). Tooming invokes this concept as part of his solution to a philosophical puzzle concerning aesthetic disagreement with one’s past self. I argue that equivalence (or approximate equivalence) of aesthetic personality in cases in which one disagrees with an aesthetic peer or peers on an aesthetic judgement licenses the revision of one’s aesthetic judgement. This relates to both intra- and interindividual aesthetic peer disagreements. Interestingly, equivalence of aesthetic personality can, at least in certain cases, undermine the appeal of the autonomy principle, which holds that one must exercise one’s own evaluative capacities in producing a legitimate aesthetic judgement, and which Tooming considers a promising ground for not budging in cases of interindividual aesthetic disagreement.
What makes comics comics? The question is difficult. Many answers have been proposed but the debate appears to stagnate, in part because scholars cannot seem to agree about the exact content of the category of comics. In this article, I propose to move the discussion away from the category of comics and instead approach the debate through the category of works that read like comics. After arguing that this change of perspective is relevant and likely to generate more homogeneous views among scholars, I present a series of intriguing works that read like comics, despite not having the characteristics one would probably judge necessary according to the current literature. Doing so, I show that works do not need to have pictures or look like comics to read like comics, that some works read like comics precisely because of the way they look, that a single image can be modified to read like a comic, and that we can create a truly single image that reads like a comic. I discuss how the presented works challenge some common assumptions about the defining features of comics. Finally, I conclude that the category of works that read like comics is useful to further our understanding of comics and to explore what might be the most interesting aspects of the medium.
This critical note deals with the book The Share of Perspectives (2025) by Emmanuel Alloa, written as a ‘defense of perspectivism in the age of post-truth’. According to the book’s central claim, the structure of perspective implies both division and sharing. I trace Alloa’s remarkable expedition into the history of ‘perspective’, in both the history of painting and the history of thought, and conclude by noting the limitations of Alloa’s primary focus on epistemological issues and by highlighting two different meanings of the term ‘conflict’ in Alloa’s emphasis of the conflictual sharing.
In experiences of visual art, we enter imaginary worlds that consist of phenomenologically distinguishable variations of imagination. In this article, we empirically describe some of these variations and the imaginary worlds of which they are part. Based on phenomenological interviews about intense experiences with visual art, we distinguish between sensory imaginings, imaginings of bodily presence, and situational imaginings, each signifying different imaginary content but all related in a dynamic interplay that shape the coherent imaginary experience. We show how imagination is fundamental to experiences of visual art, and how our imaginary worlds relate to the work of art in different ways.
This article defends No & euml;l Carroll's incongruity theory of humour from the pressing criticism that his articulation of incongruity is too vague to serve as a key notion of the theory. I first distinguish between two versions of the criticism of vagueness: the claim that Carroll's notion of incongruity is vacuous, and the claim that it allows for shoehorning. To reject the first claim, I put Carroll's notion of incongruity to the test by analysing complex comic texts, demonstrating that it is not vacuous as it allows for capturing their similarities and differences. In response to the second claim, I claim that Carroll's notion of incongruity should be amended adding a pertinence condition, , which requires that the elements establishing the incongruity are part of the same context. Finally, I show that the pertinence condition helps Carroll, replying to a set of counterexamples moved to his sufficiency conditions too.
This critical note examines Bernard Bolzano’s Essays on Beauty and the Arts, edited by Dominic McIver Lopes and translated by Adam Bresnahan. The book presents English translations of Bolzano’s ‘On the Concept of the Beautiful’ (1843) and ‘On the Classification of the Fine Arts’ (1849), supplemented by an extensive scholarly apparatus. This note focuses on Lopes’s interpretation of Bolzano’s aesthetic treatises, particularly addressing the insufficient historical contextualization. Additionally, some challenges and intricacies involved in translating Bolzano’s work into English are discussed.
This paper defends the idea that literary works can be vehicles of what has been called experiential knowledge; that is, literary works can offer knowledge of what it is like to have a particular kind of experience. After reviewing some of the critiques this epistemological conception of literature has recently received, I offer a reading of one of its earliest formulations, found in Dorothy Walsh’s book Literature and Knowledge (1969), which I believe is still relevant to contemporary discussions on the topic. By combining some key insights from Walsh’s account with John Dewey’s understanding of experience as a form of undergoing, I argue that literary works can give a sense or a feel of what it is like to experience something, while acknowledging that there are also some important differences between literary and real-world experiences. I illuminate my own understanding of experiential knowledge by analysing the account of the experience of social death in Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved (1987). I am especially interested in identifying the stylistic and literary techniques behind the experiential knowledge I believe the novel offers. The paper ends by providing a closer examination of the character of the literary experience underpinning experiential knowledge and by putting forth reasons why experiential knowledge should be considered a serious epistemic notion.
This paper scrutinizes Arthur C. Danto's commitment to justice, equality, and all-inclusiveness as manifested in his activism and philosophy of art. Following Lydia Goehr's arguments in her book Red Sea-Red Square-Red Thread, , I focus on Danto's understanding of the pluralistic artworld and his prediction that pluralism in arts is a precursor of political changes that are going to affect society. I argue that Danto believes a pluralistic society will be free from oppressive narratives, as is the post-historical artworld. In the final section, I address the role Danto ascribes to art in society's transformation to all-inclusiveness. I demonstrate that Danto privileges art over non- artistic representations because art enables us to feel the suffering of others.
The article reassesses Schelling’s philosophy of art in the System of Transcendental Idealism, focusing on its practical philosophy and the concept of the artefact. Often unexplored, this perspective offers a new account of Schelling’s early aesthetics, linking aesthetic experience to historical becoming. The discussion begins with an analysis of Schelling’s theory of intentional action, followed by a reconstruction of his understanding of artefact. It argues that Schelling integrates both social and material dimensions into his concept of artefacts. The paper then examines Schelling’s comparison between artefacts in general and works of art, asserting that aesthetic experience in the context of the System exemplifies ‘hermeneutic obstinacy’. This characteristic, typical of works of art, correlates with the open nature of historical reality.
In fictional narratives, what is said can be presented from the perspective of a character. Thus, in passages of ‘internal focalization’, the narrative ‘mimics’ the character’s perspective and tells only what is accessible to the character. This narrative technique is pervasive in fictional narratives but it is notoriously hard to define. In this article, we argue that ‘internal focalization’ can be defined as the mandate to imagine perceiving from a character’s point of view. In investigating how internal focalization lets us see through a character’s eyes, we develop an account of internal focalization that relies on a particular type of imagination as its defining feature.
A critical note on Christopher Bartel and Jack M. C. Kwong, ‘Pluralism, Eliminativism, and the Definition of Art’, Estetika 58 (2021): 100–113. Art pluralism is the view that there is no single, correct account of what art is. Instead, art is understood through a plurality of art concepts and with considerations that are different for particular arts. Although avowed pluralists have retained the word ‘art’ in their discussions, it is natural to ask whether the considerations that motivate pluralism should lead us to abandon art talk altogether; that is, should pluralism lead to eliminativism? This paper addresses arguments both for and against this move. We ultimately argue that pluralism allows one to retain the word ‘art’, if one wants it, but only in a loose, conversational sense. The upshot of pluralism is that talk of art in general cannot be asked to do theoretical and philosophical work.
This paper applies the account developed by Susanna Siegel in The Rationality of Perception to aesthetic cases and explores the implications of such an account for aesthetic engagement as well as curatorial and exhibitionary practices. It argues that one’s prior outlook – expertise, beliefs, desires, fears, preferences, attitudes – can have both aesthetically good and bad influences on perceptual experiences, just as it can have both epistemically good and bad influences. Analysing these bad influences in cases of ‘hijacked’ aesthetic perception will reveal that, unless we recognize that our perception of high-level and low-level aesthetically relevant properties is norm-governed, we will be at a loss to explain what goes wrong in these cases. Just as perception can be rational or irrational, so too can it be apt or inapt.
In this article, I explore the problems of ficta ‘generation’ and ‘properties’ in light of the philosophies of Alexius Meinong and Roman Ingarden. Comparing Ingarden and the historical Meinong is not a novel idea. By contrast, comparing Ingarden and a phenomenological Meinong has not, to my knowledge, yet been explored. Here, I rely on Alberto Voltolini’s ‘phenomenological conception of außerseiende entities’. I devise Ingarden’s phenomenological ontology to account for the problems of ascription and generation that cripple Meinong’s account. In short, I argue that Ingarden’s account is better suited to accommodate ficta’s generation and properties in a way that does not complicate our approach to fiction.
My goal in this paper is to develop a Kantian account of the normative force of aesthetics reasons. While Kant himself would likely side with contemporary theorists who deny that aesthetic considerations, on their own, give rise to oughts and obligations, I argue that Kant’s theory nevertheless gives us resources for explaining the normative force of aesthetic reasons. On this account, while aesthetic properties (in particular, beauty) give us merely enticing or inviting reasons, these reasons acquire greater normative force in the context of aesthetic communities. Insofar as we are members of such communities, we take on special obligations to attend to, appreciate, and preserve particular beautiful objects.
A critical note on Paul Guyer’s A Philosopher Looks at Architecture (2021). In his book, Paul Guyer proposes that the Vitruvian triad of venustas, utilitas, and firmitas represents central goals and normative values of architecture – ideals that architects should realize and success criteria regarding their realization – that persist through time, place, cultural settings, and other contextual parameters. Indeed, the triad presents sufficiently abstract goals that many disparate views in architectural theory may be subsumed under the triad as distinctive ways of explaining how architecture may be beautiful, functional, or structurally sound. These are significant thematic values by which we experience and judge architecture (as are also useful in gauging other human pursuits), and which architects draw on in their creative acts. There is much to recommend this broad picture of the triad as architectural ideals. That said, I suggest two difficulties for Guyer’s claim as to the centrality of these values, relative to architectural success regardless of Vitruvian goal-satisfaction; and to non-persistence across architectural cultures.
A book review of Jon Robson, Aesthetic Testimony: An Optimistic Approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022, x+166 pp. ISBN 9780192862952.
In this paper I test major analytic theories of interpretation, including anti-intentionalism, the value-maximizing theory, actual intentionalism, and hypothetical intentionalism, against Li Shang-yin’s poem ‘The Ornamented Zither’. I argue that, based on the results of the test, all of these theories face grave difficulties. If their supporters want their accounts to be sustained in the debate over interpretation, they need to address the worries I raise.
