Aesthetics

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.
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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

Michel-Antoine Xhignesse is an Instructor of Philosophy at Capilano University, in North Vancouver, Canada.

Preface Part I: Art-Making1. Apelles's Horses (Intentionality) 2. Empty and Universal Fictions (Fictional Truth) 3. The Paradox of Authenticity 4. The Paradox of Creativity 5. The Problem of Genius 6. The Puzzle of Multiple Authorship 7. The Puzzle of Multiple Endings 8. The Revision Puzzle 9. The Time Machine (Design) 10. The Whale and the Driftwood (Artifactuality) Part II: Ontology11. Dinosaurs in the Jungle (Photographic Transparency) 12. Faking Nature (Authenticity) 13. Guernicas (Contextualism) 14. Pot People, Basket Folk (Contextualism) 15. Psychedelic Sounds (Definition of Music) 16. Retitling Art (Titles) 17. The Gallery of Red Squares (Defining Art) 18. The Supercopier (Multiple Artworks) 19. The Wrong Note Paradox 20. Unperformable Music (Musical Ontology) Part III: Aesthetic Judgements21. Aesthetic Concept Zombies (Aesthetic Properties) 22. The Jealous Husband (The Aesthetic Attitude) 23. The Paradox of Good-Bad Art 24. The Paradox of Gustatory Taste 25. The Paradox of Junk Fiction 26. The Paradox of Porn 27. The Puzzle of Historical Criticism 28. The Transmogrifier (Style) 29. The Uniform World (Aesthetic Disagreement) 30. Two Societies (Everyday Aesthetics) Part IV: Appreciation and Interpretation31. Pinny the Who? (Interpretation) 32. The Paradox of Disgust 33. The Paradox of Fiction 34. The Paradox of Portraiture 35. The Paradox of Tragedy 36. The Problem of Museum Skepticism 37. The Puzzle of Acquaintance 38. The Puzzle of Depiction 39. The Puzzle of Musical Profundity 40. The St. Bernard's Face (Music and Emotion) Part V: Ethics and Value41. The Paradox of Bad-Bad Art (Moralism/Immoralism) 42. How the Zebra Lost Her Stripes (Environmental Aesthetics) 43. The Burning Museum (Aesthetic Normativity) 44. The Gamer's Dilemma (Gaming Ethics) 45. The Parable of the Pawn (Virtual Value) 46. The Puzzle of Cultural Appropriation 47. The Puzzle of Cultural Property 48. The Puzzle of Imaginative Resistance 49. The Puzzle of Moral Persuasion 50. Utopia (Games)