Art, Representation, and Make-Believe

Art, Representation, and Make-Believe PDF Author: Sonia Sedivy
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000396207
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
This is the first collection of essays focused on the many-faceted work of Kendall L. Walton. Walton has shaped debate about the arts for the last 50 years. He provides a comprehensive framework for understanding arts in terms of the human capacity of make-believe that shows how different arts – visual, photographic, musical, literary, or poetic – can be explained in terms of complex structures of pretense, perception, imagining, empathy, and emotion. His groundbreaking work has been taken beyond aesthetics to address foundational issues concerning linguistic and scientific representations – for example, about the nature of scientific modelling or to explain how much of what we say is quite different from the literal meanings of our words. Contributions from a diverse group of philosophers probe Walton’s detailed proposals and the themes for research they open. The essays provide an overview of important debates that have Walton’s work at their core. This book will be of interest to scholars and graduate students working on aesthetics across the humanities, as well as those interested in the topic of representation and its intersection with perception, language, science, and metaphysics.

Mimesis as Make-Believe

Mimesis as Make-Believe PDF Author: Kendall L. Walton
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674268229
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 472

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Book Description
Representations—in visual arts and in fiction—play an important part in our lives and culture. Kendall Walton presents here a theory of the nature of representation, which illuminates its many varieties and goes a long way toward explaining its importance. Drawing analogies to children’s make believe activities, Walton constructs a theory that addresses a broad range of issues: the distinction between fiction and nonfiction, how depiction differs from description, the notion of points of view in the arts, and what it means for one work to be more “realistic” than another. He explores the relation between appreciation and criticism, the character of emotional reactions to literary and visual representations, and what it means to be caught up emotionally in imaginary events. Walton’s theory also provides solutions to the thorny philosophical problems of the existence—or ontological standing—of fictitious beings, and the meaning of statements referring to them. And it leads to striking insights concerning imagination, dreams, nonliteral uses of language, and the status of legends and myths. Throughout Walton applies his theoretical perspective to particular cases; his analysis is illustrated by a rich array of examples drawn from literature, painting, sculpture, theater, and film. Mimesis as Make-Believe is important reading for everyone interested in the workings of representational art.

How to Make Believe

How to Make Believe PDF Author: J. Alexander Bareis
Publisher: ISSN
ISBN: 9783110441536
Category : Discourse analysis, Narrative
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
A major question in studies of aesthetic expression is how we can understand and explain similarities and differences among different forms of representation. In the current volume, this question is addressed through the lens of make-believe theory, a philosophical theory broadly introduced by two seminal works - Kendall Walton's Mimesis as Make-Believe and Gregory Currie's The Nature of Fiction, both published 1990. Since then, make-believe theory has become central in the philosphical discussion of representation. As a first of its kind, the current volume comprises 17 detailed studies of highly different forms of representation, such as novels, plays, TV-series, role games, computer games, lamentation poetry and memoirs. The collection contributes to establishing make-believe theory as a powerful theoretical tool for a wide array of studies traditionally falling under the humanities umbrella.

Conversations on Art and Aesthetics

Conversations on Art and Aesthetics PDF Author: Hans Maes
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199686106
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
What is art? What counts as an aesthetic experience? Does art have to beautiful? Can one reasonably dispute about taste? What is the relation between aesthetic and moral evaluations? How to interpret a work of art? Can we learn anything from literature, film or opera? What is sentimentality? What is irony? How to think philosophically about architecture, dance, or sculpture? What makes something a great portrait? Is music representational or abstract? Why do we feel terrified when we watch a horror movie even though we know it to be fictional? In Conversations on Art and Aesthetics, Hans Maes discusses these and other key questions in aesthetics with ten world-leading philosophers of art: Noel Carroll, Gregory Currie, Arthur Danto, Cynthia Freeland, Paul Guyer, Carolyn Korsmeyer, Jerrold Levinson, Jenefer Robinson, Roger Scruton, and Kendall Walton. The exchanges are direct, open, and sharp, and give a clear account of these thinkers' core ideas and intellectual development. They also offer new insights into, and a deeper understanding of, contemporary issues in the philosophy of art.

Richard Wollheim on the Art of Painting

Richard Wollheim on the Art of Painting PDF Author: Richard Wollheim
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521801744
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
A collection of essays on Wollheim's philosophy of art; includes a response from Wollheim himself.

Models as Make-Believe

Models as Make-Believe PDF Author: Adam Toon
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137292237
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
Scientists often try to understand the world by building simplified and idealised models of it. Adam Toon develops a new approach to scientific models by comparing them to the dolls and toy trucks of children's imaginative games, and offers a unified framework to solve difficult metaphysical problems and help to make sense of scientific practice.

Real Likenesses

Real Likenesses PDF Author: Michael Morris
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192606301
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Real Likenesses presents a radical new approach to artistic representation. At its heart is a serious reconsideration of the relationship between medium and content in representational art, which counters currently dominant theories that make attention to the former inevitably a distraction from attending to the latter. Through close analysis of paintings, photographs, and novels, Michael Morris proposes a new understanding of the real likenesses we encounter in representational art; what they are, how they are made present to us, and how they are created. The result is an intuitive way of thinking about how these art forms work.

A Companion to Ancient Aesthetics

A Companion to Ancient Aesthetics PDF Author: Pierre Destrée
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1444337645
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 547

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Book Description
The first of its kind, A Companion to Ancient Aesthetics presents a synoptic view of the arts, which crosses traditional boundaries and explores the aesthetic experience of the ancients across a range of media—oral, aural, visual, and literary. Investigates the many ways in which the arts were experienced and conceptualized in the ancient world Explores the aesthetic experience of the ancients across a range of media, treating literary, oral, aural, and visual arts together in a single volume Presents an integrated perspective on the major themes of ancient aesthetics which challenges traditional demarcations Raises questions about the similarities and differences between ancient and modern ways of thinking about the place of art in society

Concerning the Spiritual in Art

Concerning the Spiritual in Art PDF Author: Wassily Kandinsky
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 048613248X
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 111

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Book Description
Pioneering work by the great modernist painter, considered by many to be the father of abstract art and a leader in the movement to free art from traditional bonds. 12 illustrations.

Imaginary Games

Imaginary Games PDF Author: Chris Bateman
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
ISBN: 1846949416
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
Can games be art or is all art a kind of game? A philosophical investigation of play and imaginary things.