Art and Morality

Questions:

1. List some emotional responses you have had to artworks.

2. Were they *morally appropriate*? Would it be possible to reponse to an artwork in (what you took to be) a non morally appropriate way?

3. Can an artwork have moral qualities? In what way?

4. Do you think that the asethetic vaule of an artwork related to its moral vaule (if it has one)?

5. What is the position Radical Moralism?

6. Can there be great artworks with no moral values?

7. Can there be great artworks with bad moral values?

8. What is Carroll's position?

9. Has an artwork ever asked you to respond in a way you were not able to? (eg Feeling sorry for HumbertHumbert in Lolita?)

10. Do you think that artworks can be assesed morally at all? Who denies they can?

Paradox Of Fiction

To think about before the seminar:

1. How do you feel when engaging in works of fiction? Is it the same kind of feelings you have in everyday life or not? Are you behaving rationally?

2. What is the paradox of fiction? State it in 3 premises:
A.
B.
C.

3. Why think it is irrational to have emtional responses to things we dont think exist? Who denies this?

4. What is Walton's view?

5. Do you think it is irrational to respond emtionally to fictional works? What does Radford think?

6. Do you enjoy all the feelings that you have when you engage with a work of fiction? If you answered no, then why do you think you seek such experiences out?

I Made This In The Seminar

I wanted to make some art. This is what I did. Have I made art? Bad art? Or not art at all?

Interpretation

Questions:

1. What, in your experience, do you need to find out about an artwork in order to intrepret it?

2. Choose an artwork which you know a lot about. What is...
a) a property of the artwork itself
b) something causally upstream from the artwork
c)something causally downsteream from the artwork

3. What is strong internalism?

4. Can strong internalism account for failed intentions?

5. What is moderate actual intentionalism?

6. WHat is the intentionalist fallacy? Do you find it convinicng?

7. Can we intrepret a work against the authors intentions?

8. Does an author always have a specific intention?

9. What is Anti Intentionalism?

10. If I intrepret 'Romeo and Juliet' as a terrible comedy, would I be making a mistake? Why?

11. What is hypothetical intentionalism? Is it a stable position?

12. Suppose I come across an artwork trekking in the jungle. The artwork is from a lost culture, which I have no knowledge of. Can I intrepret the artwork?

Walton : Categories of Art

Before the seminar:

- choose 2 pieces of art that you like

1. What are their asethetic properties?

2. What are their non asethetic properties?
 
3. What cartegories and sub categories are they?

4. For the categories you listed in question 3, what features are;
*standard
*non standard
*variable

Can you think of artworks in these categories that have contra standard properties? If you added more contra standard properties, would the peice no longer be in that category?

4. Can we be wrong about what category an art work falls into? What do you think, and what does Walton think? Try and back up your position with examples.

5. What does Walton think determines what category an artwork belongs to? Do you think there is anything missing from the list, or anything that should be added?

6. Can some artworks fall into more than one category? Do you think Waltons account can deal with this?

7. If you answered yes in question 7, does this mean that an artwork can have contradictory aesthetic properties? Is this a problem?

8. Are there any art works which are impossible to categorise? If there were, would this matter for Walton?

9. Are aesthetic properties subjective? Does it matter?

Aesthetic Experience

Questions To Think About Before The Seminar:

1. Whats an example of an aethetic experience you had this week? What did it feel like? Was it enjoyable? Where was your attention? What, if anything, made it different to other, non aesthetic experiences?

2. What is the intrested/disintrested account of aesthetic experience?

3. Listen to this piece of music
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0nUFgqSGus
 Tell me:
a) what time signature it has
b) what musical instruments are played
c) what are the lyrics to the first verse.

Then listen again and tell me if you enjoyed the music.

Is there a fundamental difference in kind to your two experiences of listening to the music? What would Dickie say?

4. What is Carroll's account of asthetic experinces?

5. What does Iseminger mean by "aesthetic state of mind"?

6.  Are there expereinces we vaule for their own sake which we dont think of as aesthetic experiences? (Perhaps being in love, having sex, laughing, or maybe you can think of others?) Is this a problem for Iseminger?

7. Can I be wrong about being in an aesthetic state of mind? (Ie can I think I am when Im not, or can I think Im not when I am). Is this a problem?
 

Seminar One

For the first seminar, do the reading assigned by Anthony in the lecture. Also please choose
5 peices of art. Try and make them as different as possible, and then bring them (or a copy/picture/example of them) to the seminar (its ok to use your laptop or similar to do this).

Looking forward to meeting you all!

Katie