Intersections of value : art, nature, and the everyday / Robert Stecker.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stecker, Robert, 1947- author.

Contributor:

Anne and Joseph Trachtman Memorial Book Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Aesthetics.

Physical Description:

x, 174 pages ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2019.

Summary:

Intersections of Value investigates the universal human need for aesthetic experience. It examines three appreciative contexts where aesthetic value plays a central role: art, nature, and the everyday. However, no important appreciative context or practice is completely centered on a single value. Hence, the book explores the way the aesthetic interacts with moral, cognitive, and functional values in these contexts. The account of aesthetic appreciation is complemented by analyses of the cognitive and ethical value of art, the connection between environmental ethics and aesthetics, and the degree to which the aesthetic value of everyday artefacts derives from their basic practical functions. Robert Stecker devotes special attention to art as an appreciative context because it is an especially rich arena where different values interact. There is an important connection between artistic value and aesthetic value, but it is a mistake to reduce the former to the latter. Rather, artistic value should be seen as complex and pluralistic, composed not only of aesthetic but also ethical, cognitive, and art-historical values.

Contents:

The Main Topic and Why it Matters p. 1

Modes of Intersection p. 1

Plan p. 3

A Day in Stockholm p. 4

The Universality of the Aesthetic p. 4

The Universality of Art p. 5

Artistic Value and Aesthetic Value p. 6

A Better Explanation? p. 7

Artistic Value p. 7

Aesthetic Value p. 8

Value p. 10

Part I Two Kinds of Value: The Aesthetic and The Artistic

2 What is Aesthetic Value? p. 19

Good Family p. 21

Origins p. 25

Questions about Aesthetic Experience p. 29

Anti-Empiricist Arguments: What Makes Aesthetic Experience Valuable for its Own Sake? p. 31

Objections to Aesthetic Experiences: From Experiences to Actions p. 34

Aesthetic Properties p. 36

3 Why Artistic Value is not Aesthetic Value p. 41

Aesthetic Value as Artistic Value p. 43

Artistic Value as Aesthetic Value p. 45

Some Arguments for Artistic Value p. 50

A Test for Artistic Value p. 52

Entanglement p. 54

Other Counterexamples? p. 55

4 Two Definitions of Artistic Value p. 58

Artistic Value as a Composite p. 60

The Buck-Passing Theory p. 63

Loose Ends p. 66

Part II Interacting Values in Art

5 Aesthetic Value, Inversion, and the Ethical Properties of Artworks p. 71

Inversion p. 72

Overall and Pro Tanto Principles p. 73

An Overall Principle and Two Kinds of Prima Facie Principles p. 74

Ethical Properties and Inversion p. 77

6 Literature as Thought p. 81

Uses of Fiction p. 82

Literature and Cognitive Value p. 84

What is Valuable about Literary Conceptions? p. 86

Inflationism p. 89

Limited Inflationism Defended p. 91

Deflationism p. 94

Part III The Aesthetics of Nature and the Everyday

7 The Fundamental Problem of Environmental Aesthetics p. 103

Constraining Aesthetic Judgments about Nature p. 103

Objects of Appreciation p. 104

Epistemic Norms p. 112

Positive Aesthetics p. 113

Objectivity p. 115

Significance p. 118

Knowledge and Nature Appreciation p. 120

Emotion and Imagination p. 122

8 Moral Norms and Nature Appreciation p. 127

Interaction p. 127

Respect for Nature p. 130

The Reformulated Merited Response Argument p. 135

9 Artifacts: Function and Appreciation p. 138

Artifacts and their Functions p. 139

Appreciating Artifacts p. 143

The Problem of Indeterminacy and the Problem of Translation p. 149

Artwork and Artifacts p. 150.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Anne and Joseph Trachtman Memorial Book Fund.

ISBN:

0198789955

9780198789956

OCLC:

1055455010