Course Description: On a camping trip, you notice the brilliant glow of sun-lit surface of a lake. At a gallery, I comment on the austere serenity of Lawren Harris' Mount Lefroy. On a summer evening, you close your window to the pungent smell of an upset skunk. Two friends, one a fan of K-pop, the other not so much, clash over the soundtrack to KPop Demon Hunters; one calls 'Soda Pop' bright and bubbly and the other, monotonous and schmaltzy. Later at a concert, they both revel in the intricately woven counterpoint in Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. Even later, one of them reads James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room and appreciates how subtly it develops the theme of navigating one's identity in private and public sphere. In all these cases, subjects experience something; that experience prompts them to pass judgment; in passing that judgment, they evaluate something, positively or negatively. Traditionally, philosophers call such experiences, judgments, and values 'aesthetic'.

This is an introduction to aesthetics, the branch of philosophy that studies aesthetic experience, judgment, and value, as well as objects associated with those, including works of art. It is organized around several issues central to contemporary analytic aesthetics. We will begin by looking at aesthetic thought and discourse, focusing on debates about their responsiveness to rules and interests. Then we will look at aesthetic experience, focusing on attempts at explaining its characteristic features in terms of structures, feelings, or concepts. We will conclude by looking at the nature of aesthetic value, focusing on accounts that deal with its relationship to pleasure, usefulness, and moral value.

Evaluation

Learning Outcomes: Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to describe several puzzles central to contemporary aesthetics; understand and deploy some conceptual and argumentative tools used by contemporary analytic philosophers in accounting for these puzzles; compare, contrast and assess several influential solutions to these puzzles; reconstruct and assess some arguments in support of these solutions; present these puzzles, solutions, and arguments according to the conventions of introductory-level undergraduate philosophical writing.

How to Succeed in this Course: Review your readings before class and read them more thoroughly afterwards, together with your handouts and class notes. Attend lectures and participate in discussions. Keep track of questions, positions, arguments, objections and replies studied in this course. Keep track of technical terminology introduced in class. If you feel stuck or confused, talk to your graders or your instructor; don’t hesitate to come to our office hours!

Course TAs: Course assignments will be graded by the TAs. Your are TAs Julian Stuart ([email protected]) and Enzo Gavazzi-Renaud ([email protected]). For further feedback on specific assignments or requests for regrades, please contact the TA who graded your assignment. You can find their name in the comments section on Quercus.

Handouts: Every lecture will be structured around a handout. Handouts will be posted on Quercus on the day of the lecture. They will be brief; you’ll need to attend the lecture to fill in the gaps. Please print your own handouts or bring your laptops to class.

Readings: All course readings will be available on Quercus, either as files or as links. Readings are subject to change with prior notice.

Schedule of Readings

Schedule of Readings (cont’d)