Introduction to Philosophy: Aesthetics

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course is a survey of the philosophy of art. We will explore questions such as: What is the meaning of a work of art and what does it mean to say that a work of art represents some subject "out there" in the world? What is the value of painterly representation? Can music be said to be representational in this way, or should we rather think of it as "expressive"? What is the value of music? What is the relationship between the medium of a work of art (e.g. the marked canvas of a painting) and the subject of that painting? How is "beauty" (and aesthetic value) related to our ethical judgment and sensibilities? Over the duration of the course, students will become familiar with central themes in the philosophy of painting, the philosophy of literature, and the philosophy of music. Our philosophical reflection will be motivated by the study of examples: for instance, in painting, we will focus on the Italian Quattrocento and Cinquecento; in literature, on the novels of Jane Austen; and in music, on a selection of pieces from Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. In the last part of the class, we will discuss two big picture topics: (i) the extent to which technology transforms our aesthetic sensibilities (as when one performs Bach on a piano instead of a harpsichord); and (ii) whether the kind of aesthetic cognition we discussed in the case of art has an analog in the case of science.