THE STATE OF AESTHETICS
23rd and 24th of June, 2011
Stewart House, 32 Russell Square, Institute of Philosophy, London
An international conference sponsored by the AHRC project “Method in Philosophical Aesthetics: The Challenge from the Sciences”, the Institute of Philosophy, the British Society of Aesthetics, the University of Leeds, the University of Nottingham, and the Open
University.
Conference Participants
Diarmuid Costello (Warwick, Philosophy)
Gregory Currie (Nottingham, Philosophy)
Ivan Gaskell (Harvard, Fogg Museum)
Casey Haskins (SUNY Purchase, Philosophy)
Jane Heal (Cambridge, Philosophy)
John Hyman (Oxford, Philosophy)
Matthew Kieran (Leeds, Philosophy)
Michael Lacewing (Heythrop, UCL, Philosophy)
Jerrold Levinson (Maryland, Philosophy)
Derek Matravers (Open University, Philosophy)
Chris McManus (UCL, Psychology and Medical Education)
Aaron Meskin (Leeds, Philosophy)
Bence Nanay (Antwerp and Cambridge, Philosophy)
Matthew Rowe
Chris Tilley (UCL, Anthropology)
Edward Winters
The theme: The State of Aesthetics
What is the value of aesthetic investigation? Our conference invites scholars and art world figures to offer their own assessments, defences and remedies.
A century ago aesthetics was of central concern for philosophers and psychologists alike. For much of the last century, the study of the arts often seemed marginalised, with relatively little cross-talk between aesthetics and areas considered more central to philosophy. By contrast the art world was strongly influenced by philosophically
inflected theories of institutions, the text and spectatorship, and yet there was little engagement with Anglo-American aesthetics. There is evidence that matters are looking up. Work on fictionality within literary contexts standardly serves as a resource for work in
metaphysics on the nature of fictional objects. Work on the imagination feeds back into the philosophy of mind and metaphysics. There is also a growing list of publications in aesthetics from such unexpected directions as neuroscience and evolutionary
psychology—-developments not universally welcomed within the aesthetics community.
The conference will draw together and address these developments asking how philosophical aesthetics might progress . The conference has three themes:
• Aesthetics and philosophy
• Aesthetics and the art world
• Aesthetics and the human sciences
In addition, we will have a panel discussion on teaching aesthetics in art school and other non-philosophical contexts.
Information regarding registration and accommodations is available through the conference website: http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/state-of-aesthetics/registration.shtml
Conference poster: http://www.scribd.com/doc/54521992/7184-AHRC-Aesthetics-Poster-PRINT#
Please address any queries to Dr. Margaret Moore
