An Introduction to the Philosophy of Art

reader to suspend moral judgments,”^11 as though works of literary art presented a self-contained imaginary world that is altoge ...

are well written or badly written. That is all...The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. Al ...

entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct ...

likely to nurture such efforts. Defenders of experimentalism often recom- mend Kleist’sThe Marquise of Oand the Marquis de Sade’ ...

Courbet scandalized taste in their time, yet their works prove to have lasting formal and cognitive value. Historically, varieti ...

extent from the political incursions of limiting moralisms, and this is, on the whole, a good thing. Controversies about the val ...

defect.”^34 For example, a play that presents the historical Hitler as someone to pity and with whom to sympathize will be“an ae ...

commendable attitudes, it is to that extent aesthetically meritorious.”^40 According to both Kieran and Gaut, then, it is a cent ...

not sheerlyad hoc], an aesthetic merit in the work.”^44 Themerited response argument holds all unmerited or unapt prescribed res ...

success.^49 There may indeed be such cases. But they do not show that the morally reprehensible attitude that such a work invite ...

success is better described as the achievement of inviting and clarifying com- plex emotional attitudes toward complex human cha ...

richly responsible.”^57 As James himselfputsit,“the effort really tosee andreally to represent is no idle business in face of th ...

(with qualifications) Alasdair MacIntyre^64 in the mid 1970s to early 1980s argued that it is impossible to cultivate all the ge ...

complex works of literature offer us insight into the difficulties and possibil- ities of furthering values that do command our ...

Americanism now lost. These judgments might be justified. Each work seems perhaps too overtly to argue didactically for a certai ...

approach, Carroll objects that it is biased in favor of“radical works,”where “most artworks, including most fictions, are not mo ...

fully know in advance where it will lead. As Alexander Nehamas observes, “you can’t know in advance the sort of person [your ima ...

and works that aim as much at entertainment as at art. Attention, even when closely focused on a particular subject matter, may ...

are controversial, but they have clarification much more clearly in view as an aim, even if (some may judge) not wholly successf ...

discrimination, condemn Dickens for his sometime sentimentality, admire the scope and detail of Beethoven’s formal organization, ...