FWS: Art and the Mind

Spring 2013

Time: Tues/Thurs 10:10-11:25

Instructor: Associate Professor Nico Silins

Office: 219 Goldwin Smith Hall

Office Hours: Tues 3-4 or (easily) by appointment

Email: ns338@cornell.edu

Course Description

A writing-intensive survey of topics in the philosophy of art, with an emphasis on issues about the mind.

Required Texts

All readings will be available on Blackboard or elsewhere online.

Evaluation

Papers: 75%

Paper One: 3-5 pages. 5%.

Paper Two: 3-5 pages. 10%.

Paper Three: 6-8 pages. 20%.

Paper Four: 3-5 pages. 10%.

Paper Five: 3-5 pages. 10%.

Paper Six: 6-8 pages. 20%.

Reading Responses: 15%

You must write a 250-500 word reading response to each new text we read (if we’re having another section on a text you’ve already responded to, you don’t need to write a new response).

When you write your response, please mention what you find to be one good thing and one bad thing about how the reading assignment was written.

Participation: 10%

The participation grade is based on your overall engagement with the course, including attendance, classroom discussion, and individual meetings. Please note: it takes into account both the quality and quantity of your participation.

Policies

Late papers and assignments will be marked down by 1/3 of a letter grade for each day the paper is late (e.g., from A- to B+, from B+ to B, and so on).

You are responsible for following Cornell’s Code of Academic Integrity, available at <http://cuinfo.cornell.edu/Academic/AIC.html>. For the record: plagiarism is sufficient grounds for an F in the course.

Also, there are many online resources about the material we will cover. Many of them are terrible. I would prefer that you not use any of them. If you do use some, make sure you cite them.

I will readily accommodate religious holidays and disabilities, but please give me advance notice of any such accommodation you might need.

Readings (subject to change)

1/22: Brief Course Introduction

Part One: The Philosophy of Fiction

1/24: Emotional Responses to Fiction, I

Walton, “Fearing Fictions”

1/29: Emotional Responses to Fiction, II

Walton reading continued

Carroll, “On Kendall Walton’s Mimesis as Make-Believe”

1/31: Paper Workshop

Rough Draft Due

2/5: “The Paradox of Horror”, I

Hume, “Of Tragedy”

2/7: “The Paradox of Horror”, II

Gaut, “The Paradox of Horror” Carroll, “Enjoying Horror Fictions: A Reply to Gaut”

*****First Paper due at 12pm on Monday 2/11*****

2/12: Truth in Fiction

Currie, “The Structure of Stories”

2/14: Meaning and Intention

Wimsatt and Beardsley, “The Intentional Fallacy”

Part Two: Representation

2/19: Musical Expression, I

Boghossian, “On Hearing the Music in the Sound”

Boghossian, “Explaining Musical Experience”

2/21: Paper Workshop

Rough draft due

*****Second Paper due at 12pm on Monday 2/25*****

2/26: Musical Expression, II

Boghossian readings continued

2/28, 3/5: Pictorial Representation, I

Goodman, Languages of Art, selection

3/7: Pictorial Representation, II

Wollheim, “On Pictorial Representation”, “In Defense of Seeing-In”

Budd, “On Looking at a Picture”

*****Third Paper due at 12pm on Monday 3/11*****

3/12, 3/14: Photography as a way of seeing

Walton, “Transparent Pictures: On the Nature of Photographic Realism”

SPRING BREAK: no class on 3/19, 3/21

Part Three: Evaluation

3/26, 3/28: Photography and Value

Lopes, “The Aesthetics of Photographic Transparency”

Scruton, “Photography and Representation”

4/2: Paper workshop

Rough draft due

4/4: Aesthetic Experience

Dickie, “The Myth of the Aesthetic Attitude”

*****Fourth Paper due at 12pm on Monday 4/8*****

4/9, 4/11: Realism and Relativism

Hume, “Of the Standard of Taste”

4/16, 4/18: Realism and Relativism continued

Boghossian, NYT piece

Walton, “Categories of Art”

Sibley, “Aesthetic Concepts”

*****Fifth Paper due at 12pm on Monday 4/22*****

4/23: Do you have to experience art yourself to judge it?

Hopkins, ”Beauty and Testimony”

4/25: Taste and Testimony

Robson, “Taste-imony”

4/30: Fake and Forgeries: What if two artworks produce the same experience?

Goodman, “Art and Authenticity”, selection

Dutton, “Artistic Crimes: The Problem of Forgery in the Arts”

Lessing, “What is Wrong with a Forgery?”

5/2: Conceptual Art: What if appreciation requires no experience?

Shelly, “The Problem of Non-Perceptual Art”

*****Sixth paper due at 5pm on Friday 5/10*****