Dear all, This to remind you that tomorrow 30th April at 11am there will be a meeting of the Cambridge Mind Seminar. Prof. Sonia Sedivy (Toronto) will give a paper titled “Aesthetic Properties and Philosophy of Perception”. Aesthetic Properties and Philosophy of Perception
The aim of this paper is to bring consideration of aesthetic properties to the table in theories of visual perception. I address two debates: (i) whether perception is purely relational, contentful or both; and (ii) the extent and form that understanding of categories – or conceptual capacities – take in perception. I focus on some aesthetic properties: those that are experiential and for which strong argument has been made that they depend on the historical category to which the object belongs. The paper begins by reconstructing arguments for the historical nature of art by Arthur C. Danto and Kendall L. Walton. The paper goes on to argue that relational views of experience by Charles Travis and John Campbell cannot explain experience of aesthetic properties determined by historical categories of art. This pits relational theories of art against the intuitive view that some aesthetic properties are experienced and against argumentation such as Danto and Walton’s for the dependence of some aesthetic properties on historical categories of art. I argue that this cost is too high. A theory of perception needs to be able to explain experience of some aesthetic properties. This suggests that we need to explain how understanding of categories helps secure our perceptual relation to individuals and some of their properties. The meeting will take place from 11:00-13:00 in the Old Senior Combination Room, Queens’ College. Refreshments will be provided. The Cambridge Mind Seminar is an advanced philosophy of mind seminar with short talks by local and not-so-local people, followed by discussion. All best, Maarten _______________________ Dr Maarten Steenhagen Lecturer and Director of Studies Faculty of Philosophy / Queens’ College University of Cambridge _____________________________________________________ To unsubscribe from the CamPhilEvents mailing list, or change your membership options, please visit the list information page: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEvents List archive: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEventsArchive Please note that CamPhilEvents doesn't accept email attachments. See the list information page for further details and suggested alternatives.
