Really Boring Art
Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 8 (30):190-218 (2022)
Abstract
There is little question as to whether there is good boring art, though its existence raises a number of questions for both the philosophy of art and the philosophy of emotions. How can boredom ever be a desideratum of art? How can our standing commitments concerning the nature of aesthetic experience and artistic value accommodate the existence of boring art? How can being bored constitute an appropriate mode of engagement with a work of art as a work of art? More broadly, how can there be works of art whose very success requires the experience of boredom? Our goal in this paper is threefold. After offering a brief survey of kinds of boring art, we: i) derive a set of questions that we argue constitutes the philosophical problem of boring art; ii) elaborate an empirically informed theory of boredom that furnishes the philosophical problem with a deeper sense of the affect at the heart of the phenomenon; and iii) conclude by offering and defending a solution to the problem that explains why and how artworks might wish to make the experience of boredom key to their aesthetic and artistic success.Author Profiles
Reprint years
2021
DOI
10.3998/ergo.2231
My notes
Similar books and articles
Boredom, Human Psychology, and Immortality.Andreas Elpidorou - 2021 - American Philosophical Quarterly 58 (4):259-372.
Immortality and Boredom.John Martin Fischer & Benjamin Mitchell-Yellin - 2014 - The Journal of Ethics 18 (4):353-372.
Is boredom one or many? A functional solution to the problem of heterogeneity.Andreas Elpidorou - 2021 - Mind and Language 36 (3):491-511.
The Significance of Boredom: A Sartrean Reading.Andreas Elpidorou - 2015 - In Daniel Dahlstrom, Andreas Elpidorou & Walter Hopp (eds.), Philosophy of Mind and Phenomenology: Conceptual and Empirical Approaches. Routledge.
The bored mind is a guiding mind: toward a regulatory theory of boredom.Andreas Elpidorou - 2018 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 17 (3):455-484.
Henri Lefebvre and the 'Sociology of Boredom'.Michael E. Gardiner - 2012 - Theory, Culture and Society 29 (2):37-62.
The Moral Dimensions of Boredom: A call for research.Andreas Elpidorou - 2017 - Review of General Psychology 21 (1):30-48.
Is Profound Boredom Boredom?Andreas Elpidorou & Lauren Freeman - 2019 - In Christos Hadjioannou (ed.), Heidegger on Affect. Palgrave.
Boredom and Wonder in the Work of Arthur Schopenhauer.Luke Wadhams - 2019 - Idealistic Studies 49 (3):235-258.
Boring thoughts and bored minds: The MAC model of boredom and cognitive engagement.Erin C. Westgate & Timothy D. Wilson - 2018 - Psychological Review 125 (5):689-713.
Analytics
Added to PP
2021-01-20
Downloads
392 (#29,206)
6 months
84 (#11,654)
2021-01-20
Downloads
392 (#29,206)
6 months
84 (#11,654)
Historical graph of downloads
Author Profiles
Citations of this work
Replies to Contesi, Hardcastle, Pismenny, and Gallegos.Andreas Elpidorou - 2022 - Journal of Philosophy of Emotion 3 (2):44-77.
References found in this work
Mimesis as Make-Believe: On the Foundations of the Representational Arts.Kendall L. Walton - 1990 - Harvard University Press.
Being for Beauty: Aesthetic Agency and Value.Dominic Lopes - 2018 - Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
Mimesis as Make-Believe: On the Foundations of the Representational Arts.Kendall L. Walton - 1990 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 49 (2):161-166.
Mimesis as Make-Believe: On the Foundations of the Representational Arts.Kendall L. WALTON - 1990 - Philosophy 66 (258):527-529.