We explore themes in Nobel Prize–winning economist James M. Buchanan’s work and apply his Ethics and Economic Progress to problems facing individuals and firms. We focus on Buchanan’s analysis of the individual work ethic, his exhortations to “pay the preacher” of the “institutions of moral-ethical communication,” and his notion of law as “public capital.” We highlight several ways people with other-regarding preferences can contribute to social flourishing and some of the ways those who have “affected to trade for the public (...) good” might want to redirect their efforts. We show how Buchanan’s work has considerable implications for business ethics. Just as his economic analysis of politics changed how we understand government, we think his economic analysis of ethics can (and should) change how we understand business. (shrink)

BioShock made a big splash not only for the depth of its subject matter, but also for the way it utilized its video game medium to present its big ideas in a uniquely engaging way. The game weaves many themes into its complicated narrative, complete with shifting identities, science fiction superpowers, and survival‐horror overtones. It is clear that BioShock wants to be taken as a spiritual sequel to Rand's philosophical novel Atlas Shrugged, revealing a possible fate for John Galt's mysterious (...) hidden utopia, sought after for much of the novel but never fully revealed, as the book ends just before Galt discloses his society and its plans for the world. Rand develops her philosophy through fiction because she defines art as a selective re‐creation of reality according to an artist's perspective. That is, a work of art is an artist's take on what it is to be human. (shrink)

What role does race play in the moral judgment of character? None, ideally, philosophers insist, contending that the proper assessment of an action requires that we disregard any social values associated with the body performing it. What rightly comes under evaluation, they assert, is the neutral, abstract deed irrespective of the race of the agent. Only under these conditions, presumably, can we gauge true moral worth. Reading together Immanuel Kant and Frantz Fanon on ethics and race, I propose instead that (...) embodied values such as those accorded by race do not distort the portrait of the ethical subject but rather bring that subjectivity into being. Key Words: blackness • embodiment • ethics • Frantz Fanon • Immanuel • Kant • morality • race • value. (shrink)

Auth: University College London, Distributed by Viking.

Does the ethical value of a work of art ever contribute to its aesthetic value? I argue that when conventionally interpreted as a request for a conceptual analysis the answer to this question is indeterminate. I then propose a different interpretation of the question on which it is understood as a substantial and normative question internal to the practice of aesthetic criticism.

The Value of Art Philosophical discourse concerning the value of art is a discourse concerning what makes an artwork valuable qua its being an artwork. Whereas the concern of the critic is what makes the artwork a good artwork, the question for the aesthetician is why it is a good artwork. When we refer to … Continue reading Value of Art →.

According to the French philosopher Alain, art must regain its existence as a real and solid object to counteract deceitful imagination. In line with this view is Yves Michaud’s description of the “gaseous” state of contemporary art. Paradoxically, the wide circulation of many ‘artistic’ products, destined to be consumed and invoke emotions, does not indicate that we are in presence of an important affirmation of ethical and aesthetical values. As it were, the proliferation of aesthetic objects has destroyed the symbolic (...) value of art. The Italian philosopher Gianni Carchia has underlined how the disappearance of the axiological dimension has led art towards imposture and under the yoke of imagination, which both assist the strategies of the demonic. At this point a question arises: is it possible to eradicate the power of the demonic and evil from our existential condition? According to Jung it’s impossible. In Castelli’s view, the union between art, evil and the demonic has characterized the artistic panorama of the sixteenth century. In the twentieth-century, we owe to Hermann Broch – who brought the raising power of kitsch under philosophical scrutiny − the idea of a complicity between degraded art and evil. Not all scholars agreed that Kitsch represented evil. Many philosophers argued that the growing popularity of Kitsch among the masses posed a problem concerning the demand for art. For this reason, philosophical speculation had better not take a Manichean attitude and reject Kitsch outright, on the contrary, Kitsch should be studied with the aim of transforming the “hunger for art”, of which it is a manifestation, into a desire for ethical and artistic values. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Schopenhauer's Platonism The Feeling of the Sublime The Values of Tragedy Concluding Remarks References.

This volume has 41 chapters written to honor the 100th birthday of Mario Bunge. It celebrates the work of this influential Argentine/Canadian physicist and philosopher. Contributions show the value of Bunge’s science-informed philosophy and his systematic approach to philosophical problems. The chapters explore the exceptionally wide spectrum of Bunge’s contributions to: metaphysics, methodology and philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of physics, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of social science, philosophy of biology, philosophy of technology, moral philosophy, social and (...) political philosophy, medical philosophy, and education. The contributors include scholars from 16 countries. Bunge combines ontological realism with epistemological fallibilism. He believes that science provides the best and most warranted knowledge of the natural and social world, and that such knowledge is the only sound basis for moral decision making and social and political reform. Bunge argues for the unity of knowledge. In his eyes, science and philosophy constitute a fruitful and necessary partnership. Readers will discover the wisdom of this approach and will gain insight into the utility of cross-disciplinary scholarship. This anthology will appeal to researchers, students, and teachers in philosophy of science, social science, and liberal education programmes. 1. Introduction Section I. An Academic Vocation Section II. Philosophy Section III. Physics and Philosophy of Physics Section IV. Cognitive Science and Philosophy of Mind Section V. Sociology and Social Theory Section VI. Ethics and Political Philosophy Section VII. Biology and Philosophy of Biology Section VIII. Mathematics Section IX. Education Section X. Varia Section XI. Bibliography. (shrink)

Despite their recent proliferation in global agricultural commodity chains, little is known about the potential of intersectoral partnerships to improve the position of smallholder farmers and their organizations. This article explores the potential of partnerships by developing a conceptual approach based on the sustainable livelihoods and linking farmers to market perspectives, which is applied in an exploratory study to six partnerships in the coffee sector in Peru. It is concluded that partnerships stimulate the application of standards to receive market access (...) and therefore emphasize human capital development of farmers to facilitate certification. By transferring knowledge to farmers, partnerships present a new source of technological change, which, in combination with certification, holds potential for improved environmental management and price premiums for producers. However, the emphasis on certification results in a comparatively narrow target group of farmers and is associated with high financial burdens for producer organizations. At the same time, other assets of producer organizations are often not strengthened sufficiently for them to operate successfully without further external support. This suggests that preparing producers for certification is prioritized over empowering organizations toward self-dependence. (shrink)

Many instances of art are valuable. Where is this value located? And how is it to be justified? In this paper I reconstruct and critically assess Albert Camus’ answers to these questions. Camus’ theory of the value of art is based on his “logic of the absurd”, i.e., the idea that the human condition is absurd and that we therefore ought to adopt an attitude of revolt. This idea entails that art lacks any intrinsic value. Rather, Camus (...) argues, art is valuable only insofar as it promotes creators’ or recipients’ awareness of the absurd and their attitude of revolt. The main problem with this theory is that it exaggerates the significance of the logic of the absurd for art. Even if the human condition is absurd and we ought to revolt, artistic value cannot plausibly be reduced to these facts. (shrink)

Like many 19th c. thinkers, Kierkegaard embraces a cognitivist view of art. He thinks works of art matter because they can teach us in important ways. This chapter defends two striking features of Kierkegaard’s version of this theory. First, works of art do not teach “directly” by telling us truths and offering us evidence. Instead, they educate us “indirect-ly” by helping us make our own discoveries. Second, the fact that art does not teach in a straightforward manner is no defect. (...) On the contrary, it is precisely because art teaches indirectly that it teaches better than philosophy and science do. (shrink)

This paper is about the notions of the artistic, aesthetic, cognitive and moral value of art and their interconnectedness. The main concern is to try to advocate the cognitivist claim about the artistic value of artworks’ contribution to the advance of knowledge, as well as for the relevance of the moral dimension for artistic value. This is a discussion of the intersection of the debate about moral and aesthetic value. The central part of the paper is (...) focused on a debate with Peter Lamarque. The problem of immoral art-works and their cognitive value is discussed at the end of this paper in order to show that they are counterexamples of the thesis of artistic relevance of the moral dimension. (shrink)

Art, as discussed in the third book of Arthur Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and Representation, plays a double role in his philosophical system. On one hand, beholding an object of aesthetic worth provides the spectator with a temporary cessation of the otherwise incessant suffering that Schopenhauer takes life to be; on the other, art creates an epistemological bridge between ourselves and the world as it really is: unlike science which only studies relations between things, contemplation of art leads to (...) knowledge of that which is “alone really essential to the world, the true content of its phenomena.” (WWR1: 184) It is this second aspect of Schopenhauer's aesthetics that is both appealing and curious: while Schopenhauer's aesthetics and epistemology are both rooted in his picture of the world as Will, which is (taken at face value) deeply counter-intuitive, it yet seems to me that by assigning epistemic value to art, he manages to capture the quality of profundity with which certain works of art strike us – a profundity that is accounted for neither by reference to mere enjoyment nor by reference to paraphrasable, propositional knowledge. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Notes Toward a Definition of “Art” The Values of Art Conclusions: The Case Against Contextualism.

I explore some of the reasons why, under specific circumstances, it may be rational to make-believe or imagine certain religious beliefs. Adopting a jargon familiar to certain contemporary philosophers, my main concern here is to assess what reasons can be given for adopting a fictionalist stance towards some religious beliefs. My understanding of fictionalism does not involve solely a propositional attitude but a broader stance, which may include certain acts of pretence. I also argue that a plausible reason to be (...) fictionalist about a specific set of religious beliefs and practices has to do with the value of some artistic creations; namely, those that require the adoption of a religious point of view for their understanding. (shrink)

Scientists, humanists, and art lovers alike value art not just for its beauty, but also for its social and epistemic importance; that is, for its communicative nature, its capacity to increase one's self-knowledge and encourage personal growth, and its ability to challenge our schemas and preconceptions. However, empirical research tends to discount the importance of such social and epistemic outcomes of art engagement, instead focusing on individuals' preferences, judgments of beauty, pleasure, or other emotional appraisals as the primary outcomes (...) of art appreciation. Here, we argue that a systematic neuroscientific study of art appreciation must move beyond understanding aesthetics alone, and toward investigating the social importance of art appreciation. We make our argument for such a shift in focus first, by situating art appreciation as an active social practice. We follow by reviewing the available psychological and cognitive neuroscientific evidence that art appreciation cultivates socio-epistemic skills such as self- and other-understanding, and discuss philosophical frameworks which suggest a more comprehensive empirical investigation. Finally, we argue that focusing on the socio-epistemic values of art engagement highlights the important role art plays in our lives. Empirical research on art appreciation can thus be used to show that engagement with art has specific social and personal value, the cultivation of which is important to us as individuals, and as communities. (shrink)

The article explores German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer's view on aesthetics and the values of art. It contends that some important aspects of Schopenhauer's discussion of tragedy indicate that the theory that the value of art is deductible to the aesthetic pleasure it affords is inadequate. Moreover, it claims that Schopenhauer attaches great importance to the distinction between concept and idea. It also asserts that Schopenhauer's account of aesthetic experience is inspired by Plato's ideas.

The value of the arts is often measured in terms of human creativity against instrumental rationality, while art for art's sake defends against a utility of art. Such critiques of the technical and formulaic are themselves formulaic, repeating the dualism of the head and the heart. How should we account for this formula? We should do so by investigating its determination within metaphysical and social relations, ancient and modern, and by comprehending the notion of freedom carried therein. This opens (...) up the value of the arts to a modern metaphysics and modern notion of freedom. This value, and this freedom, find currency in a notion of philosophical and political education, and especially in a modern conception of liberal arts education, where freedom is to learn. (shrink)

Virtue-based moral cognitivism holds that at least some of the value of some art consists in conveying knowledge about the nature of virtue and vice. We explore here a challenge to this view, which extends the so-called situationist challenge to virtue ethics. Evidence from social psychology indicates that individuals’ behavior is often susceptible to trivial and normatively irrelevant situational influences. This evidence not only challenges approaches to ethics that emphasize the role of virtue but also undermines versions of moral (...) cognitivism, because the value of art cannot consist in teaching us about traits that do not exist. We thus recommend a new account of the cognitive value of art: art teaches how context and character interact to produce action. (shrink)

The article argues that Schopenhauer seeks to defend art against Plato's critique, but that he does so by adopting two distinct strategies that to some extent conflect: a 'cognitivist strategy' according to which art provides the most objective knowledge of reality, and an 'aesthetic experience' strategy, in which there is a peculiarly aesthetic state of mind which gives our pleasure in art a value of its own. The truly unifying notion in Schopenhauer's aesthetic theory is that of tranquil, will-less (...) contemplation, a state of non-identification with the striving, suffering, bodily individual that one is. The Ideas testify to the endurance of Schopenhauer's early Platonic ambitions, but they do not really produce a convincing theory. At one end of the spectrum, the Ideas are otiose: pleasure is in the tranquility of contemplation, which may well be of an empirical object. At the other end of the spectrum, apprehension of the Ideas serves an all-important cognitive function, but our pleasure cannot stem from our knowing the horrifying Idea of humanity per se. Rather, the key to the satisfaction we take in tragedy is, in Schopenhauer's account, the will-lessness of sublime resignation in face of the Idea. (shrink)

This article explores the possible interpretations—and the implications of those interpretations—of a comment about the importance of art made by Yasunari Kawabata (1899–1972), later the first Japanese Nobel laureate for literature: that “looking at old works of art is a matter of life and death.” (In 1949, Kawabata visited Hiroshima in his capacity as president of the Japan literary society P.E.N. to inspect the damage caused by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima that helped end World War II. On his way (...) back to his home in Kamakura, he stopped in Kyoto. He came under severe criticism for “sightseeing” at such a time. This comment was his response.) The introduction explains why we should take him seriously as a commentator on art. The body of the article examines why our looking at art might be more, not less, important after the post-War situation, the kinds of art Kawabata might have meant, why some possibilities are more likely than others, and how they differ in what they offer us and the value of art under conditions of trauma and mass trauma. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 40.4 (2006) 51-64 MuseSearchJournalsThis JournalContents[Access article in PDF]Art as Symbolic Form: Cassirer on the Educational Value of ArtThora Ilin BayerIntroductionAmong the papers that Ernst Cassirer left at his death in 1945 is a fully written out lecture labeled "Seminar of Education, March 10th, 1943," which also bears the title "The Educational Value of Art." It may have been prepared for a session (...) of Cassirer's seminar at Yale for that spring on Aesthetics: Symbolic Forms, the second half of a yearlong course. 1 The text begins with discussion of the Platonic quarrel with the poets and moves through views of various thinkers, especially Croce and Collingwood. Cassirer had planned to have a volume on art included in The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, in addition to those on Language,Mythical Thought, and The Phenomenology of Knowledge. 2 In these three volumes he often mentions the triad of language, myth, and art, but he says little of art as such.In May 1942 in a letter to Paul Schilpp, the American philosopher and editor of the volume of critical essays on Cassirer's work in the Library of Living Philosophers series, Cassirer wrote that he had intended to produce a volume on art but the disfavor (Ungunst) of the times caused him to put it off again and again. 3 The principal sources of Cassirer's aesthetics are his chapter on art in An Essay on Man 4 and two lectures on the educational value of art called "Language and Art I & II," 5 which parallel his earlier small study, Language and Myth. 6 Cassirer's conception of art as a symbolic form is derived from his conception of human culture as a systematic structure of symbolic forms that has as its main components myth and religion, language, art, history, and science (the chapter titles of the second part of An Essay on Man). In addition to these forms of culture there is a "metaphysics of symbolic forms," the subject of a fourth volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, left in manuscript at his death. 7 [End Page 51]I wish to raise two questions: (1) How does Cassirer conceive of art as a symbolic form? and (2) What are the implications of his conception for a conception of the ideals of aesthetic education? My aim in pursuing these questions is not to argue for the correctness of Cassirer's views but to attempt to establish what his views in fact are. Little has been written directly on Cassirer's conception of art relative to the frequency with which his name is mentioned in general discussions of aesthetics. 8 Cassirer's conception of education is a nearly unexamined subject. 9The Platonic Quarrel: MimesisCassirer says: "Of all the problems that we have to study in a philosophy of education, the problem of the educational value of art is one of the most difficult ones." 10 He claims that this problem goes back to the beginning of philosophy itself and that at present we are still very far from a generally accepted solution. Plato's famous quarrel with the poets in the tenth book of the Republic is important not simply for an understanding of ancient aesthetics but also for philosophy's conception of itself.The basic tenets of this quarrel are well known. I wish to review them here toward the goal of suggesting an original view of it that is derivable from Cassirer's approach. The issue is whether poetry or philosophy is the means to truth. The works of Homer had scriptural status for the Greeks and were thought to contain all that was necessary for civil wisdom. Poiein is to make and compose poetry. The ancient poet is a maker of truth claims through language. The quarrel rests on the fact that the philosopher is also a maker of truth claims formulated in words. Is the relatively new figure in Plato's time of the philosophos, the friend or lover... (shrink)

Mojca Kuplen connects 18th-century German aesthetics to contemporary theories of self-knowledge in order to highlight the unique cognitive value of art. She does this through revisiting Kant's account of aesthetic ideas, and demonstrating how works of art can increase our understanding of abstract concepts whilst promoting self-knowledge. Addressing some of the most fundamental questions in contemporary aesthetics and philosophy of art, this study covers the value and importance of art, the relationship between art and beauty, the role of (...) knowledge in art and the criteria for artistic excellence. It offers an insight into problems related to the apprehension of meaning and the cognitive processing of abstract representations that have been of interest to contemporary cognitive science. Kant's Aesthetic Cognitivism presents these arguments in a lucid and wide-ranging engagement with the history of aesthetics and current academic debates to understand what art is and why it is valuable. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 40.4 (2006) 51-64 MuseSearchJournalsThis JournalContents[Access article in PDF]Art as Symbolic Form: Cassirer on the Educational Value of ArtThora Ilin BayerIntroductionAmong the papers that Ernst Cassirer left at his death in 1945 is a fully written out lecture labeled "Seminar of Education, March 10th, 1943," which also bears the title "The Educational Value of Art." It may have been prepared for a session (...) of Cassirer's seminar at Yale for that spring on Aesthetics: Symbolic Forms, the second half of a yearlong course. 1 The text begins with discussion of the Platonic quarrel with the poets and moves through views of various thinkers, especially Croce and Collingwood. Cassirer had planned to have a volume on art included in The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, in addition to those on Language,Mythical Thought, and The Phenomenology of Knowledge. 2 In these three volumes he often mentions the triad of language, myth, and art, but he says little of art as such.In May 1942 in a letter to Paul Schilpp, the American philosopher and editor of the volume of critical essays on Cassirer's work in the Library of Living Philosophers series, Cassirer wrote that he had intended to produce a volume on art but the disfavor (Ungunst) of the times caused him to put it off again and again. 3 The principal sources of Cassirer's aesthetics are his chapter on art in An Essay on Man 4 and two lectures on the educational value of art called "Language and Art I & II," 5 which parallel his earlier small study, Language and Myth. 6 Cassirer's conception of art as a symbolic form is derived from his conception of human culture as a systematic structure of symbolic forms that has as its main components myth and religion, language, art, history, and science (the chapter titles of the second part of An Essay on Man). In addition to these forms of culture there is a "metaphysics of symbolic forms," the subject of a fourth volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, left in manuscript at his death. 7 [End Page 51]I wish to raise two questions: (1) How does Cassirer conceive of art as a symbolic form? and (2) What are the implications of his conception for a conception of the ideals of aesthetic education? My aim in pursuing these questions is not to argue for the correctness of Cassirer's views but to attempt to establish what his views in fact are. Little has been written directly on Cassirer's conception of art relative to the frequency with which his name is mentioned in general discussions of aesthetics. 8 Cassirer's conception of education is a nearly unexamined subject. 9The Platonic Quarrel: MimesisCassirer says: "Of all the problems that we have to study in a philosophy of education, the problem of the educational value of art is one of the most difficult ones." 10 He claims that this problem goes back to the beginning of philosophy itself and that at present we are still very far from a generally accepted solution. Plato's famous quarrel with the poets in the tenth book of the Republic is important not simply for an understanding of ancient aesthetics but also for philosophy's conception of itself.The basic tenets of this quarrel are well known. I wish to review them here toward the goal of suggesting an original view of it that is derivable from Cassirer's approach. The issue is whether poetry or philosophy is the means to truth. The works of Homer had scriptural status for the Greeks and were thought to contain all that was necessary for civil wisdom. Poiein is to make and compose poetry. The ancient poet is a maker of truth claims through language. The quarrel rests on the fact that the philosopher is also a maker of truth claims formulated in words. Is the relatively new figure in Plato's time of the philosophos, the friend or lover... (shrink)

A work using Wittgenstein's concept of philosophy to argue against the possibility of theories that seek to define art. It claims that the problems about identification and evaluation of works of art is that these problems are not theoretical, but grow out of our artistic traditions and practice.

Susanne Langer sees the ‘the public importance of art’ as one of ‘the ultimate questions in a philosophy of art’. Indeed, Langer is often referred to as an authority on the justification of art education and is cited as providing good reasons for incorporating the arts in the curriculum. It is therefore surprising to note, as Elliot Eisner does, that Langer’s theory has had little influence on actual art education. For while many theoreticians in the social sciences and education have (...) found Langer’s contribution to the understanding of the arts highly significant, Eisner laments that ‘alas, the lesson Susanne Langer was trying to teach … in her remarkable book, never took hold in … American public schools’. It seems that policy-makers outside of art education circles remain sceptical regarding the need for art education. The substantiation of art education requires firm ground against scepticism. It is therefore important to understand the ways in which Langer’s project fails to fulfil its promise. In examining Langer’s aesthetic theory, I will show that despite its philosophical acuity, Langer’s argument fails to persuade the art education sceptic who believes that art occupies a minor role in education and should therefore remain marginal in the school curriculum. (shrink)

The act of mindreading has been recognized to have great moral and epistemic value. Unfortunately, psychological research has shown that we are naturally inaccurate at mindreading, which should worry us quite a bit. It has also been shown that when motivated to mindread well, subjects become more accurate. In this paper I argue that some kinds of artwork—specifically, those utilizing dramatic irony—can educate us as to how valuable accurate mindreading is and motivate us to try to mindread well. The (...) primary example I discuss is Alfred Hitchcock’s film Notorious. (shrink)

This paper approaches the topic of visual art in medical education from a philosophical perspective, drawing on arguments from epistemology, philosophy of science, aesthetics, and contemporary ethical theory. Several medical ethicists have noted that the traditional clinical paradigm may increase the epistemic and emotional distance between patient and physician in part by focusing on the physical body and medical technology. Some of these same writers recommend a new approach to patients based on empathy and increased attention to suffering. After reviewing (...) these arguments, supporting examples, and recommendations, I explain how visual art that expresses or symbolizes the emotional response to illness could be used to introduce an additional paradigm into medical education. This would be a paradigm based on empathetic attention to patients' emotional experiences in illness. My own argument is that this additional way of perceiving and relating to patients may reduce the distance between patient and physician and may allow physicians to better meet the ideal of treating the patient as a person. (shrink)

It is argued that instrumentalizing the value of art does an injustice to artistic appreciation and provides a hostage to fortune. Whilst aestheticism offers an intellectual bulwark against such an approach, it focuses on what is distinctive of art at the expense of broader artistic values. It is argued that artistic appreciation and creativity involve not just skills but excellences of character. The nature of particular artistic or appreciative virtues and vices are briefly explored, such as snobbery, aestheticism and (...) creativity, in order to motivate a virtue theoretic approach. Artistic virtues are intrinsically valuable excellences of character that enable us to create or appreciate all sorts of things from everyday recipes to the finest achievements of humankind. Such an approach offers a new way to resist the age old temptation to instrumentalize the values of art. (shrink)