Philosophy of Art: New Directions Conference, University of Padova, 12 and 13 September 2019

 

We are pleased to announce that the Conference “Philosophy of Art: New Directions” will take place on September 12th and 13th 2019 at the FISPPA Department (Philosophy Division) of the University of Padova. It will be the mid-term conference of the research project “A Philosophy of Art Installation”, to be followed by the final conference “Space, Site, Installation. Philosophy, Art Theory and Art Practice” in March 2020.

Venue: Aula Diano, Palazzo Liviano, Piazza Capitaniato, 7, Padova

 

September 12

 

8.50-9.00 Opening

 

Chair: Elisa Caldarola (Padova)

9.00-10.00 Francisca Pérez Carreño (Murcia), Beyond Fiction: about The Role of Imagination in Literature

10.00-11.00 Kalle Puollakka (Helsinki), Trust in Literature

 

11.00-11.30 Coffee break

 

Chair: Matteo Ravasio (Beijing)

11.30-12.30 Alessandro Bertinetto (Torino), The Aesthetics of Photographic Improvisation. A Work in Progress

12.30-13.30 Nemesio García-Carril Puy (Granada), Ontological Challenges in Musical Authenticity and The Nested Types Solution

 

13.30-15.00 Lunch

 

Chair: Lisa Giombini (Roma Tre)

15.00-16.00 Simona Chiodo (Milano, Politecnico), The Beautiful, The Sublime and The City

16.00-17.00 Xavier De Donato Rodriguez (Santiago de Compostela), Environmental Integralism: New Prospects for The Ontology, The Aesthetics and the Ethics of Architectural Works

 

17.00-17.30 Coffee break

 

Chair: Alessandro Bertinetto (Torino)

17.30-18.30 Lisa Giombini (Roma Tre), Objects and Symbols. How Should WeRespect Architectural Property?

18.30-19.30 Elisa Caldarola (Padova), Understanding Site-specific Art

 

20.30 Dinner, Ristorante “Alle Piazze”, Via Manin, 10, Padova

 

 

September 13

 

Chair: Gabriele Tomasi (Padova)

9.00-10.00 Michael Morris (Sussex), Art and Metaphysics

10.00-11.00 Jerrold Levinson (Maryland), Kafka’s “Underground Man”: Reflections on The Burrow

 

11.00-11.30 Coffee break

 

Chair: Marcello Ghilardi (Padova)

11.30-12.30 Laura Di Summa – Knoop (William Paterson, NJ), Fashion, Style, and Identity

12.30-13.30 Andrea Borghini (Milano), Cooking and Dining as Forms of Public Art

 

13.30-15.00 Lunch

 

Chair: Laura Di Summa (William Paterson, NJ)

15.00-16.00 Davide Dal Sasso (Torino), Investigating Conceptualism in Philosophy of Art

16.00-17.00 Marcello Ghilardi (Padova), A Pathway among Different Cultures: an East-West Dialogue through Art and Aesthetics

17.00-18.00 Matteo Ravasio (Beijing), Artistic Genres across Cultures

 

Commentators: Simone Grigoletto, Francesca Marin, Vittorio Morato, Matteo Plebani, Barbara Santini, Giuseppe Spolaore

 

Organizers: Elisa Caldarola, Gabriele Tomasi

Info: elisa.caldarola@gmail.com

 

 

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Monday, 24th June 2019, Louise Hanson (University of Durham), “Robust Moral Realism and Robust Aesthetic Realism”

Venue: Sala Stefanini, Piazza Capitaniato, 3 – Padova, 16.30-18.30

Abstract: Many philosophers find robust moral realism (RMR) appealing. They find it plausible that there are moral truths, and that these are entirely independent of what anybody happens to think and how anybody happens to feel. But pretty much no one is inclined towards robust realism about beauty (RAR). And even philosophers who do not themselves accept robust moral realism, take it to be a respectable position worth engaging with. Not so with robust aesthetic realism!

The mainstream view is that robust realism is more tenable in the moral case than it is in the aesthetic case. There are two ways that this could be correct. The first way is Obstacle Asymmetry: RAR faces obstacles that RMR doesn’t face. The second is Motivation Asymmetry: RMR is better motivated than RAR – there are compelling arguments for RMR that lack counterparts in the aesthetic case.

This paper considers Motivation Asymmetry. I argue that there is no good reason to think it holds. I consider the three main kinds of argument that are commonly taken to motivate RMR, and I argue that each has an equally compelling aesthetic counterpart.

(i) Extensional Adequacy: Anything short of RMR is committed to implausible claims about is morally right and wrong

(ii) Morality: Anything short of RMR is committed to morally objectionable claims

(iii) Categorical Imperatives: Moral requirements are categorical, and RMR is the only position that can accommodate this.

If I am right, then in the absence of further arguments for RMR, we should take robust realism to be no less well-motivated in the aesthetic case than in the moral case.

This is a surprising result. Metaethicists often talk as though the considerations that motivate RMR are specifically moral ones, and as though RAR is not correspondingly well-motivated.

 

The Aesthetics Lecture Series is part of the Analytic Philosophy and Philosophy of Art Graduate Seminar organized by Prof. Massimiliano Carrara, Prof. Giuseppe Spolaore, Prof. Gabriele Tomasi, Dr. Elisa Caldarola, and Dr. Vittorio Morato for the academic year 2018-2019 at the FISPPA Department (Philosophy, Sociology, Pedagogy, and Applied Psychology) of the University of Padova, Italy.

The Aesthetics Lecture Series is funded by the University of Padova through the initiative “Supporting TAlent in ReSearch@University of Padova” – STARS Grants (Starting Grant 2018-2020, APAI – “A Philosophy of Art Installation”, P.I. Dr. Elisa Caldarola).

Talk “Understanding Site-specific Art” at the European Society of Aesthetics Conference, Warsaw

I’ve refined my arguments on site-specific art and on June 14th I’m presenting a revised talk at the Conference of the European Society of Aesthetics in Warsaw.

Here’s the conference program.

Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Maintenance Art: Inside, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT (1973)

 

Monday, 10 June 2019, Aesthetic Normativity Workshop, with Alfred Archer (TiLPS), John Dyck (CUNY), Serena Feloj (Pavia) and Lauren Ware (Kent)

Venue: Sala Bortolami, Via Vescovado, 30 – Padova

Program

10.00 – 11.15
John Dyck, CUNY, There Are No Aesthetic Obligations                                                 Comments: Giuseppe Spolaore, Padova

11.15 – 11.30                                                                                                                                     Break

11.30 – 12.45
Alfred Archer, TiLPS, What We Cannot Learn from Saints and Heroes                       Comments: Simone Grigoletto, Padova

12.45 – 15.00                                                                                                                                     Lunch

15.00 – 16.15
Serena Feloj, Pavia, Aesthetic Normativity: A Regulative Approach                          Comments: Barbara Santini, Padova

16.15 – 16.30                                                                                                                                  Break

16.30 – 17.45
Lauren Ware, Kent, The Show Must Go On: Obligatory selfies, aesthetic self-creation, and choice                                                                                                                                       Comments: Elisa Caldarola, Padova

 

Abstracts

John Dyck, There Are No Aesthetic Obligations  

Do aesthetic reasons ever have normative authority over us? Could there be anything like an aesthetic ‘ought’? Some philosophers have argued that there are. I argue to the contrary: There are no aesthetic oughts. We have reasons to act certain ways regarding various aesthetic objects—most notably, reasons to attend to and appreciate those objects. But, I argue, these reasons never amount to duties. This is because aesthetic reasons are evaluative, not deontic. They can only entice us or invite us—they can never compel us. To put it another way: Beauty gives us goods without shoulds.

Alfred Archer, What we Cannot Learn From Saints and Heroes

What can we learn about morality from saints and heroes? According to many, particularly virtue ethicists, moral exemplars have a key role to play in moral development and moral education. More recently Linda Zagzebski (2017) has defended a moral theory in which exemplars play a foundational role. In this paper, I want to consider one specific debate in which the testimony of saints and heroes plays an important role: the debate concerning the existence of acts of supererogation. Acts that go beyond the call of duty are thought to present a problem because they seem to rule out a close connection between what we have moral reason to do and what we are morally required to do. One way to respond to this problem is to deny that such acts exist. Those who make this move typically appeal to the testimony of moral exemplars that suggest that these acts are actually morally required. In this paper I will argue that this testimony does not provide independent evidence against the existence of acts of supererogation. I will do so in part by appealing to similar testimony from aesthetic exemplars. I will finish by arguing that the testimony from both forms of exemplars instead tells us something important about the nature of ideals.

Serena Feloj, Pavia, Aesthetic Normativity: A Regulative Approach

In the light of the current debate on aesthetic normativity, the role played by the aesthetic judgment within Kant’s account has possibly all it takes to be a real game changer. The notion of normativity has been indeed key to an actualizing reading of the subjective universality that for Kant characterizes the aesthetic judgment. However, in the scholarly literature little discussion is made, somehow unsurprisingly, of what exactly we should understand by normativity when it comes to Kant’s aesthetic. I will argue that the sentimentalist elements of Kant’s account call for a revision of its normative interpretations, for a better framing of its subjective universalism, and finally for a reconsideration of aesthetic normativity in favour of regulativity and exemplarity. This will allow a regulative approach to the aesthetic normativity that would like to contribute to a better definition of it within the contemporary debate.

Lauren Ware, The Show Must Go On: Obligatory selfies, aesthetic self-creation, and choice

When beauty beckons, must we accept the invitation? If we accept, are we aesthetically blameworthy to later cancel? Robbie Kubala has recently offered a defence of the existence of aesthetic obligations, grounding them in “the connections that certain aesthetic considerations have to our practical identities” (2018, 271). To the extent that we can make self-promises, we can generate aesthetic obligations when those promises concern aesthetic objects. In this paper, I raise two concerns for Kubala’s claim: the first regarding whether accepting this grounding commits us to a disconcerting level of control over our choice of what, and who, we love; the second regarding whether accepting this grounding commits us to ritual self-destruction.

 

The Aesthetic Normativity Workshop is part of the Analytic Philosophy and Philosophy of Art Graduate Seminar organized by Prof. Massimiliano Carrara, Prof. Giuseppe Spolaore, Prof. Gabriele Tomasi, Dr. Elisa Caldarola, and Dr. Vittorio Morato for the academic year 2018-2019 at the FISPPA Department (Philosophy, Sociology, Pedagogy, and Applied Psychology) of the University of Padova, Italy.

The Aesthetic Normativity Workshop is funded by the University of Padova through the initiative “Supporting TAlent in ReSearch@University of Padova” – STARS Grants (Starting Grant 2018-2020, APAI – “A Philosophy of Art Installation”, P.I. Dr. Elisa Caldarola).

A must-take picture – Copyright: Elisa Caldarola