Contemporary Philosophy of Art

Book excerpt: An anthology of contemporary readings in analytic aesthetics, this reference reflects the relationships among the central aesthetic concerns of recent years. Providing a new perspective on the contemporary philosophy of art, this volume examines the challenge of Postmodernism and how it may or may not affect the future of analytic aesthetics ... offers a case study of the progress that has been made in handling the problem of expression in the arts ... reconceptualizes the concepts of the art work, its properties, and our experience and evaluation of it -- to take into account an expanding cultural, sociological contextualization, i.e., art as a culturally emergent product of social institutions and conventions ... features several readings organized around clusters of writers discussing each other's ideas and proposals, including: Beardsley, Dickie, and Blizek -- Wolterstorff, Levinson, and Bender -- Stolnitz and Dickie -- Beardsley, Margolis, and Novitz -- and Sibley and Dickie. Suitable for professionals in the art industry and anyone interested in the philosophy or aesthetics of art.