Bøker i Thinking Art-serien

Artistic Creation and Ethical Criticism investigates an idea that underpins the ethical criticism of art but is rarely acknowledged and poorly understood - namely, that the ethical criticism of art involves judgments not only of the attitudes a work endorses or solicits, but of what artists do to create the work. The book pioneers an innovative production-oriented approach to the study of the ethical criticism of art, one that will provide a refinedphilosophical account of this important topic as well as conceptual tools that can guide future philosophizing and criticism.

Attentional Engines explores the potential of the growing field of cognitive sciences and aesthetics. Along the way it introduces readers to the philosophy of art and evaluates what psychology and neuroscience can and cannot tell us about the nature and value of artworks. Seeley utilizes a case study approach to explain how research in perceptual psychology and the neuroscience of attention can contribute to our everyday understanding of art.

This volume presents a new theory of games which insists on games' unique value in human life. C. Thi Nguyen argues that games are an integral part of how we become mature, free people. Bridging aesthetics and practical reasoning, he gives an account of the special motivational structure involved in playing games. We can pursue goals, not for their own value, but for the sake of the struggle. Playing games involves a motivational inversion from normal life, and thefact that we can engage in this motivational inversion lets us use games to experience forms of agency we might never have developed on our own. Games, then, are a special medium for communication.

Aesthetic Life and Why It Matters offers three new answers to Socrates's great question about how we should live, which focus on the place of aesthetic engagement in well-being. Three philosophers offer their perspectives on how aesthetic commitments move us through the world and shape our well-being, our sense of self, and our connections to others.