Tokyo Forum For Analytic Philosophy

Program

Friday 29 Nov 2024
Joel van Fossen

Aesthetic Appreciation and Aesthetic Engagement (co-authored with Daniel Star (Boston University))

Speaker: Joel van Fossen
From: Hosei University
URL: http://gis.hosei.ac.jp/cms/?professor=joel-van-fossen
Abstract: In this paper, we argue that aesthetic appreciation is primarily a mental process rather than a state, like a judgment or belief. We contrast our account of appreciation with philosopher C. Thi Nguyen’s “inverted structure” theory of aesthetic engagement. While Nguyen emphasizes the importance of processes in aesthetics, we contend that his account misinterprets the relationship between aesthetic judgment and appreciation. In the first section, we clarify our conception of appreciation and how it differs from both Nguyen’s view and traditional accounts of aesthetic judgment. In the second section, we critique Nguyen’s approach to aesthetic engagement, arguing that engagement is best understood as an attempt at appreciation. In the third and final section of the paper, we argue our account of appreciation better accommodates and explains various intuitions regarding the role of testimony in our aesthetic lives, after first providing a way of understanding aesthetic engagement that is, we contend, preferable to Nguyen’s account of engagement. We also contrast our account of aesthetic engagement with what Nick Riggle has to say about aesthetic engagement in order to bring out what we take to be the right lessons to draw about the social dimension of engagement.

 
 
Friday 13 Dec 2024
Heng Ying

Moral Revolutionaries and Ignorance

Speaker: Heng Ying
From: University of Hong Kong
URL: https://philpeople.org/profiles/heng-ying
Abstract: Contemporary studies of moral progress drive real-world progress by acknowledging moral revolutionaries—people who lead progressive movements—and criticizing others for being morally ignorant and obstructing moral progress. This leader-driven model of progressive changes, under the individualist culture that requires people to live authentically and be responsible for their own actions, mobilizes people to follow moral revolutionaries, rather than challenging them. Moral revolutionaries, however, are prone to an ignorance that is currently understudied. Rooted in their challenge of cultural and societal moral norms, their faith in their moral rightness turns them away from seeing the values they neglect in their moral thinking, and they perpetuate the moral solutions derived from their endorsed values to be the supreme ideals of society. When we stick to the leader-driven model, we pursue the society envisioned by moral revolutionaries, but we simultaneously deviate from an open and tolerant culture by excluding alternative forms of society.

 
 
Friday 10 Jan 2025
Josh Armstrong

TBA

Speaker: Josh Armstrong
From: UCLA
URL: https://www.josharmstrongphilosophy.net/
Abstract: TBA

 
 
Friday 4 Apr 2025
Kengo Miyazono

TBA

Speaker: Kengo Miyazono
From: Hokkaido University
URL: http://kengomiyazono.weebly.com
Abstract: TBA

 
 
Friday 18 Apr 2025
Margot Strohminger

TBA

Speaker: Margot Strohminger
From: Australian Catholic University
URL: https://webpublic.acu.edu.au/staffdirectory/?margot-strohminger=
Abstract: TBA

 
 
Friday 2 May 2025
Eva Weber-Guskar

TBA

Speaker: Eva Weber-Guskar
From: Ruhr-University Bochum
URL: https://www.pe.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/philosophie/i/phil-ethik-emotion/index.html.en
Abstract: TBA

 
 
Friday 27 Jun 2025
Bronwyn Finnigan

TBA

Speaker: Bronwyn Finnigan
From: Australian National University
URL: http://bronwynfinnigan.com
Abstract: TBA