We can distinguish three different approaches in philosophy of art. They have consequences for art ontology, appreciation, and the nature of genre.
TL;DR: Some stuff about norms. The third approach, social practicism, needs a better name.
Continue reading “Social practicism about art”I regularly teach a course called Understanding Science, an introduction to some issues in philosophy of science and science studies. One topic is the nature of inference: deduction, the fact that scientific inference is (largely) non-deductive, and the problem of induction.1
Continue reading “What to call the fact that science traffics in assumptions?”Continue reading “The heart of a lion and the wings of a bat”Limozeen’s so-called cover of “We Don’t Really Even Care About You” takes disaffected, lo-fi ‘90s indie rock and belts it out in the style of an ‘80s hair metal band—as if Poison were to cover Pavement.
at Aesthetics for Birds
After recent posts about AI image generation, I’ve been mulling over whether there are any interesting philosophical lessons. Despite the title, this is not a post about AI and the twilight of capitalism. Instead, it’s about the would-be transparency of images.2
Continue reading “Can AI let me see Karl Marx?”My book, A Philosophy of Cover Songs, was published by Open Book Publishers. They are, as their website says, “a not-for-profit Social Enterprise run by academics who are committed to making high-quality and prize-winning research available to all, and… the hub of choice for a rapidly increasing international network of scholars who believe that it is time for academic publishing to become fairer, faster and more accessible.” They were my first-choice publisher for the book, and my experience with them has been great.
Continue reading “Why I love my publisher”I’m teaching Philosophy of Art this semester, and a student pointed me to an Ars Technica story with the headline AI wins state fair art contest, annoys humans. Jason Allen used Midjourney (the same AI that I was playing with recently) to make some images and enter them in the Colorado State Fair art contest. One of those images won first place in the Digital Arts/Digitally Manipulated Photography category.
There’s lots of discussion about whether this is the end for human artists (it’s not), whether this shows that AI are now making real art (no), and whether the submission of AI-generated images to the State Fair was dishonest (maybe).
Continue reading “Robot overlords win blue ribbon (not really)”Two unrelated things.
One of my longest-running things on the internet is The God-Man Fan Page. I updated it today with a recent adventure— by my count, the 74th appearance of the character.
In preparing for tomorrow’s class, I discovered Raphaël Julliard’s 2005 work 1000 Chinese Paintings. She commissioned a Chinese factory to make square canvases painted a uniform shade of red and reserved a booth at a Paris art fair to sell them. All of the canvasses were sold by the end of the pre-show, so the result was an empty booth during the fair.
Continue reading “Icons and symbols”It feels a bit cringe to think in terms of professional networking, but a few recent posts have me thinking about the personal and professional connections that maintain philosophical life.
TL;DR: 1. I should be better about keeping in touch and attending on-line events. 2. If you feel like you’d benefit from being in touch with me, feel free to reach out.
Continue reading “Presumptuous invitation”I mentioned last month when I recorded an appearance on a podcast, talking about cover songs. That episode has now appeared.
Maybe it’s because recording videos and Zoom classes has made me accustomed to hearing myself, but I mostly feel OK about what I said and how I sounded.
In a recent episode of Polite Conversations, Brandon Polite interviews Alex King about the appreciation conditions for Taylor Swift’s mimic rerecordings of her earlier tracks.3 A couple of really nice points come out in the episode.
Continue reading “Polite interviews King on Swift on Swift”