PHIL 380NContemporary Aesthetics

Catalog

Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy concerned with our understanding and appreciation of works of art. There's significant agreement on how we should approach traditional artworks like paintings, sculptures, and classical scores. But over the last century, we've seen an explosion of novel art forms. For each of these, there exist ontological problems about what the artwork is, and evaluative problems about how we should assess that artwork. Often, these problems fuel the perception that contemporary artworks are less valuable than works of traditional art forms. In this course, we will examine ontological and evaluative problems in a variety of contemporary art forms including - but not limited to - rock music, film, television, computer art, video games, AI-generated art, toys, and LEGO.