bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Normativity
Authors: Darwall Stephen 
Published: September 2018

Something is said by philosophers to have ‘normativity’ when it entails that some action, attitude or mental state of some other kind is justified, an action one ought to do or a state one ought to be in. The philosophical area most distinctively concerned with normativity, almost by definition, is ethics. Arguably, every ethical concept or category involves normativity of some kind. One area of lively debate within ethics concerns the precise kind of normativity that is possessed by different ethical concepts: moral wrongness, virtue, well-being and so on. For example, if an action is wrong, does that entail that there is reason not to do it or just that there is reason to take a certain attitude (blame) towards those who do act in that way?
A second way in which ethics is concerned with normativity is in investigating how an ethical proposition’s normative claim might be vindicated and considering whether it actually is vindicated. For example, if an action is morally wrong only if there is reason not to do it, can we then satisfactorily establish that any actions actually are wrong?
Yet a third kind of engagement with normativity concerns the very sources of normativity itself. An attempt to vindicate or debunk the implicit normativity of some specific ethical claim will ultimately face the question of what could support claims to normativity in general. Here we find a fertile debate between Humeans, who seek to ground practical normativity in instrumental rationality, and Kantians, who argue that practical reason necessarily includes formal constraints that extend beyond means/end coherence.
Philosophical discussion of normativity is by no means restricted to ethics, however. Epistemology has an irreducibly normative aspect, in so far as it is concerned with norms for belief. And the idea that meaning is implicitly normative has sparked some of the most exciting discussions in recent philosophy of language.
Frege–Geach problem
Authors: Schroeder Mark 
Published: September 2018

The Frege–Geach problem is an important and well-known obstacle to metaethical theories belonging to the broadly noncognitivist tradition, including emotivism, prescriptivism and expressivism. It is also sometimes called the embedding problem, the Frege–Geach–Searle problem or the problem of unasserted contexts.
Theories in the noncognitivist tradition share the view that the distinctive meaning of moral words does not concern what they are about, and it either does not require or is not exhausted by any answer to what makes moral sentences true. For example, according to A. J. Ayer, the word ‘wrong’ works more like ‘dammit’ than like ‘common’, so that ‘stealing money is wrong’ means something more like, ‘dammit, stealing money!’ than like ‘stealing money is common’. But standard ways of understanding the meanings of complex sentences, and of understanding the logical relationships between sentences, depend on an answer to what those sentences are about, or what would make them true. So noncognitivists need a different, nonstandard, answer to how the meanings of simple sentences give rise to the meanings of complex sentences. The problem of how to do so, and of whether it can even be done, has come to be known as the Frege–Geach problem.
Moral fictionalism
Authors: Nolan Daniel 
Published: September 2018

Moral fictionalism is the doctrine that the moral claims we accept should be treated as convenient fictions. One standard kind of moral fictionalism maintains that many of the moral claims we ordinarily accept are in fact false, but these claims are still useful to produce and accept, despite this falsehood.
Moral fictionalists claim they can recover many of the benefits of the use of moral concepts and moral language, without the theoretical costs incurred by rivals such as moral realism or traditional moral noncognitivism. These benefits might include social benefits, like being able to resolve conflict peacefully, or psychological benefits for individuals, like resisting temptations that would be harmful.
Moral epistemology
Authors: Wedgwood Ralph 
Published: September 2018

Epistemology is the study of knowledge and justified belief. So moral epistemology is the study of what would be involved in knowing, or being justified in believing, moral propositions. Some discussions of moral epistemology interpret the category of ‘moral propositions’ broadly, to encompass all propositions that can be expressed with terms like ‘good’ or ‘bad’ or ‘ought’. Other discussions have focused on a narrower category of moral propositions – such as propositions about what rights people have, or about what we owe to each other.
According to so-called noncognitivists, one cannot strictly speaking know (or be justified in believing) a moral proposition in the same sense in which one can know (or be justified in believing) an ordinary factual proposition. Other philosophers defend a cognitivist position, according to which it is possible to know or be justified in believing moral propositions in the very same sense as factual propositions.
If one does know any moral propositions, they must presumably be true; and the way in which one knows those moral truths must provide access to them. This has led to a debate about whether one could ever know moral truths if a realist conception of these truths – according to which moral truths are not in any interesting sense of our making – were correct.
Many philosophers agree that one way of obtaining justified moral beliefs involves seeking ‘reflective equilibrium’ – that is, roughly, considering theories, and adjusting one’s judgments to make them as systematic and coherent as possible.
According to some philosophers, however, seeking reflective equilibrium is not enough: justified moral beliefs need to be supported by moral ‘intuitions’. Some hold that such moral intuitions are a priori, akin to our intuitions of the self-evident truths of mathematics. Others hold that these intuitions are closely related to emotions or sentiments; some theorists claim that empirical studies of moral psychology strongly support this ‘sentimentalist’ interpretation.
Finally, moral thinking seems different from other areas of thought in two respects. First, there is particularly widespread disagreement about moral questions; and one rarely responds to such moral disagreement by retreating to a state of uncertainty as one does on other questions. Secondly, one rarely defers to other people’s moral judgments in the way in which one defers to experts about ordinary factual questions. These two puzzling features of moral thinking seem to
demand explanation – which is a further problem that moral epistemology has to solve.
Metaethical theories, hybrid
Authors: Ridge Michael , Köhler Sebastian 
Published: September 2018

Hybrid theories in metaethics hold at least one of the following theses: Moral claims express both belief-like and desire-like mental states.Moral judgments are constituted by both belief-like and desire-like components.
This definition is deliberately broad and inclusive, to cover all theories that share a theoretically important aspiration: to accommodate or at least explain away both the belief-like and desire-like features of moral thought and discourse without abandoning a broadly Humean philosophy of mind.
A broadly Humean philosophy of mind subscribes to two claims. First, that belief-like and desire-like states can be sharply distinguished in terms of their respective directions of fit: beliefs have a mind-to-world direction of fit (that is, beliefs aim to accurately represent the world), while desire-like states have a world-to-mind direction of fit (desires aim to have the world aligned with them). Second, that beliefs and desires are distinct existences: for any propositions p and q, believing that p and desiring that q can come apart. There are powerful arguments for this kind of view but, at the same time, moral thought and discourse have both belief-like and desire-like features. Hybrid theories take this appearance seriously and include both belief-like and desire-like elements in their theory at a basic level. In this way, they aim to accommodate or explain away the dual nature of moral judgments without abandoning a Humean philosophy of mind.
Traditionally, philosophers have supposed that moral judgments either a) are just Humean beliefs, and that moral claims express precisely those beliefs (cognitivism) or b) are just Humean desire-like states, and that moral claims express precisely those desire-like states (expressivism). Hybrid theorists are keen to emphasize that this supposition rests on a false dichotomy. Perhaps moral judgments are hybrid states, being partly constituted by beliefs and partly by desire-like states. Even if moral judgments themselves just are beliefs, moral claims might still in some important sense express desire-like states. Either of these ways of breaking free of the traditional debate might better accommodate or explain away the dual nature of moral thought and discourse within a Humean framework. The introduction of hybrid theories does not, however, dissolve the traditional debate completely. There are several theoretical issues on which hybrid theories could have more in common with traditional cognitivism than with traditional expressivism and vice versa. It is therefore useful to distinguish two types of hybrid theory: hybrid cognitivism and hybrid expressivism.
Aesthetic concepts
Authors: Eaton Marcia 
Published: September 2018

Aesthetic concepts are the concepts associated with the terms that pick out aesthetic properties referred to in descriptions and evaluations of experiences involving artistic and aesthetic objects and events. The questions (epistemological, psychological, logical and metaphysical) that have been raised about these properties are analogous to those raised about the concepts.
In the eighteenth century, philosophers such as Edmund Burke and David Hume attempted to explain aesthetic concepts such as beauty empirically, by connecting them with physical and psychological responses that typify individuals’ experiences of different kinds of objects and events. Thus they sought a basis for an objectivity of personal reactions. Immanuel Kant insisted that aesthetic concepts are essentially subjective (rooted in personal feelings of pleasure and pain), but argued that they have a kind of objectivity on the grounds that, at the purely aesthetic level, feelings of pleasure and pain are universal responses.
In the twentieth century, philosophers have sometimes returned to a Humean analysis of aesthetic concepts via the human faculty of taste, and have extended this psychological account to try to establish an epistemological or logical uniqueness for aesthetic concepts. Many have argued that although there are no aesthetic laws (for example, ‘All roses are beautiful,’ or ‘If a symphony has four movements and is constructed according to rules of Baroque harmony, it will be pleasing’) aesthetic concepts none the less play a meaningful role in discussion and disputation. Others have argued that aesthetic concepts are not essentially distinguishable from other types of concepts.
Recently theorists have been interested in ways that aesthetic concepts are context-dependent – constructed out of social mores and practices, for example. Their theories often deny that aesthetic concepts can be universal. For example, not only is there no guarantee that the term ‘harmony’ will have the same meaning in different cultures: it may not be used at all.
Art, definition of
Authors: Davies Stephen 
Published: September 2018

Many of the earliest definitions of art were probably intended to emphasize salient or important features for an audience already familiar with the concept, rather than to analyse the essence possessed by all art works and only by them. Indeed, it has been argued that art could not be defined any more rigorously, since no immutable essence is observable in its instances. But, on the one hand, this view faces difficulties in explaining the unity of the concept – similarities between them, for example, are insufficient to distinguish works of art from other things. And, on the other, it overlooks the attractive possibility that art is to be defined in terms of a relation between the activities of artists, the products that result and the audiences that receive them.
Two types of definition have come to prominence since the 1970s: the functional and procedural. The former regards something as art only if it serves the function for which we have art, usually said to be that of providing aesthetic experience. The latter regards something as art only if it has been baptized as such through an agent’s application of the appropriate procedures. In the version where the agent takes their authority from their location within an informal institution, the ‘artworld’, proceduralism is known as the institutional theory. These definitional strategies are opposed in practice, if not in theory, because the relevant procedures are sometimes used apart from, or to oppose, the alleged function of art; obviously these theories disagree then about whether the outcome is art.
To take account of art’s historically changing character a definition might take a recursive form, holding that something is art if it stands in an appropriate relation to previous art works: it is the location of an item within accepted art-making traditions that makes it a work of art. Theories developed in the 1980s have often taken this form. They variously see the crucial relation between the piece and the corpus of accepted works as, for example, a matter of the manner in which it is intended to be regarded, or of a shared style, or of its being forged by a particular kind of narrative.
Art and morality
Authors: Tanner Michael 
Published: September 2018

A complex set of questions is raised by an examination of the relationship between art and morality. First there is a set of empirical considerations about the effect that works of art have on us – one obviously contentious case is that of pornography. Many would argue that the artistic merits of a work are independent of any attitudes or actions it may lead us to adopt or perform. This claim does not survive scrutiny, however, though there is a distinction to be drawn between artistic value and the value of art as a whole. Though there are no coercive arguments to show that we have to take into account the moral qualities of works of art, it is in practice very difficult to ignore them, especially when the point of the work is insistently moral, or when the work is conspicuously depraved.
There is a long tradition, dating back to Plato, of regarding art with suspicion for its power over our emotions, and much of Western aesthetic theorizing has been a response to Plato’s challenge. The longest-lasting defence justified art in terms of a combination of pleasure and instruction, though the two never hit it off as well as was hoped. In the early nineteenth century a new, more complex account of art was offered, notably by Hegel, in the form of a historicized view in which art is one of the modes by which we come to self-awareness; the emphasis altered from truth to an independently existing reality to truthfulness to our own natures, as we explore them by creating art. Taken into the social sphere, this became a doctrine of the importance of art as an agent of political consciousness, operating in subtle ways to undermine the view of reality imposed on us by the ideologies that hold us captive.
Art works, ontology of
Authors: Currie Gregory 
Published: September 2018

In trying to decide what kinds of thing art works are, the most natural starting point is the hypothesis that they are physical objects. This is plausible only for certain works, such as paintings and sculptures; in such cases we say that the work is a certain marked canvas or piece of stone. Even for these apparently favourable cases, though, there is a metaphysical objection to this proposal: that works and the physical objects identified with them do not possess the same properties and so cannot be identical. There is also an aesthetic objection: that the plausibility of the thesis for painting and sculpture rests on the false view that the authentic object made by the artist possesses aesthetically relevant features which no copy could possibly exemplify. Once it is acknowledged that paintings and sculptures are, in principle, reproducible in the way that novels and musical scores are, the motivation for thinking of the authentic canvas or stone as the work itself collapses.
For literary and musical works, the standard view is that they are structures: structures of word-types in the literary case and of sound-types in the musical case. This structuralist view is opposed by contextualism, which asserts that the identity conditions for works must take into account historical features involving their origin and modes of production. Contextualists claim that works with the same structure might have different historical features and ought, therefore, to count as distinct works.
Nelson Goodman (1981) has proposed that we divide works into autographic and allographic kinds; for autographic works, such as paintings, genuineness is determined partly by history of production: for allographic works, such as novels, it is determined in some other way. Our examination of the hypothesis that certain works are physical objects and our discussion of the structuralist/contextualist controversy will indicate grounds for thinking that Goodman’s distinction does not provide an acceptable categorization of works.
A wholly successful ontology of art works would tell us what things are art works and what things are not; failing that, it would give us identity conditions for them, enabling us to say under what conditions this work and that are the same work. Since the complexity of the issues to be discussed quickly ramifies, it will be appropriate after a certain point to consider only the question of identity conditions. For simplicity, this entry concentrates on works of art that exemplify written literature, scored music and the plastic and pictorial arts.
Comedy
Authors: Morreall John 
Published: September 2018

In the narrowest sense, comedy is drama that makes us laugh and has a happy ending. In a wider sense it is also humorous narrative literature with a happy ending. In the widest sense, comedy includes any literary or graphic work, performance or other art intended to amuse us. This entry will leave aside theories of humour and concentrate on comedy as a dramatic and literary form.
Comedy began at about the same time as tragedy, and because they represent alternative attitudes toward basic issues in life, it is useful to consider them together. Unfortunately, several traditional prejudices discriminate against comedy and in favour of tragedy. There are four standard charges against comedy: it emphasizes the animal aspects of human life, encourages disrespect for leaders and institutions, is based on malice, and endangers our morality. These charges are easily answered, for none picks out something that is both essential to comedy and inherently vicious. In fact, once we get past traditional prejudices, several of the differences between comedy and tragedy can be seen as advantages. While tragedy tends to be idealistic and elitist, for example, comedy tends to be pragmatic and egalitarian. While tragedy values honour, even above life itself, comedy puts little stock in honour and instead emphasizes survival. Tragic heroes preserve their dignity but die in the process; comic characters lose their dignity but live to tell the tale. Most generally, comedy celebrates mental flexibility and a realistic acceptance of the limitations of human life. The comic vision of life, in short, embodies a good deal of wisdom.
Dance, aesthetics of
Authors: McFee Graham 
Published: September 2018

The aesthetics of dance is the philosophical investigation of the nature of dance, of our interest in it, especially as an art form, and of the variety of aesthetic judgments we make about it – judgments of beauty, grace, line and other aesthetic qualities. Most philosophical issues concerning dance result from considering philosophical questions that arise in other areas: another art form, art in general, or human action. Sometimes the issue for dance can usefully be seen as a combination of issues from other areas. Often, one’s response to such issues gives a possible direction for one’s thoughts about dance.
A selection of such questions can be taken from the characteristics of dance. Since some dances are works of art, is there a kind of judgment characteristic of an interest in art, and, if so, what are its features? In particular, and in parallel with questions for other arts, does knowledge of the choreographer’s intention have any role in understanding the dance? What follows for the understanding of dance from the fact that dance is a multiple art: that a particular dance (like a particular piece of music) can be performed in London at the same time as it is performed in New York? What follows from dance’s status as a performing art (like music)? Is any special role for the understanding of dance to be assigned to a notated score in a dance notation? (If so, does this differ from music?) How is the special place of the dancer to fit into accounts of understanding dance? As some dances are regularly thought to be communicative, how does dance differ (if at all) from so-called ‘nonverbal communication’? More generally, dance study must address far-reaching philosophical issues: the place of dance as human action; the ‘role’ of dance, for example, in ritual; the relevance of the history and traditions of dance-forms to the understanding of those forms.
Depiction
Authors: Hopkins Robert 
Published: September 2018

How do pictures work? How are they able to represent what they do? A picture of a goat, for example, is a flat surface covered with marks, yet it depicts a goat, chewing straw, while standing on a hillock. The puzzle of depiction is to understand how the flat marks can do this.
Language poses a similar problem. A written description of a goat will also be a collection of marks on a flat surface, which none the less represent that animal. In the case of language the solution clearly has something to do with the arbitrary way we use those marks. The word ‘leg’, for example, is applied to legs, but any other mark would do as well, providing we all use it in the same way. In the case of pictures, however, something different seems to be going on. There is not the same freedom in producing a picture of a goat on a hillock chewing straw – the surface must be marked in the right way, a way we are not free to choose. So what is the right way?
A helpful thought is that the surface must be marked so as to let us experience it in a special way. With the description, we merely need to know what the words it contains are used to stand for. With the picture, we must instead be able to see a goat in it. However, although this does seem right, it is difficult to make clear. After all, we do not see a goat in the same way that we see a horse in a view from a window. For one thing, there is no goat there to be seen. For another, it is not even true that looking at the picture is like looking at a goat. It is partly because of the differences that, as we look at the picture, we are always aware that it is merely a collection of marks on a flat surface. So what is this special experience, seeing a goat in the picture? This is the question that a philosophical account of depiction must try to answer.