Contrary Feelings and the Cognitive Significance of Art

• Authors: Alcaraz Leon Maria J.
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Emotional response to artworks as a source of moral training or experimentation has long been disputed in the history of aesthetics. In this article I address the matter by focusing upon a kind of specimen that may by especially troublesome for an advocate of art's capacity to educate our sentiments. The cases I focus upon - which I place under the label of the asymmetry problem - are those in which our emotional or evaluative response seems contrary to the one we would have expected when the represented contents are real. I critically review some of the main arguments offered to explain these cases and to challenge the role of art in improving morals. I seek to explain why these responses are not as problematic as one may initially think and to consider in a new light art's capacity to shape our sensibilities.

Keywords

EN

EMOTIONAL RESPONSE TO ARTWORKS; HUMAN SENSIBILITY; MORAL TRAINING; MORALS AND ART

Discipline

• PHILOSOPHY: PHILOSOPHY

• Publisher: Institute of Art History, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Estetika: The Central European Journal of Aesthetics
• Year: 2011
• Volume: 48
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 64-81
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Alcaraz Leon Maria J.

• Maria Jose Alcaraz Leon, University of Murcia, Murcia, Spain

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

11CZAAAA09491