Bence Nanay - Böcker

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. It is free to read at Oxford Academic and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.Wherever on the globe anyone sets foot, they find people immersed in matters aesthetic. In UNESCO's definition, there can be no culture that lacks an aesthetic life. Aesthetic life is in this sense a cultural universal. At the same time, aesthetic engagement has a geography. While all cultures have an aesthetic, no single aesthetic belongs to all cultures. The rules of aesthetic engagement vary by culture.How should aesthetics proceed if we take this fact of aesthetic diversity, rather than the presumption of aesthetic universality as our starting point? How should we theorize the cultural origins and cultural basis of aesthetic diversity? How should we think about the value and normativity of aesthetic diversity? To model what the turn toward diversity might look like in aesthetic inquiry, the four authors of this book each defend a different account of aesthetic diversity, and together they engage in a collective dialogue about these issues. The Geography of Taste will interest students in aesthetics courses as well as others interested in novel, global approaches to aesthetics.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. It is free to read at Oxford Academic and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.Wherever on the globe anyone sets foot, they find people immersed in matters aesthetic. In UNESCO's definition, there can be no culture that lacks an aesthetic life. Aesthetic life is in this sense a cultural universal. At the same time, aesthetic engagement has a geography. While all cultures have an aesthetic, no single aesthetic belongs to all cultures. The rules of aesthetic engagement vary by culture.How should aesthetics proceed if we take this fact of aesthetic diversity, rather than the presumption of aesthetic universality as our starting point? How should we theorize the cultural origins and cultural basis of aesthetic diversity? How should we think about the value and normativity of aesthetic diversity? To model what the turn toward diversity might look like in aesthetic inquiry, the four authors of this book each defend a different account of aesthetic diversity, and together they engage in a collective dialogue about these issues. The Geography of Taste will interest students in aesthetics courses as well as others interested in novel, global approaches to aesthetics.

As the sunset swings into view, you think, "That's beautiful." You take a bite of cake and you think, "Wow, that's sweet"-maybe too sweet. You hear that new song and it blows you away. You play it for your friends. The novel is wonderful, the movie disappoints, the dress looked better in the store. Aesthetic Life and Why It Matters offers three new answers to Socrates's great question about how we should live that focus on the place of aesthetic engagement in well-being. Three philosophers offer their perspectives on how aesthetic commitments move us through the world and shape our well-being, our sense of self, and our connections to others. Aesthetic engagement is a site for achievement, it cultivates individuality within a context of community, and it satisfies a hunger for exploring our differences. A closing dialogue between the authors probes some flash points in thinking about value: disagreement, subjectivism, ethnocentrism, fads and fashions, and ideology critique. Written in appealing prose, with vivid examples, a comprehensive introduction, and suggestions for further reading, the book is designed as a self-contained module in aesthetics for introductory courses in philosophy.

As the sunset swings into view, you think, "That's beautiful." You take a bite of cake and you think, "Wow, that's sweet"-maybe too sweet. You hear that new song and it blows you away. You play it for your friends. The novel is wonderful, the movie disappoints, the dress looked better in the store. Aesthetic Life and Why It Matters offers three new answers to Socrates's great question about how we should live that focus on the place of aesthetic engagement in well-being. Three philosophers offer their perspectives on how aesthetic commitments move us through the world and shape our well-being, our sense of self, and our connections to others. Aesthetic engagement is a site for achievement, it cultivates individuality within a context of community, and it satisfies a hunger for exploring our differences. A closing dialogue between the authors probes some flash points in thinking about value: disagreement, subjectivism, ethnocentrism, fads and fashions, and ideology critique. Written in appealing prose, with vivid examples, a comprehensive introduction, and suggestions for further reading, the book is designed as a self-contained module in aesthetics for introductory courses in philosophy.

What mediates between sensory input and motor output? This is probably the most basic question one can ask about the mind. There is stimulation on your retina, something happens in your skull and then you hand reaches out to grab the apple in front of you. What is it that happens in between? What representations make it possible for you to grab this apple? Bence Nanay calls these representations that make it possible for you to grab the apple 'pragmatic representations'. In Between Perception and Action he argues that pragmatic representations whose function is to mediate between sensory input and motor output play an immensely important role in our mental life. And they help us to explain why the vast majority of what goes on in our mind is very similar to the simple mental processes of animals.The human mind, like the mind of non-human animals, has been selected for allowing us to perform actions successfully. And the vast majority of our actions, like the actions of non-human animals, could not be performed without perceptual guidance. And what provides the perceptual guidance for performing actions are pragmatic representations. If we accept this framework, many classic questions in philosophy of perception and of action will look very different. The aim of this book is to trace the various consequences of this way of thinking about the mind in a number of branches of philosophy as well as in psychology and cognitive science.

Mental Imagery: Philosophy, Psychology, Neuroscience is about mental imagery and the important work it does in our mental life. It plays a crucial role in the vast majority of our perceptual episodes. It also helps us understand many of the most puzzling features of perception (like the way it is influenced in a top-down manner and the way different sense-modalities interact). But mental imagery also plays a very important role in emotions, action execution, and even in our desires. In sum, there are very few mental phenomena that mental imagery doesn't show up in--in some way or other. The hope is that if we understand what mental imagery is, how it works and how it is related to other mental phenomena, we can make real progress on a number of important questions about the mind. This book is written for an interdisciplinary audience. As it aims to combine philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience to understand mental imagery, the author has not presupposed any prior knowledge in any of these disciplines, so any reader can follow the arguments.

Aesthetics is about some special and unusual ways of experiencing the world. Not just artworks, but also nature and ordinary objects. But then if we apply the remarkably elaborate and sophisticated conceptual apparatus of philosophy of perception to questions in aesthetics, we can make real progress. The aim of this book is to bring the discussion of aesthetics and perception together. Bence Nanay explores how many influential debates in aesthetics look very different, and may beAesthetics is about some special and unusual ways of experiencing the world. Not just artworks, but also nature and ordinary objects. But then if we apply the remarkably elaborate and sophisticated conceptual apparatus of philosophy of perception to questions in aesthetics, we can make real progress. The aim of this book is to bring the discussion of aesthetics and perception together. Bence Nanay explores how many influential debates in aesthetics look very different, and may be easier to tackle, if we clarify the assumptions they make about perception and about experiences in general. The focus of Aesthetics as Philosophy of Perception is the concept of attention and the ways in which this concept and especially the distinction between distributed and focused attention can help us re-evaluate various key concepts and debates in aesthetics. Sometimes our attention is distributed in an unusual way: we are attending to one perceptual object but our attention is distributed across its various properties. This way of experiencing the world is special and it plays an important role in characterizing a number of phenomena associated with aesthetics. Some of these that the book talks about include picture perception and depiction, aesthetic experiences, formalism, the importance of uniqueness in aesthetics, and the history of vision debate. But sometimes, in some aesthetic contexts, our attention is not at all distributed, but very much focused. Nanay closes his argument with an analysis of some paradigmatic aesthetic phenomena where our attention is focused: identification and engagement with fictional characters. And the conflict and interplay between distributed and focused attention is an important feature of many artworks.

Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy that explores the nature of art, beauty, and taste. It doesn't just consider traditional artistic experiences such as artworks in a museum or an opera performance, but also everyday experiences such as autumn leaves in the park, or even just the light of the setting sun falling on the kitchen table. It is also about your experience when you choose the shirt you're going to wear today or when you wonder whether you should put more pepper in the soup. Aesthetics is everywhere. It is one of the most important aspects of our life. In this Very Short Introduction Bence Nanay introduces the field of aesthetics, considering both Western and non-Western aesthetic traditions, and exploring why it is sometimes misunderstood or considered to be too elitist - by artists, musicians, and even philosophers. As Nanay shows, so-called 'high art' has no more claims on aesthetics than sitcoms, tattoos, or punk rock. In fact, the scope of aesthetics extends far wider than that of art, high or low, including much of what we care about in life. It is not the job of aesthetics to tell you which artworks are good and which ones are bad. It is not the job of aesthetics to tell you what experiences are worth having. If an experience is worth having for you, it thereby becomes the subject of aesthetics. This realisation is important, because thinking about aesthetics in this inclusive way opens up new ways of understanding old questions about the social aspect of our aesthetic engagements, and the importance of aesthetic values for our own self. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

This volumes collects new essays by top philosophers, all on the theme of perception while also making connections between perception and other philosophical areas like epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of action. Perception has become a major area of philosophical interest, with a number of important collections and monographs appearing recently. This may partly be due to the growing use of empirical and neuroscientific data by philosophers of mind. The contributors in this volume represent the high quality of current scholars (many OUP authors) working in the area, among them Jesse Prinz, Fred Dretske, Susanna Siegel, and Benj Hellie. Some of the questions they raise include, What is the object of perception? How can perception give rise to knowledge? What is the link between perception and action? Between perception and belief? How do we perceive colors? What do animals perceive? How do empirical findings inform traditional philosophical thinking about perception? Does perception represent the world? What are the properties that are represented in perception? Nanay also provides a detailed introduction surveying the state of the field. This volume contains new work by some of the top figures in the field on a broad topic of interest.

Aesthetics is about some special and unusual ways of experiencing the world. Not just artworks, but also nature and ordinary objects. But then if we apply the remarkably elaborate and sophisticated conceptual apparatus of philosophy of perception to questions in aesthetics, we can make real progress. The aim of this book is to bring the discussion of aesthetics and perception together. Bence Nanay explores how many influential debates in aesthetics look very different, and may be easier to tackle, if we clarify the assumptions they make about perception and about experiences in general. The focus of Aesthetics as Philosophy of Perception is the concept of attention and the ways in which this concept and especially the distinction between distributed and focused attention can help us re-evaluate various key concepts and debates in aesthetics. Sometimes our attention is distributed in an unusual way: we are attending to one perceptual object but our attention is distributed across its various properties. This way of experiencing the world is special and it plays an important role in characterizing a number of phenomena associated with aesthetics. Some of these that the book talks about include picture perception and depiction, aesthetic experiences, formalism, the importance of uniqueness in aesthetics, and the history of vision debate. But sometimes, in some aesthetic contexts, our attention is not at all distributed, but very much focused. Nanay closes his argument with an analysis of some paradigmatic aesthetic phenomena where our attention is focused: identification and engagement with fictional characters. And the conflict and interplay between distributed and focused attention is an important feature of many artworks.

What mediates between sensory input and motor output? This is probably the most basic question one can ask about the mind. There is stimulation on your retina, something happens in your skull and then you hand reaches out to grab the apple in front of you. What is it that happens in between? What representations make it possible for you to grab this apple? Bence Nanay calls these representations that make it possible for you to grab the apple 'pragmatic representations'. In Between Perception and Action he argues that pragmatic representations whose function is to mediate between sensory input and motor output play an immensely important role in our mental life. And they help us to explain why the vast majority of what goes on in our mind is very similar to the simple mental processes of animals.The human mind, like the mind of non-human animals, has been selected for allowing us to perform actions successfully. And the vast majority of our actions, like the actions of non-human animals, could not be performed without perceptual guidance. And what provides the perceptual guidance for performing actions are pragmatic representations. If we accept this framework, many classic questions in philosophy of perception and of action will look very different. The aim of this book is to trace the various consequences of this way of thinking about the mind in a number of branches of philosophy as well as in psychology and cognitive science.

This book provides an up-to-date and accessible overview of the hottest and most influential contemporary debates in philosophy of perception, written especially for this volume by many of the most important philosophers of the field. The book addresses the following key questions: Can perception be unconscious? What is the relation between perception and attention? What properties can we perceive? Are perceptual states representations? How is vision different from the other sense modalities (like hearing or smell)? How do these sense modalities interact with one another? Contributors are Ned Block, Berit Brogaard, Alex Byrne, Robert Kentridge, John Kulvicki, Heather Logue, Mohan Matthen, Bence Nanay, Matt Nudds, Casey O’Callaghan, Adam Pautz, Ian Phillips, Susanna Siegel and Wayne Wu.

This book combines approaches from philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience in the study of perception. In addition to appealing to readers from all three of these disciplines, Perception: The Basics is a perfect introduction for students and general readers. Its interdisciplinary coverage of all aspects of perception does not require familiarity with either abstract philosophical concepts or neuroscientific knowledge. Besides addressing the classic questions of how perception works, the book highlights the intricate connections between perception and action as well as perception that is not triggered by sensory input, like mental imagery, dreaming, and hallucination. Further, the book balances out an overemphasis on vision in the literature by giving almost equal coverage to all the sense modalities (although some examples are easier to present in visual form).Questions that are discussed in detail include: What is the function of perception?Is perception an unbiased way of learning about the world?What is the difference between the different sense modalities, like seeing, hearing, smelling, etc.?What is the connection between perception and action?What is the relation between perception, mental imagery, dreaming, and hallucination?With helpful chapter summaries and a comprehensive final bibliography, Perception: The Basics is sure to be the first-stop for anyone trying to better understand this important area of interdisciplinary research.

This book combines approaches from philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience in the study of perception. In addition to appealing to readers from all three of these disciplines, Perception: The Basics is a perfect introduction for students and general readers. Its interdisciplinary coverage of all aspects of perception does not require familiarity with either abstract philosophical concepts or neuroscientific knowledge. Besides addressing the classic questions of how perception works, the book highlights the intricate connections between perception and action as well as perception that is not triggered by sensory input, like mental imagery, dreaming, and hallucination. Further, the book balances out an overemphasis on vision in the literature by giving almost equal coverage to all the sense modalities (although some examples are easier to present in visual form).Questions that are discussed in detail include: What is the function of perception?Is perception an unbiased way of learning about the world?What is the difference between the different sense modalities, like seeing, hearing, smelling, etc.?What is the connection between perception and action?What is the relation between perception, mental imagery, dreaming, and hallucination?With helpful chapter summaries and a comprehensive final bibliography, Perception: The Basics is sure to be the first-stop for anyone trying to better understand this important area of interdisciplinary research.