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Best introductory texts in philosophy of art/aesthetics?

Brian Leiter

MOVING TO FRONT FROM JANUARY 22–ADDITIONAL COMMENTS WELCOME

Continuing with our new series about the best introductory texts in various areas of philosophy, I now invite readers to name what they think are the best introductory texts in philosophy of art or aesthetics. As before, don't just name a text, but say something about why you think it's particularly notable or valuable.  Although you don't have to sign  your comment, I do think signed ones will carry more weight with readers.

ADDENDUM:   Suggestions for introductions to specific art forms (e.g., literature, film, theater) are also welcome here.

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10 responses to “Best introductory texts in philosophy of art/aesthetics?”

  1. Aaron Garrett

    Theodore Gracyk's The Philosophy of Art: An Introduction is great. It is very clear, has excellent examples, covers a wide-range of topics, is even-handed, and presents sophisticated philosophical issues in a way that undergraduates can understand. I love teaching it.

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  2. Marco

    I've found Peter Lamarque's The Philosophy of Literature very helpful, not necessarily because it gives the best overview or because it delivers the most adequate theory, but because Lamarque has a good grasp of what the interesting questions are, and because he just gives a really nice example of how to think philosophically about literature. It's written in a style that's not showy but is still adequate to the magnitude of the topic it's concerned with. It's very thorough, and it avoids some of the shortcomings of other important books about the Philosophy of literature: it's not pretentious, it's not hyperbolic or sloganeering, it's not hyper-specialized, it defines its scope very well.

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  3. Michel Xhignesse

    I'm not a fan of textbooks, especially for introductory aesthetics and philosophy of art. But if you're going to use one…

    *Cynthia Freeland's "But Is It Art? An Introduction to Art Theory" (2002) is excellent, concise, cheap, engaging, and very accessible, even for a first-year audience.

    *Noël Carroll's "Theories of Art Today" (2000) is a fantastic edited collection with a great range of essays by prominent philosophers of art, covering a good, representative chunk of the subfield. These are pretty much all important essays, and you could get a decent grasp of the subfield just by reading these twelve essays. It's best for a third- or fourth-year introductory class, however; first-years will struggle with it, because these essays aren't really pitched at first-year undergrads. It's by far my favourite of the introductory "textbooks", and well worth purchasing just for yourself.

    *Margaret P. Battin, John Fisher, Ronald Moore, and Anita Silvers's "Puzzles About Art: An Aesthetics Casebook" (1988) is a fantastic supplementary resource. 38 prominent philosophers of art offer a series of real-world case studies and problem cases for you to consider with your class, to prompt discussion. I don't know that all of your students should have a copy, but if you can find one, it's a great resource for teachers, especially (though not at all exclusively!) for those without much background in aesthetics, philosophy of art, or art history. I seem to recall a recent conversation in which I was informed it had recently been updated, or that work was underway to update it. If that's right, it's great news.

    *David Goldblatt, Lee Brown, and Stephanie Patridge's "Aesthetics: A Reader in Philosophy of the Arts – 4th edition" (2017) is another excellent edited collected with a wide variety of classic and contemporary essays, divided by art-kind. The third edition is still fairly cheap, and also pretty good; the fourth edition is better, but rather expensive.

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  4. Cynthia Freeland

    Thanks, Michael. I strongly recommend Darren Hudson Hick, Introducing Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art (2nd edition 2017), and indeed, switched from using my own book to his in around 2011 because I thought it was so good, and in addition had the virtue of being more up to date. Each chapter opens with an engaging real-world example. Depending upon your student audience, having more recent topics is a big plus, and Hick has great examples from philosophy of the visual arts, music and film, and video games. (For this reason I wouldn't so strongly recommend the "Puzzles about Art" volume. In the art world, 1988 is eons ago.) Hick is a very clear writer, and he covers major topics like interpretation, art and morality, and non-art aesthetics, providing nice and balanced summaries of diverse views in the current literature. The chapters include study questions. It's fairly affordable at $25 and my students liked it.

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  5. Landon W Schurtz

    I second Cynthia's recommendation of Darren Hick's Introducing Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art. It is written in a clear and engaging style and has admirable breath of coverage in terms of both topics in aesthetics and genres of art. As has been mentioned, it is affordable and very much up-to-date. My students routinely enjoy the readings from this book over any others I use, and they seem to get more out of them as well

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  6. Tom Cochrane

    Before I switched to individual articles, I used Gordon Graham's Philosophy of the Arts: An introduction to Aesthetics It's particularly handy for the first four chapters where he outlines different values of art (pleasure, beauty, expression, understanding). After that he turns to individual art forms, but he's defending his preferred cognitive theory so they are less neutral as introductions. I still use his chapter 4 on understanding when teaching that topic though.

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  7. Scott Wisdom

    Stephen Davies's Definitions of Art (1991) may still be the best survey of the post-war literature on the conceptual question of what art is. It combines clear exposition of the positions that populate the field with thoughtful assessments of the relevant arguments.

    More recently, Peter Goldie & Elisabeth Schellekens's Who's Afraid of Conceptual Art? (2009) illuminates the practices of some major conceptual artists, shows how philosophy can shed further light on these activities, and the book can be read in an afternoon.

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  8. Nick Zangwill

    I like Robert Stecker's Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art: An Introduction, especially because it has a chapter on the aesthetics of nature, since I think it essential to have a chapter on that topic. I also like the Larmarque and Olsen anthology Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art: The Analytic Tradition, which has a good selective coverage of papers and a good range of topics. (I have not seen the second edition.)

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  9. Christy Mag Uidhir

    For my lower level course PHIL 1361 Introduction to Philosophy and the Arts, I now use Darren Hudson Hick's Introducing Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art (2nd Edition) (2017). It's pitched at exactly the right level, which in my experience is all too rare amongst introductory texts. For any upper level Aesthetics course, I would enthusiastically recommend Stephen Davies' The Philosophy of Art (2nd Edition) (2016). It's about as clearly and expertly written a text as can be but it goes deep enough in the material so as to be too dense for lower level undergraduates.

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  10. Smith&Jones

    I loved Noel Carroll’s book On Criticism. It is reasonably short and clearly written. It is on a narrow topic, but worth looking into if a course is going to cover criticism.

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