An Introduction to the Philosophy of Art

A 5-session introductory course led by Nigel Warburton. Maximum class size 35.

Teaching style: a mixture of lectures and discussion.

No prior knowledge of philosophy assumed.

This course runs for 5 consecutive Tuesday evenings beginning 13th January 2015 (13th, 20th, 27th January, and 3rd and 1oth February).

The course will run from 8.10pm – 9.40pm in the Bertrand Russell room (apart from 2oth Jan, which is in the Brockway Room).

The price for the 5-session course is £85 payable in advance via Paypal using the buttons below. (Concessions – full time students, unemployed, and those who have attend previous courses I’ve run:  £70 – use drop down menu on Paypal button).

This is an introductory course examining some key ideas in the Philosophy of Art. Topics discussed will include several different approaches to the question ‘What is Art?’ such as Clive Bell’s Formalism, R.G. Collingwood’s The Principles of Art, the neo-Wittgensteinian critique of attempts to define art, Arthur Danto and George Dickie on art and institutions. We’ll also discuss questions about the relevance of an artist’s intentions  to interpretation, and the vexed issue of the basis of critical judgments about particular works of art, taking off from David Hume’s famous essay ‘Of the Standard of Taste’.