The general aim of this volume is to investigate the nature of the relation between pictorial experience and aesthetic appreciation. In particular, it is concerned with the character and intimacy of this relationship: is there a mere causal connection between pictorial experience and aesthetic appreciation, or are the two relata constitutively associated with one another? The essays in the book's first section investigate important conceptual issues related to the pictorial experience of paintings. In Section II, the essays discuss the notion of styles, techniques, agency, and facture, and also take into account the experience of photographic and cinematic pictures. The Pleasure of Pictures goes substantially beyond current debates in the philosophy of depiction to launch a new area of reflection in philosophical aesthetics.

This book presents a novel theory of fictional entities which integrates the work of previous authors. It puts forward a new metaphysical conception of the nature of these entities, according to which a fictional entity is a compound entity built up from both a make-believe theoretical element and a set-theoretical element. The author advances a new combined semantic and ontological defence of the existence of fictional entities.

This book provides a detailed reassessment of the role and impact of analytic philosophy in the overall philosophical debate. It does so by focusing on several important turning points that have been particularly significant for analytic philosophy's overall history, such as Bertrand Russell's critique of Meinong, and the vindication of Heidegger's famous 'Nothing'- sentence. In particular, the book scrutinizes whether the theses written about such points have been convincingly argued for, or whether they have gained attraction as a type of rhetorical device. Due to its broad nature, this book is of interest to scholars interested in all aspects of philosophy, at both graduate level and above.

The general aim of this volume is to investigate the nature of the relation between pictorial experience and aesthetic appreciation. In particular, it is concerned with the character and intimacy of this relationship: is there a mere causal connection between pictorial experience and aesthetic appreciation, or are the two relata constitutively associated with one another? The essays in the book's first section investigate important conceptual issues related to the pictorial experience of paintings. In Section II, the essays discuss the notion of styles, techniques, agency, and facture, and also take into account the experience of photographic and cinematic pictures. The Pleasure of Pictures goes substantially beyond current debates in the philosophy of depiction to launch a new area of reflection in philosophical aesthetics.

This book provides a detailed reassessment of the role and impact of analytic philosophy in the overall philosophical debate. It does so by focusing on several important turning points that have been particularly significant for analytic philosophy’s overall history, such as Bertrand Russell's critique of Meinong, and the vindication of Heidegger's famous 'Nothing'- sentence. In particular, the book scrutinizes whether the theses written about such points have been convincingly argued for, or whether they have gained attraction as a type of rhetorical device. Due to its broad nature, this book is of interest to scholars interested in all aspects of philosophy, at both graduate level and above.

This book presents a novel theory of fictional entities which integrates the work of previous authors. It puts forward a new metaphysical conception of the nature of these entities, according to which a fictional entity is a compound entity built up from both a make-believe theoretical element and a set-theoretical element. The author advances a new combined semantic and ontological defence of the existence of fictional entities.

In ontology, realism and anti-realism may be taken as opposite attitudes towards entities of different kinds, so that one may turn out to be a realist with respect to certain entities, and an anti-realist with respect to others. In this book, the editors focus on this controversy concerning social entities in general and fictional entities in particular, the latter often being considered nowadays as kinds of social entities. More specifically, fictionalists (those who maintain that we only make-believe that there are entities of a certain kind) and creationists (those who believe that entities of a certain kind are the products of human activity) present themselves as the champions of the anti-realist and the realist stance, respectively, regarding the above entities. By evaluating the pros and cons of both these positions, this book intends to focus new light on a longstanding debate.