This anthology provides comprehensive coverage of the major contributions of analytic philosophy to aesthetics and the philosophy of art, from the earliest beginnings in the 1950's to the present time.
Traces the contributions of the analytic tradition to aesthetics and the philosophy of art, from the 1950's to the present time.
Designed as a comprehensive guide to the field, it presents the most often-cited papers that students and researchers encounter.
Addresses a wide range of topics, including identifying art, ontology, intention and interpretation, values of art, aesthetic properties, fictionality, and the aesthetics of nature.
Explores particular art forms, including pictorial art, literature, music, and the popular arts.

What is narrative? What is distinctive about the great literary narratives? In virtue of what is a narrative fictional or non-fictional? In this important new book Peter Lamarque, one of the leading philosophers of literature at work today, explores these and related questions to bring new clarity and insight to debates about narrative in philosophy, critical theory, and narratology. He highlights 'opacity' as a feature of literary narratives and examines the implications for our understanding of fictional worlds and fictional characters. Throughout he challenges received views about narrative, questioning the indispensability of narrative in an individual's self-conception and the importance of both truth and emotion as measures of literary greatness. He reflects on the 'non-fiction' novel arguing that it does not weaken the distinction between fiction and no-fiction. The book offers a compelling and original account of these and other issues, making a critical contribution to topical and wide-ranging debates.

What is narrative? What is distinctive about the great literary narratives? In virtue of what is a narrative fictional or non-fictional? In this important new book Peter Lamarque, one of the leading philosophers of literature at work today, explores these and related questions to bring new clarity and insight to debates about narrative in philosophy, critical theory, and narratology. He highlights 'opacity' as a feature of literary narratives and examines the implications for our understanding of fictional worlds and fictional characters. Throughout he challenges received views about narrative, questioning the indispensability of narrative in an individual's self-conception and the importance of both truth and emotion as measures of literary greatness. He reflects on the 'non-fiction' novel arguing that it does not weaken the distinction between fiction and no-fiction. The book offers a compelling and original account of these and other issues, making a critical contribution to topical and wide-ranging debates.

By exploring central issues in the philosophy of literature, illustrated by a wide range of novels, poems, and plays, Philosophy of Literature gets to the heart of why literature matters to us and sheds new light on the nature and interpretation of literary works.

• Provides a comprehensive study, along with original insights, into the philosophy of literature
• Develops a unique point of view - from one of the field's leading exponents
• Offers examples of key issues using excerpts from well-known novels, poems, and plays from different historical periods

Oscar Wildes famous quip All art is quite useless might not be as outrageous or demonstrably false as is often supposed. No-one denies that much art begins life with practical aims in mind: religious, moral, political, propagandistic, or the aggrandising of its subjects. But those works that survive the test of time will move into contexts where for new audiences any initial instrumental values recede and the works come to be valued for their own sake. The book explores this idea and its ramifications. The glorious Palaeolithic paintings on the walls of the Chauvet Cave present a stark example. In spite of total ignorance of their original purposes, we irresistibly describe the paintings as works of art and value them as such. Here we are at the very limits of what is meant by art and aesthetic appreciation. Are we misusing these terms in such an application? The question goes to the heart of the scope and ambition of aesthetics. Must aesthetics in its pursuit of art and beauty inevitably be culture-bound? Or can it transcend cultural differences and speak meaningfully of universal values: timelessly human not merely historically relative? The case of literature or film puts further pressure on the idea of art valued for its own sake. Characters in works of literature and film or finely-honed emotions in poetry often give pleasure precisely because they resonate with our own lives and seem (in the great works) to say something profound about human existence. Is not this kind of insight why we value such works? Yet the conclusion is not quite as clear-cut as it might seem and the idea of valuing something for its own sake never quite goes away.

Work and Object is a study of fundamental questions in the metaphysics of art, notably how works relate to the materials that constitute them. Issues about the creation of works, what is essential and inessential to their identity, their distinct kinds of properties, including aesthetic properties, their amenability to interpretation, their style, the conditions under which they can go out of existence, and their relation to perceptually indistinguishable doubles (e.g. forgeries and parodies), are raised and debated. A core theme is that works like paintings, music, literature, sculpture, architecture, films, photographs, multi-media installations, and many more besides, have fundamental features in common, as cultural artefacts, in spite of enormous surface differences. It is their nature as distinct kinds of things, grounded in distinct ontological categories, that is the subject of this enquiry. Although much of the discussion is abstract, based in analytical metaphysics, there are numerous specific applications, including a study of Jean-Paul Sartre's novel La Nausee and recent conceptual art. Some surprising conclusions are derived, about the identity conditions of works and about the difference, often, between what a work seems to be and what it really is.

Work and Object is a study of fundamental questions in the metaphysics of art, notably how works relate to the materials that constitute them. Issues about the creation of works, what is essential and inessential to their identity, their distinct kinds of properties, including aesthetic properties, their amenability to interpretation, their style, the conditions under which they can go out of existence, and their relation to perceptually indistinguishable doubles (e.g. forgeries and parodies), are raised and debated. A core theme is that works like paintings, music, literature, sculpture, architecture, films, photographs, multi-media installations, and many more besides, have fundamental features in common, as cultural artefacts, in spite of enormous surface differences. It is their nature as distinct kinds of things, grounded in distinct ontological categories, that is the subject of this enquiry. Although much of the discussion is abstract, based in analytical metaphysics, there are numerous specific applications, including a study of Jean-Paul Sartre's novel La Nausee and recent conceptual art. Some surprising conclusions are derived, about the identity conditions of works and about the difference, often, between what a work seems to be and what it really is.

Truth, Fiction, and Literature examines the complex and varied ways in which fictions relate to the real world, and offers a precise account of how imaginative works of literature can use fictional content to explore matters of universal human interest. Both in their methods and in their conclusions, the authors aim to bring much-needed rigour and clarity to debates about the values of literature, and to provide new, philosophically sound foundations for a genuine change of direction in literary theorizing.