Seeing Purpose, Seeking Meaning: Interpretation and the Experience of Art
Please note that this session has been cancelled, with plans to reschedule for later in the year.
This talk starts with a reimagining of the experience of first encountering a specific work of art. As I describe it, the experience itself induces a notion of a hypothetical artist. Of course, talk of a hypothetical artist is commonplace in the aesthetics literature though its characterization is varied. What I argue here is that a particular conception of the hypothetical artist is motivated here, one that is fundamentally historicist but at the same time assertively anti-intentionalist, and that it is one that has important advantages over alternatives. In the end, I suggest ways in which my conception has substantial implications for the interpretation and evaluation of art generally.