Submission of Assessments

All assessment pieces are to be submitted via Turnitin portals that will be made available the unit's iLearn site. Written assessment pieces will be run through the Turnitin software system which detects unoriginal work.

 

Special Consideration Extensions and Penalties

All work must be submitted on time unless an extension has been granted. Requests for extensions must be made in writing as a Special Consideration request and will only be considered on serious grounds. Extensions will not be given unless good reasons and appropriate evidence (e.g., medical certificates, counsellor's letters) are presented at the earliest opportunity. Please note that work due concurrently in other subjects is NOT an exceptional circumstance and does not constitute a legitimate reason for an extension.

Special Consideration Policy

The University classifies a disruption warranting special consideration as serious and unavoidable if it:

• could not have reasonably been anticipated, avoided or guarded against by the student; and

• was beyond the student's control; and caused substantial disruption to the student's capacity for effective study and/or completion of required work; and

• occurred during an event critical study period and was at least three (3) consecutive days duration, and / or

• prevented completion of a final examination.

Students with a pre-existing disability/health condition or prolonged adverse circumstances may be eligible for ongoing assistance and support. Such support is governed by other policies and may be sought and coordinated through Campus Wellbeing and Support Services.

 

How to submit a Special Consideration Notification

A Special Consideration Notification must be completed and submitted online for any requests concerning extensions for assignment due dates. For more details about how to submit a Special Consideration notification please consult this link: https://students.mq.edu.au/study/assessment-exams/special-consideration

 

Late Assessment Penalty

Unless a Special Consideration request has been submitted and approved, a 5% penalty (of the total possible mark) will be applied each day a written assessment is not submitted, up until the 7th day (including weekends). After the 7th day, a mark of‚ 0 (zero) will be awarded even if the assessment is submitted. Submission time for all written assessments is set at 11.55pm. A 1-hour grace period is provided to students who experience a technical issue.

This late penalty will apply to non-timed sensitive assessment (incl essays, reports, posters, portfolios, journals, recordings etc). Late submission of time sensitive tasks (such as tests/ exams, performance assessments/presentations, scheduled practical assessments/labs etc) will only be addressed by the unit convenor in a Special consideration application. Special Consideration outcome may result in a new question or topic.

 

Statement concerning the use of Generative AI Tools/Chat GPT

 

In this Unit, and unless notified otherwise in writing by the Unit Convenor, substantive assessment content that has been generated by AI may be regarded as not the student’s own work. This applies to all assessments, including online forums. In submitting assessments in this unit, all students will be required to confirm their agreement with the following:

In submitting this assessment, I certify that this submission is my own work and demonstrates my own understanding, analysis, research, reflection, critical thinking, and writing. I am not submitting anything that I cannot myself fully explain and defend, if called upon to do so. I understand that if my teachers have concerns about whether this submission is my own work, I may be required to attend an interview with the Unit Convenor/Integrity Officer/academic staff to verify my research methods, my understanding of the content, and my close familiarity with all sources I have cited. If I am found to have submitted work that is not my own, my work may be further investigated, and I may be found to be in breach of the MQ Academic Integrity Policy.

This unit uses an iLearn website and Echo360 lecture recordings. The website contains links to the reading material (via Leganto), lecture notes/slideshows, lecture recordings, and other learning materials such as video clips, weblinks, and images. Students will therefore require access to a computer and a good internet connection in order to access all the material and participate in the unit effectively. PHIL/PHIX3052 will be delivered using a combination of live lectures (recorded via Echo360) and tutorial discussions (in-class tutorials for 'in person scheduled' students; asynchronous online forums for 'online flexible' students). External students will engage in these activities online via dedicated iLearn discussion forums. Lectures are organised around key texts in which fundamental concepts and arguments are introduced and explained.  

Lectures

Lectures will take place on Tuesdays 9am-11am, 01CC (Central Courtyard), 115 Groupwork Learning Space. All lectures will be recorded and made available via Echo360 Online Lecture Recordings shortly afterwards via the iLearn page.

 

Tutorials

Weekly tutorial classes (for all students) will be conducted commencing from Week 2. Internal students will have on-campus tutorials; external (online flexible and OUA) students will participate via online tuorial discussion forums. Weekly Tutorial Discussion Questions will be posted before the Tuesday morning lectures. Students are required to respond to the Tutorial Discussion Questions and engage each other in discussion responding to issues raised in these responses. N.B.: Weekly tutorials will begin in WEEK 2 and will continue until WEEK 12 (Week 13 will be a voluntary essay peer review week).

PART I - Aesthetics, Art, and Beauty

 

Week 1 Introduction: What is Aesthetics?

An introduction to the unit. What is aesthetics? The notion of aesthetic experience and aesthetic judgment. What is a philosophy of art? Philosophical approaches to art and aesthetic engagement with art. The relationship between philosophy and art.

Required Reading: Sebastian Gardner, 'Aesthetics', The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy, Second Edition Edited by Nicholas Bunnin, E. P. Tsui-James (Blackwell Publishers 2003), pp. 231-256.

Background reading: James Shelley, 'The Concept of the Aesthetic', Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, online entry (revised 2022): https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aesthetic-concept/ 

 

Week 2 - What is Art? Art as Representation

Philosophy of art is principally concerned with inquiry into the nature of art. What is art? This week we look at the first of three influential theoretical responses to this key question: art as representation/imitation/resemblance.

Required reading: Richard Eldridge, 'Representation, Imitation, and Resemblance', in his An Introduction to the Philosophy of Art (Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 25-46.

Background readings: Richard Eldridge, 'The Situation and Tasks of a Philosophy of Art', Chapter 1 of his An Introduction to the Philosophy of Art (Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 1-24. Noel Carroll, 'Art and Representation' in his Philosophy of Art: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge, 1999), pp. 19-33. 

 

Week 3 - What is Art? Art as Expression

A second major approach to the question, what is art? Art as expression. Authorship, intentionality, and interpretation. Problems with the expressionist approach.

Required Reading: Noel Carroll, 'Art and Expression', Chapter 2 of his Philosophy of Art: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge 1999)

Dale Jacquette, 'Art, Expression, Perception, and Intentionality', Journal of Aesthetics and Phenomenology 1:1 (2014): 63-90.

 

Week 4 - What is Art? Art as Institution

The third major approach to the question, what is art? Institutional theories of art and the concept of the artworld (Danto). Is art simply something accepted by the artworld?

Required Reading: Arthur C. Danto, ‘The Artworld’, The Journal of Philosophy 61.19 (1964): 571-584.

George Dickie, ‘What is Art? An Institutional Analysis’, in his Art and the Aesthetic: An Institutional Analysis (Cornell University Press, 1974).

Recommended: Robert J. Janal, 'The Institutional Theory of Art: A Survey', in The Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, Ed. Michael Kelly (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 1-7.

 

Week 5 - What is Beauty? Subjective or Objective?

An introduction to philosophical theories of beauty. Is beauty objective or subjective? Are there aesthetic properties that define beauty? Or is it a matter of subjective preferences? What role does beauty play in our experience of nature and of the world? Evolutionary, culturalist, and metaphysical approaches to beauty.

Required Readings: Crispin Sartwell, ‘Beauty’ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2016): https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/beauty/

Rafael de Clercq, ‘Beauty’, in Berys Gaut and Dominic McIver Lopes (eds), The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics, Third Edition (Routledge, 2013).

 

Week 6 - What is Beauty? Beauty, Desire, Pleasure

Platonic and Kantian theories of beauty. Beauty and its link to desire and pleasure. Why beauty matters, philosophically and ethically. Aesthetic pleasure and the experience of the beautiful. Is there a link between beauty and morality?

Required readings: Alexander Nehamas, 'The Place of Beauty and the Role of Value in a World of Art', Critical Quarterly, 42:3 (2000): 1-14. 

Alexander Nehamas, '"Only in the contemplation of beauty is life worth living" Plato, Symposium 211d', European Journal of Philosophy 15:1 (2007): 1-18. 

 

Part II - Imagination, Fiction, Music and Emotion

 

Week 7 - Art and Imagination: Representation as Make-Believe

What is the link between art and imagination? Imagination as simulation, play, or make-believe. Walton's mimetic theory of art as make-believe. 

Required Readings: Gregory Currie and Anna Ichino, ‘Imagination and Make-Believe’, The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics. Third Edition, edited by Berys Gaut and Dominic McIver Lopes (Routledge, 2013).

Kendall Walton, ‘Representation and Make-Believe’, from his Mimesis as Make-Believe: On the Foundations of the Representational Arts (Harvard University Press, 1990).

Week 8 - Fiction, Imagination, and Moral Understanding

How to philosophisize about fiction. What is the relationship between fiction, imagination, and moral understanding? Does reading literature make us better moral agents? What is the value of literature?

Required Readings: Stacie Friend, ‘Imagining Fact and Fiction’, in Kathleen Stock and Karen Thomson-Jones (eds), New Waves in Aesthetics (Palgrave MacMillan, 2008).

Stacie Friend, ‘Believing in Stories’, in Greg Currie, Matthew Kiernan, Aaron Meskin, and Jon Robson (eds), Aesthetics and the Sciences of Mind (Oxford University Press, 2014).

Noel Carroll, ‘Art, Narrative, and Moral Understanding’ in Jerrold Levinson (ed.), Aesthetics and Ethics: Essays at the Intersection (Cambridge University Press, 1998).

 

Week 9 - Art, Music, and Emotion

Introduction to the aesthetics of music. The problem of musical expression. Does music express emotions? The Carroll-Kivy debate over music, mood, and emotion.

Required readings: Noel Carroll, ‘Art and Mood: Preliminary Notes and Conjectures’, The Monist, 86 (2003): 521-555.

Peter Kivy, ‘Mood and music: Some reflections for Noël Carroll’, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 64 (2006): 271–281

Noel Carroll and Margaret Moore, ‘Not reconciled: Comments for Peter Kivy’, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 65 (2007): 318–322.

 

Part III - Ethics, Everyday Aesthetics, Art and AI

 

Week 10 - Art and Ethics: Autonomism, Moralism, and Immoralism

What is the relationship between art and ethics? Aesthetic autonomy versus aesthetic moralism. Can one defend Aesthetic Immoralism? Do moral flaws in a work or its ideological meaning affect its aesthetic value? Should we like 'immoral' art? Do artists need to be morally virtuous?

Required readings: Berys Gaut, ‘Art and Ethics’, in Berys Gaut and Dominic McIver Lopes (eds), The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics, Third Edition (Routledge, 2013).

Noel Carroll, ‘Moderate Moralism’, The British Journal of Aesthetics, 36.1 (1996): 223-238.

A. W. Eaton, 'Robust Immoralism', The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 70:3 (2012): 281-292. 

 

Week 11 - Everyday Aesthetics and Body Aesthetics

The shift in contemporary aesthetics to the everyday, to cultural practices, and to the body. What is 'somaesthetics'?

Required readings: Yuriko Saito, 'Aesthetics of the Everyday', Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2019): https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aesthetics-of-everyday/

Richard Shusterman, 'Somaesthetics in Context', Kinesiology Review 9:3 (2020): 245-253 

Background: Sherri Irvin, 'Why Body Aesthetics', in S. Irvin (ed.), Body Aesthetics (Oxford University Press, 2016), 1-12.

 

Week 12 - Art and AI: End or Transformation?

Human artistic creativity has traditionally been regarded as a distinguishing feature of being human. Does the rise of Generative Artificial Intelligence challenge this ideas? Will GenAI supplant human creativity? Does it mean the end of art? Or does it mean we will be forced to change what we think art is and what the relationship between art, technology, and human experience should be?

Required readings: Joanna Zylinska, 'The Work of Art in the Age of Machinic Creation', in J. Zylinska, AI Art: Machine Visions and Warped Dreams (Open Humanities Press, 2020).

Andrew Sano and Scott Highhouse, 'Artificial Intelligence and Art: Identifying the Aesthetic Judgment Factors that Distinguish Human- and Machine-Generated Artwork', Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. Advance online publication. https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/aca0000570s

Andreia Machado Oliveira (2022) Future Imaginings in Art and Artificial Intelligence, Journal of Aesthetics and Phenomenology, 9:2, 209-225.

This unit (PHIL3052 Art, Aesthetics, and Social Philosophy) is being offered in this format for the first time.