Crowther's Aesthetics: A Symposium

Over the last 25 years Paul Crowther has developed a wide-ranging normative and cognitivist aesthetics that explains why the making and experience of art is so important for humanity. Uniquely, he argues that aesthetic and artistic value are based not only on distinctive forms of sensuous or imaginatively-intended making but also a comparative historical horizon which allows the originality of such making to be recognized. Within this general normative approach, he has emphasized the unique ontologies of each artistic medium, and the role of imagination. He has also paid detailed attention to the sublime, and to the aesthetics of visual art, conceptualism, and the possibility of a unified theory of meaning for abstract art and a definition of art itself.

In doing this, Crowther has adopted the techniques of both Analytic Philosophy and Phenomenology - a pluralism that means his work is largely ignored by the Anglo-American aesthetics establishment. The present Symposium will help overcome this marginalization. In conjunction with the publication of Crowther's latest book "How Pictures Complete Us: The Beautiful, the Sublime, and the Divine" (Stanford University Press, 2016) and Elena Fell's and Ioanna Kopsiafti's "The Cognitive Basis of Aesthetics: Cassirer, Crowther, and the Future"(Routledge, 2016), we offer an event devoted to the discussion of Crowther's ideas and their significance and potential for aesthetics.

Presentations are welcome from scholars in any field that can engage with Crowther's work and critically develop its key themes or contest its findings.

Applicants should submit 300 word abstracts to crowthersymposium16gmail.com by the 11th April 2016. The presentations will last for 20-30 minutes with 10 to 15 minutes for discussion.

Please Note: Unfortunately, we are not able to assist with travel and subsistence expenses.