Beyond Aesthetics

Claims authorial intention, art history, and morality play a role in our encounter with art works.

Countering conventional aesthetic theories that maintain that authorial intention, art history, morality and emotional responses are irrelevant to the experience of art, Carroll argues that all of these factors can play a legitimate role in our encounter with art works.Beyond Aesthetics brings together philosophical essays addressing art and related issues by one of the foremost philosophers of art at work today. Countering conventional aesthetic theories - those maintaining that authorial intention, art history, morality and emotional responses are irrelevant to the experience of art - Noël Carroll argues for a more pluralistic and commonsensical view in which all of these factors can play a legitimate role in our encounter with art works. Throughout, the book combines philosophical theorizing with illustrative examples including works of high culture and the avant-garde, as well as works of popular culture, jokes, horror novels, and suspense films.