PHIL 3190
Philosophy of the Arts
An examination both of general issues that apply to all types of art and of issues specific to particular art forms. For example, what is art? What are the central artistic values: beauty, truth, emotional expressiveness, representational power, or something else? Does art have a moral or political function? How can we account for the history of art and for different artistic styles? In regard to selected forms, there are important questions concerning how pictures represent, whether music and dance are forms of 'language', and the nature of literary interpretation. Some consideration is given to the relation of psychology and theories of the mind to art. Prerequisites: one course in Philosophy at the 100 or 200-level, or permission of the instructor. Priority given to majors in Philosophy & PNP.
Instructors
Reviews
2 or less hrs/week
Class is just kind of boring. Hazlett gets really abstract with the topics, spending time on questions like "what is seeing? can we \'see\' something through a computer screen? a picture? etc." I would have preferred a more applied class. Still, some readings were cool and they were pretty light.
5/18/2024
Took Philosophy of the Arts. A fascinating class, but just difficult instruction. Professor Hazlett really would take the entire hour + 15 min. block to listen to himself talk, giving himself "goods" on what he said. Also an insanely difficult and nit-picky grader on papers when we had little grades to begin with. Decent feedback, but cost me an A
5/5/2021