María José Alcaraz León

María José Alcaraz León

Assistant Professor in Philosophy at University of Murcia.

Visit María José Alcaraz León’s website here (in Spanish). An overview of her publications can be found here.

Presentation:

Revisiting Interactionism: Aesthetic Contributions to Non-Aesthetic Evaluations
Wednesday 23 November
16:00-18:00 at Stewart House, Room B5

Much of the discussion concerning the relationship between moral and/or cognitive value and aesthetic value has focussed upon the way(s) in which the presence of a moral or cognitive (de)merit impinges upon the overall aesthetic value of a work of art. In this paper I would like to focus upon the way(s) in which an aesthetic virtue may be said to contribute to the overall cognitive or moral value of a work. This idea has received some, but in my view insufficient, attention in Dominic Lopes’ attempt at formulating Interactionism. My aim is to show that some aesthetic qualities can be considered as what partly explains that some works possess cognitive or moral value. That is, aesthetic properties can play the role of reasons in attributions of cognitive or moral value to works of art.