In Other Shoes is a companion to Kendall Walton's other essay collection, Marvellous Images, publ... more In Other Shoes is a companion to Kendall Walton's other essay collection, Marvellous Images, published seven years earlier. The volume's subtitle, 'Music, Metaphor, Empathy, Existence' will raise suspicions about its thematic unity (Calvin Klein execs will be pleased to have found names for their next four perfume lines). But careful study reveals considerable coherence; Walton reprises the same motifs throughout, though with different combinations and inflections, the book's reverse chronology revealing how some of these ideas developed. Moreover, every paper exhibits the same accessible, sometimes homespun ("by golly" (101), "care beans" (219), "gosh" (279)) style typical of Walton: unburdened by needless technicality, yet deft. This style's downside is perhaps that insufficiently careful readers may misread him. A quarter-century of Charles and faithful sidekick The Slime not so much evading critical fire as watching it spray harmlessly across the pages of philosophy journals is testament to this. Some of the papers, especially the newer ones, feel freed from dialectical convention, more detective's pinboard than courtroom argument. Partly, this is because Walton is always in investigator mode, exploring in his prose, turning over and connecting clues as they arise. But his unapologetically positive philosophical approach is also responsible; engagements with the literature are never about tearing opponents down, but about bolstering the theoretical edifice.
Introduction Part I: Aesthetic and Moral Values 1: "How Marvelous": Toward a Theory of ... more Introduction Part I: Aesthetic and Moral Values 1: "How Marvelous": Toward a Theory of Aesthetic Value Postscripts to "How Marvelous!" 2: The Test of Time 3: Morals in Fiction and Fictional Morality 4: On the (So-Called) Puzzle of Imaginative Resistance Part II: Pictures and Photographs 5: Pictures & Hobby Horses: Make-Believe Beyond Childhood 6: Transparent Pictures: On the Nature of Photographic Realism Postscripts to "Transparent Pictures" 7: On Pictures & Photographs: Objections Answered 8: Seeing In and Seeing Fictionally 9: Depiction, Perception, & Imagination: Responses to Richard Wollheim 10: Experiencing Still Photographs: What Do You See and How Long Do You See It? Part III: Categories and Styles 11: Categories of Art 12: Style and the Products and Processes of Art
It is tempting to assume that understatement and overstatement, meiosis and hyperbole, are analo... more It is tempting to assume that understatement and overstatement, meiosis and hyperbole, are analogous figures of speech, differing only in whether the speaker represents a quantity as larger, or as smaller, than she means to claim that it is. But these tropes have hugely different roles in conversation. Understatement is akin to irony, perhaps a species of it. Overstatement is an entirely different kettle of fish. Things get interestingly messy when we notice that to overstate how large or expensive or distant something is, is to understate how small or inexpensive or close it is, and vice versa. So it may seem, anyway. I propose an account of the two tropes that counts some utterances, in their conversational contexts, as overstatements of a quantity but not understatements of the opposite quantity, and other utterances as understatements only. This account shows why understatement is closely related to irony and overstatement is not. Although overstatement and understatement (or irony) are very different, they are sometimes combined. An understatement of one quantity may be an overstatement of a different one.
I propose a way of understanding empathy on which it does not necessarily involve any-thing like ... more I propose a way of understanding empathy on which it does not necessarily involve any-thing like thinking oneself into another’s shoes, or any imagining at all. Briefly, the empa-thizer uses an aspect of her own mental state as a sample, expressed by means of a phenomenal concept, to understand the other person. This account does a better job of explaining the connection between empathetic experiences and the objects of empathy than most traditional ones do. And it helps to clarify the relations among different varieties of empathy and empathy-like experiences, including empathy with fictional characters
Publications of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society - N.S. 17
I understand pictures to be objects whose function, in a given social context, is to serve as pro... more I understand pictures to be objects whose function, in a given social context, is to serve as props in visual games of make-believe. 1 Some prefer to understand them, what it is to be a picture, in other ways. I shall not defend my account here, not directly, nor shall I argue against alternatives. But it does seem to me to be nearly undeniable that viewers of pictures do, often if not always, engage in visual games of make-believe of approximately the kind I have proposed, and that their service as props in such games is a hugely important part of what makes pictures interesting and valuable. This engagement needs to be recognized no matter how one chooses to define 'picture' (or 'pictorial representation', or 'depiction'). In the present essay I examine the visual games themselves, the various ways in which viewers participate in them in various kinds of cases, the circumstances that encourage or demand certain participative activites, and how these are related to a picture's depictive content. I shall be especially interested in how titles sometimes affect appreciators' visual games, and the depictive content of pictures.
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears... more Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
In Other Shoes is a companion to Kendall Walton's other essay collection, Marvellous Images, publ... more In Other Shoes is a companion to Kendall Walton's other essay collection, Marvellous Images, published seven years earlier. The volume's subtitle, 'Music, Metaphor, Empathy, Existence' will raise suspicions about its thematic unity (Calvin Klein execs will be pleased to have found names for their next four perfume lines). But careful study reveals considerable coherence; Walton reprises the same motifs throughout, though with different combinations and inflections, the book's reverse chronology revealing how some of these ideas developed. Moreover, every paper exhibits the same accessible, sometimes homespun ("by golly" (101), "care beans" (219), "gosh" (279)) style typical of Walton: unburdened by needless technicality, yet deft. This style's downside is perhaps that insufficiently careful readers may misread him. A quarter-century of Charles and faithful sidekick The Slime not so much evading critical fire as watching it spray harmlessly across the pages of philosophy journals is testament to this. Some of the papers, especially the newer ones, feel freed from dialectical convention, more detective's pinboard than courtroom argument. Partly, this is because Walton is always in investigator mode, exploring in his prose, turning over and connecting clues as they arise. But his unapologetically positive philosophical approach is also responsible; engagements with the literature are never about tearing opponents down, but about bolstering the theoretical edifice.
Introduction Part I: Aesthetic and Moral Values 1: "How Marvelous": Toward a Theory of ... more Introduction Part I: Aesthetic and Moral Values 1: "How Marvelous": Toward a Theory of Aesthetic Value Postscripts to "How Marvelous!" 2: The Test of Time 3: Morals in Fiction and Fictional Morality 4: On the (So-Called) Puzzle of Imaginative Resistance Part II: Pictures and Photographs 5: Pictures & Hobby Horses: Make-Believe Beyond Childhood 6: Transparent Pictures: On the Nature of Photographic Realism Postscripts to "Transparent Pictures" 7: On Pictures & Photographs: Objections Answered 8: Seeing In and Seeing Fictionally 9: Depiction, Perception, & Imagination: Responses to Richard Wollheim 10: Experiencing Still Photographs: What Do You See and How Long Do You See It? Part III: Categories and Styles 11: Categories of Art 12: Style and the Products and Processes of Art
It is tempting to assume that understatement and overstatement, meiosis and hyperbole, are analo... more It is tempting to assume that understatement and overstatement, meiosis and hyperbole, are analogous figures of speech, differing only in whether the speaker represents a quantity as larger, or as smaller, than she means to claim that it is. But these tropes have hugely different roles in conversation. Understatement is akin to irony, perhaps a species of it. Overstatement is an entirely different kettle of fish. Things get interestingly messy when we notice that to overstate how large or expensive or distant something is, is to understate how small or inexpensive or close it is, and vice versa. So it may seem, anyway. I propose an account of the two tropes that counts some utterances, in their conversational contexts, as overstatements of a quantity but not understatements of the opposite quantity, and other utterances as understatements only. This account shows why understatement is closely related to irony and overstatement is not. Although overstatement and understatement (or irony) are very different, they are sometimes combined. An understatement of one quantity may be an overstatement of a different one.
I propose a way of understanding empathy on which it does not necessarily involve any-thing like ... more I propose a way of understanding empathy on which it does not necessarily involve any-thing like thinking oneself into another’s shoes, or any imagining at all. Briefly, the empa-thizer uses an aspect of her own mental state as a sample, expressed by means of a phenomenal concept, to understand the other person. This account does a better job of explaining the connection between empathetic experiences and the objects of empathy than most traditional ones do. And it helps to clarify the relations among different varieties of empathy and empathy-like experiences, including empathy with fictional characters
Publications of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society - N.S. 17
I understand pictures to be objects whose function, in a given social context, is to serve as pro... more I understand pictures to be objects whose function, in a given social context, is to serve as props in visual games of make-believe. 1 Some prefer to understand them, what it is to be a picture, in other ways. I shall not defend my account here, not directly, nor shall I argue against alternatives. But it does seem to me to be nearly undeniable that viewers of pictures do, often if not always, engage in visual games of make-believe of approximately the kind I have proposed, and that their service as props in such games is a hugely important part of what makes pictures interesting and valuable. This engagement needs to be recognized no matter how one chooses to define 'picture' (or 'pictorial representation', or 'depiction'). In the present essay I examine the visual games themselves, the various ways in which viewers participate in them in various kinds of cases, the circumstances that encourage or demand certain participative activites, and how these are related to a picture's depictive content. I shall be especially interested in how titles sometimes affect appreciators' visual games, and the depictive content of pictures.
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears... more Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
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Papers by Kendall Walton