Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art features pairs of newly commissioned essays by some of the leading theorists working in the field today. This volume brings together fresh debates on eleven of the most controversial issues in aesthetics and the philosophy of art. Topics addressed include the nature of beauty, aesthetic experience, artistic value, and the nature of our emotional responses to art. Each question is treated by a pair of opposing essays written by eminent scholars, and especially commissioned for the volume. Lively debate format sharply defines the issues, and paves the way for further discussion. Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art will serve as an accessible introduction to the major topics in aesthetics, while also capturing the imagination of professional philosophers.

Aesthetic empiricism and the challenge of fakes and ready-mades /Gordon Graham -- Against enlightened empiricism / David Davies -- Beauty and ugliness in and out of context / Marcia Muelder Eaton -- Terrible beauties / Carolyn Korsmeyer -- Aesthetic experience : a question of content / Noël Carroll -- The aesthetic state of mind / Gary Iseminger -- Art and cognition / Berys Gaut -- Cognitive values in the arts : marking the boundaries / Peter Lamarque -- The speaking image : visual communication and the nature of depiction / Robert Hopkins -- The domain of depiction / Dominic McIver Lopes -- Artistic expression and the hard case of pure music / Stephen Davies -- Musical expressiveness as hearability-as-expression / Jerrold Levinson -- Anne Brontë and the uses of imagination / Gregory Currie -- Imagine that! / Jonathan M. Weinberg and Aaron Meskin -- Genuine rational fictional emotions / Tamar Szabó Gendler and Karson Kovakovich -- The challenge of irrationalism, and how not to meet it / Derek Matravers -- Interpretation and the problem of the relevant intention / Robert Stecker -- Art, meaning, and artist's meaning / Daniel O. Nathan -- There are no aesthetic principles / Alan H. Goldman -- Iron, leather, and critical principles / George Dickie -- Artistic value and opportunistic moralism / Eileen John -- Ethical criticism and the vice of moderation / Daniel Jacobson.