[PDF] Disaster Governance in Urbanising Asia by From Springer at Arts-Photography

Description

Do the artists intentions have anything to do with the making and appreciation of works of art? In Art and Intention Paisley Livingston develops a broad and balanced perspective on perennial disputes between intentionalists and anti-intentionalists in philosophical aesthetics and critical theory. He surveys and assesses a wide range of rival assumptions about the nature of intentions and the status of intentionalist psychology. With detailed reference to examples from diverse media; art forms; and traditions; he demonstrates that insights into the multiple functions of intentions have important implications for our understanding of artistic creation and authorship; the ontology of art; conceptions of texts; works; and versions; basic issues pertaining to the nature of fiction and fictional truth; and the theory of art interpretation and appreciation. Livingston argues that neither the inspirationist nor rationalistic conceptions can capture the blending of deliberate and intentional; spontaneous and unintentional processes in the creation of art. Texts; works; and artistic structures and performances cannot be adequately individuated in the absence of a recognition of the relevant makers intentions. The distinction between complete and incomplete works receives an action-theoretic analysis that makes possible an elucidation of several different senses of "fragment" in critical discourse. Livingston develops an account of authorship; contending that the recognition of intentions is in fact crucial to our understanding of diverse forms of collective art-making. An artists short-term intentions and long-term plans and policies interact in complex ways in the emergence of an artistic oeuvre; and our uptake of such attitudes makes an important difference to our appreciation of the relations between items belonging to a single life-work. The intentionalism Livingston advocates is; however; a partial one; and accomodates a number of important anti-intentionalist contentions. Intentions are fallible; and works of art; like other artefacts; can be put to a bewildering diversity of uses. Yet some important aspects of art s meaning and value are linked to the artist s aims and activities.