Papers

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Aesthetic Ideas and Self-Consciousness
(Kant's Lasting Legacy: Essays in Honor of Béatrice Longuenesse. Eds. Colin Marshall and Stefanie Grüne, forthcoming)

Abstract

According to Kant, we are conscious of ourselves as cognitive subjects by virtue of a mental activity of combining representations. In this essay, I examine how this account applies to cases involving aesthetic ideas, which are a distinctive type of representation that Kant discusses in the third Critique. According to Kant, an aesthetic idea is an intuition to which no concept is adequate, but which is nonetheless added to, or associated with, a concept. Aesthetic ideas seem to require at least two different combinations of representations. First, of the manifold in the aesthetic idea itself. Second, of the aesthetic idea and the concept to which it is added or associated. What kind of self-consciousness do these combinations of representations support? I argue that the mental activity required for having an aesthetic idea supports neither transcendental nor empirical self-consciousness. I then conclude by suggesting that it may support a distinctive third kind of self-consciousness, one that is related to the aesthetic.

Aesthetic Insight and Mental Agency
(The British Journal of Aesthetics, 2023)

Abstract

Do artists have control over their ideas for new artworks? This is often treated as a question about spontaneity, or the experience of control: does the event of having an idea for a new artwork occur unexpectedly and without foresight? I suggest another way of interpreting the question—one that has mostly been neglected by philosophers, and that is not settled by claims about spontaneity. According to that interpretation, the question is about agency: are the events of having ideas for new artworks exercises of mental agency? I argue that the answer is no. I apply the results of this argument to questions about what is and is not intentional in the creative process. I conclude by examining another type of control artists might exercise over their creative mental events, which I call ‘facilitation’.

Lucky Artists
(Analytic Philosophy, 2023)

Abstract

Imagine an artist creating new work, a painter applying paint to canvas with a brush, for example. Assuming she acts intentionally, is she responsible for the work she creates? Is she responsible, in particular, for whatever value her finished work has? In the first part of the paper, I formulate an argument for the claim she is not; I call this the Luck Argument. According to that argument, an important aspect of the work’s value is due to luck, so not something for which the artist is responsible. I then go on to challenge the Luck Argument. I suggest that intentional control is not the only type of control artists exercise over their bodily activity. There is another type, which I call receptive control. The concept of receptive control makes it possible to challenge a crucial premise in the Luck Argument.

Creative Feeling

Abstract

The early phases of creative work are often guided by creative intuitions: experiences that make some ideas seem promising before any conscious evaluation of those ideas has taken place. There is more than one type of creative intuition, but one they seem to share is feeling. Creative intuitions are in part “creative feelings,” described, for example, as feelings of promise, possibility, or coherence. What kind of feelings are these? The question has received almost no philosophical attention, but it bears on basic issues in aesthetics and the philosophy of creativity. To answer it, I first explain and criticize what I call “the epistemic account,” according to which creative feelings are epistemic feelings. I then explain and argue for an alternative: the aesthetic account. According to the aesthetic account, creative feelings are aesthetic, of the same kind that we might have in response to, for example, a moving piece of music.

Inspiration and Self-Consciousness

Abstract

Some descriptions of creative experience sound like descriptions of thought insertion. Artists say that their ideas come from a source that is in some sense external to them, something minded or mind-like but not quite themselves. Claims like these do not seem like expressions of genuine pathology, however. More than that, they express an enduring way of thinking about creative experiences, including why those experiences are valuable. How should we understand the descriptions artists give of them? I argue that we should understand these experiences as involving a distinctive kind of self-consciousness, which I call "alterior self-consciousness." I explain what alterior self-consciousness is by developing a contrast with Kant’s discussion of self-consciousness in the Critique of Pure Reason. According to Kant, being conscious of ourselves as thinkers requires recognizing conceptual integration among our mental states. In creative experiences, I argue, mental states are not integrated conceptually in the same way, but they are nonetheless integrated in a way that supports self-consciousness.

Creative Motivation

Abstract

When an artist begins creative activity because she has an idea for new work that seems worth exploring, is this an exercise of rational agency? The question has not been pursued by philosophers of action or creativity. To answer it, I propose an account of a distinctive type of motivating attitude: creative motivation. I first argue that when artists recognize worthwhile ideas for new work, they take pleasure in those ideas, and that this pleasure is disinterested in the sense Kant develops in the Critique of the Power of Judgment. I then argue that when artists take disinterested pleasure in their ideas for new work, this pleasure can motivate them to create on the basis of those ideas. This is creative motivation. Finally, I argue that acting on creative motivation so understood is not an exercise of rational agency. The account of creative motives I propose unifies two aspects of creative experience: the recognition that ideas are worth pursuing and the motivation to pursue them.