The Aesthetic Engagement Theory of Art

I introduce and explicate a new functionalist account of art, namely that something is an artwork iff the fulfillment of its function by a subject requires that the subject aesthetically engage it. This is the Aesthetic Engagement Theory of art. I show how the Aesthetic Engagement Theory outperforms salient rival theories in terms of extensional adequacy, non-arbitrariness, and ability to account for the distinctive value of art. I also give an account of what it is to aesthetically engage a work that relies on our agential capacity to treat an object as having non-instrumental value, even while the ultimate purpose for our engaging the object is to get something from it.

The Creation of Art

This chapter presents Aestheticism as a general approach to life. It is argued that a dedicated aestheticist will be inspired to create works of art. In alignment with this view an aesthetic functionalist account of art is defended, incorporating aspects of the expression theory of art and the cognitive theory of art. It is then suggested that the way an artist creatively responds to the value of the world is an ideal of living well. Moreover, although there are other such ideals, the artistic paradigm can apply to a variety of human activities, including the pursuit and expression of one’s understanding (as in philosophy). In the latter part of the chapter it is then argued that, in distilling aesthetic values, the artist has an important social role to play. Artworks help us to discern value ideals, and our capacity to discern values is a vital component of virtue.

What’s the Point? A Presentist Social Functionalist Account of Institutional Purpose

Although it is clear that many of the major contemporary social problems center on the extent to which social institutions do or do not function as they are meant to do, it is still unclear exactly what the function of a social institution is—and thus when this function is undermined. This paper presents and defends a novel theory of social functionalism—presentist social functionalism—to answer these questions. According to this theory, the function of social institutions is grounded in those of their features that, in the current cultural environment, increase their chances to survive or reproduce. To bring out the fruitfulness of this account, the paper analyzes the (still controversial) question of the function of corporations, and shows that present social functionalism (a) points to the kinds of data that would be helpful to determine this function, (b) brings up hitherto overlooked theoretical possibilities, and (c) allows for the clearer assessment and handling of corporate corruption.

The failures of functionalism (for memory)

In Memory: A Self-Referential Account, Fernández offers a functionalist account of the metaphysics of memory, which is portrayed as presenting significant advantages over causal and narrative theories of memory. In this paper, I present a series of challenges for Fernández’s functionalism. There are issues with both the particulars of the account and the use of functionalism more generally. First, in characterizing the mnemonic role of episodic remembering, Fernández fails to make clear how the mental image type that plays this role should be identified. Second, I argue that a functionalist approach, which appeals to the overall structure of the memory system and tendencies of mental state types, is ill-suited to the metaphysical question about episodic remembering that is of interest to the causal and narrative theorists with which Fernandez engages. Fernández’s self-referential account of memory has many other virtues, but functionalism is a poor fit for episodic remembering.

What Sort of Imagining Might Remembering Be?

This essay unites current philosophical thinking on imagination with a burgeoning debate in the philosophy of memory over whether episodic remembering is simply a kind of imagining. So far, this debate has been hampered by a lack of clarity in the notion of imagining at issue. Several options are considered and constructive imagining is identified as the relevant kind. Next, a functionalist account of episodic remembering is defended as a means to establishing two key points: first, one need not defend a factive (or causalist) view of remembering in order to hold that causal connections to past experiences are essential to how rememberings are typed; and, second, current theories that equate remembering with imagining are in fact consistent with a functionalist theory that includes causal connections in its account of what it is to remember. This suggests that remembering is not a kind of imagining and clarifies what it would take to establish the contrary.

Shifty Speech and Independent Thought

This is an essay in epistemology and the philosophy of language. It concerns epistemology in that it is a manifesto for epistemic independence: the independence of good thinking from practical considerations. It concerns philosophy of language in that it defends a functionalist account of the normativity of assertion in conjunction with an integrated view of the normativity of constative speech acts. The book defends the independence of thought from the most prominent threat that has surfaced in the last twenty years of epistemological theorizing: the phenomenon of shiftiness of proper assertoric speech with practical context. It does four things: first, it shows that, against orthodoxy, the argument from practical shiftiness of proper assertoric speech against the independence of proper thought from the practical does not go through, for it rests on normative ambiguation. Second, it defends a proper functionalist knowledge account of the epistemic normativity of assertion, in conjunction with classical invariantism about knowledge attributions. Third, it generalizes this account to all constative speech. Last, it defends detailed normative accounts for conjecturing, telling, and moral assertion.

A Special Case

This chapter is concerned with moral assertion. In recent years, much attention has been given to the epistemic credentials of belief based on moral testimony. Some people think pure moral deference is wrong, others disagree. It comes as a surprise, however, that while the epistemic responsibilities of the receiver of moral testimony have been closely scrutinized, little discussion has focused on the epistemic duties of the speaker. This chapter defends a functionalist account of the normativity of moral assertion. According to this view, in virtue of its function of reliably generating moral understanding in the audience, a moral assertion that p needs be knowledgeable and accompanied by a contextually appropriate explanation why p.

Assertion Functionalism and Context

This chapter shows how to reconcile Classical Invariantism with the Knowledge Norm of Assertion. My basic proposal is that we can combine invariantism with a functionalist account of assertion: according to the account I favour, assertion is governed by a knowledge norm in virtue of its epistemic function of generating testimonial knowledge. Requirements generated by other functions of assertion, though, such as its prudential function, can override the constraints imposed by the epistemic function, and render the knowledge requirement either too strong or too weak for all-things-considered permissible assertion. All-things-considered permissible assertion can vary with practical stakes; epistemically permissible assertion does not.

Quality-Space Functionalism about Color

I motivate and defend a previously underdeveloped functionalist account of the metaphysics of color, a view that I call ‘quality-space functionalism’ about color. Although other theorists have proposed varieties of color functionalism, this view differs from such accounts insofar as it identifies and individuates colors by their relative locations within a particular kind of so-called ‘quality space’ that reflects creatures’ capacities to discriminate visually among stimuli. My arguments for this view of color are abductive: I propose that quality-space functionalism best captures our commonsense conception of color, fits with many experimental findings, coheres with the phenomenology of color experience, and avoids many issues for standard theories of color such as color physicalism and color relationalism.