Philosophy, Art and Literature (Level 5)

• Credit value: 30 credits at Level 5
• Convenor and tutors: to be confirmed
• Assessment: a 1000-word essay (40%) and 1500-word essay (60%)

In this module we explore philosophical questions about art and literature, focusing on a selection of such topics as:

• Why are art and literature valuable to individuals and societies?
• Do they improve us cognitively or ethically?
• Can artworks be moral or immoral?
• Why do we value works that prompt painful emotions, such as tragedy, often more highly than those that do not?
• Should art and literature play a political role in society, or should they be autonomous from everyday concerns?

We address these questions from both a historical perspective - considering answers by such thinkers as Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Kant, Schiller, Nietzsche, Shaftesbury and Rousseau - and in relation to contemporary debates in the philosophy of art.

Indicative syllabus

• Ethical and aesthetic value of art and literature
• Political implications of art and literature
• Enjoyment of negative emotions
• The beautiful and sublime
• Disinterested satisfaction and autonomy
• Aesthetic education
• Taste and objectivity
• Imitation
• Art and knowledge
• Genius and originality
• Heautonomy and schematising without schemata

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

• demonstrate detailed knowledge of different historical and contemporary philosophical approaches to art and literature
• demonstrate an awareness of different ideas, contexts and frameworks deployed by contributors to debates about the values - ethical, political, cognitive, aesthetic and social - of art and literature, and recognise some of their strengths and weaknesses
• analyse and compare different philosophical theories of the values of art and literature and their roles in society
• select appropriate criteria to evaluate philosophical accounts of tragedy, ethical criticism, aesthetic education and the beautiful and sublime.