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In this paper, I present a cognitive account of aesthetic character of landscape. I develop this in response to Emily Brady, who coined the term to refer to the aesthetic individuality of a landscape, which she argues we ought to conserve. She presents a non-cognitive understanding of aesthetic character, which I argue is flawed on the grounds that it does in fact rely on the perceiver calling on particular knowledge to grasp aesthetic character, fails to explain cases in which aesthetic character is determined by nonperceptual properties and finally does not make a principled distinction between properties that are relevant to aesthetic character and that are not. I argue that a cognitive understanding of aesthetic character does not fail on these accounts. First, it allows us to rely on knowledge to make salient properties relevant to aesthetic character, both for ourselves and reach agreement with others on what a particular landscape’s aesthetic character is like. Second, it accounts for those cases in which aesthetic character is determined by nonperceptual properties, as we access them by knowing about them. Finally, I demonstrate how this cognitive account of aesthetic character works much better in the practical context of landscape conservation.

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<p> While the American composer John Cage is often classified as an influential figure in the realm of modernist music, the controversial nature of Cage's work has proven to be more far-reaching than many had initially contended. Through a process of re-examining the work of Cage through a postmodern lens, this thesis rejects the notion that Cage was confined to the realm of modernism, and demonstrates that the composer not only exhibited postmodern tendencies through his ideas and concepts, but also aesthetically in his compositions. By illuminating these postmodern compositional practices and postmodern-influenced belief systems expressed by Cage as an artist, a reinterpretation of the composer and his work is carried out, while also addressing criticisms leveled toward Cage as a postmodernist. Through this contemporary reanalysis, the thesis demonstrates that Cage was a composer that transcended genres and classifications to ultimately resonate as a viable figure of postmodern music.</p>

Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology / M.A. (Fine Arts)

<p> What role does beauty play in our moral formation? What difference does the perception of beauty make to the way we live our lives? In order to answer these questions, I look to the twentieth-century Catholic theologian, Hans Urs von Balthasar. Relatively little has been written about Balthasar&rsquo;s ethics. He is, perhaps, best known for his retrieval of beauty as a transcendental property of being. Balthasar, though, never set down an extended account of his ethics or moral theology. While he had no explicit ethic, he certainly thought that his theology could be lived. The <i>Theo-Drama,</i> for instance, discusses the implications that the perception of beauty has for Christian life. </p><p> I do not intend to present &ldquo;Balthasar&rsquo;s ethics.&rdquo; Instead I will offer a &ldquo;Balthasarian ethic.&rdquo; Drawing from his theological aesthetics and dramatics, I will outline the morality implicit in his theology: a Balthasarian theo-dramatic ethics. We can see this kind of ethic at work, I contend, in some of Balthasar&rsquo;s lesser-known works on Christian life. I will then go beyond Balthasar to consider how we might put this moral formation into practice in the possibility of living out Christian pacifism in the nation-state and in our treatment of non-human animals. </p><p> This dissertation points to the convergence of method and performance. The method of theo-dramatic ethics can never be distilled to a set of abstract rules or terms. We can do so artificially in order to better express what makes performances of the good beautiful. But it is the performance, not the method, of theo-dramatic ethics that we find enrapturing. Being formed by performances of beauty better enables us to recognize and express new forms of beauty. My thesis is that recognizing beauty as the foundation of moral formation affirms the formational power of the Christian tradition as well as that of new experiences and practices because in both cases we are responding to beauty.</p>

The following study outlines the different aesthetic theories developed by Theodor. W. Adorno, Leo Löwenthal and Herbert Marcuse between 1931 and 1978, describing the work they undertook while members of the Frankfurt School (1931-1942) and relating this to their later writings. A brief explanation is also given of why - in the author's opinion - Walter Benjamin's work should not be included amongst that of the Frankfurt School. The thesis adopts a chronological approach based on immanent, textual analysis of primary source material including unpublished correspondence. The main point of comparison from which the different aesthetics are evaluated is the degree to which they accept the main social theory developed in the School by Max Horkheimer. It is argued that Horkheimer's work was in turn based on Friedrich Pollock's theory of state capitalism. One of the main arguments advanced here is that all the aesthetics constructed before and after 1942 were indeed influenced to a greater or lesser extent by Pollock's theory, an argument which challenges the dominant interpretations of Frankfurt School aesthetic theories which regard them as not being grounded in a theory of the base. The thesis shows that adopting Pollock's social theory created problems for the aesthetic theories and led to the emergence of two different aesthetics: Adorno's aesthetics of mimetic experience and Marcuse's political aesthetics. Löwenthal's essays are judged to form a literary sociology and not an aesthetics as such. The dissertation concludes with the attempt to recuperate Adorno's concept of mimesis as the basis for a Marxist aesthetics.

Numerous theories have attempted to overcome the anti-essentialist scepticism about the possibility of defining art. While significant advances have been made in this field, it seems that most modern definitions fail to successfully address the issue of the ever-changing nature of art raised by Morris Weitz, and rarely even attempt to provide an account which would be valid in more than just the modern Western context. This thesis looks at the most successful definitions currently defended, determines their strengths and weaknesses, and offers a new, cultural definition which can preserve the good elements of other theories, solve or avoid their problems, and have a scope wide enough to account for art of different times and cultures. The resulting theory is a synthetic one in that it preserves the essential institutionalism of Dickie's institutional views, is inspired by the historical and functional determination of artistic phenomena present in Levinson's historicism and Beardsley's functionalism, and presents the reasons for something becoming art in a disjunctive form of Gaut's cluster account. Its strengths lie in the ability to account for the changing art-status of objects in various cultures and at various times, providing an explanation of not only what is or was art, but also how and why the concept 'art' changes historically and differs between cultures, and successfully balancing between the over-generalisations of ahistorical and universalist views, and the uninformativeness of relativism. More broadly, the cultural theory stresses the importance of treating art as a historical phenomenon embedded in particular social and cultural settings, and encourages cooperation with other disciplines such as anthropology and history of art.