British Journal of Aesthetics

@britjaesth

The BJA is a quarterly journal and among the world's leading venues for philosophical aesthetics. It is run by the British Society of Aesthetics and published by OUP.

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British Journal of Aesthetics@britjaesth· 6d

Sarah Feldman reviews Karen Simecek's book on poetry in our latest issue. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

Far from assuming an easy absorption of other perspectives on a knowledge transference model, Philosophy of Lyric Voice argues that both the aesthetic and cognitive value of poetry arise from structural features that simultaneously motivate our attempt to share in the poem’s perspective and foreground the limits that prevent us from ever fully inhabiting the perspective of another.
- Sarah Feldman, Review of Karen Simecek’s Philosophy of Lyric Voice: The Cognitive Value of Page and Performance Poetry

British Journal of Aesthetics@britjaesth· 9d

Frédéric Wecker thinks defining portraiture has gotten too complicated and offers a simpler approach. From our latest issue. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

Although, I do not deny that the portrait raises interesting philosophical questions alongside that of its definition, I also think that the main philosophical interest of the definition of portraiture is its connection to the question of what it takes for a picture to represent a particular individual—namely, to be a singular representation. A question that any theory of depiction must answer.
- Frédéric Wecker, What is a Portrait? A Functionalist Account

British Journal of Aesthetics@britjaesth· 11d

Guy Rohrbaugh and Robbie Kubala team up to challenge Yili Zhou's account of the norms of score-compliance in our latest advance article. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

We have reason to take the means only if, and to the extent that, we have reason to pursue the ends. But performers do not treat their reasons to comply with the score as instrumentally transmitted in this way. Whether the work being performed has extremely high aesthetic value or extremely low aesthetic value, performers treat the strength of their reasons to comply with the score as unvarying.
- Guy Rohrbaugh & Robbie Kubala, Score Normativity and Practice: A Response to Zhou

British Journal of Aesthetics@britjaesth· 18d

Brandon Yip defends the virtues of a good laugh in our latest issue. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

I am not suggesting that the virtuous person can simply abandon their moral commitments. Instead, virtue involves the practised ability to momentarily and partially disengage from genuine moral commitments to reassess a situation. […] The virtuous person can do this while maintaining commitments they rightly endorse and would continue to endorse from the partially disengaged perspective. This ability better equips them than the vicious to recognize humour that might otherwise be obscured by strong emotions tied to their evaluative commitments.
- Brandon Yip, Having a Good Laugh: The Comic Advantages of Moral Virtue

British Journal of Aesthetics@britjaesth· 22d

Nathan Huffine discusses the aesthetic constraints on historical fiction in our most recent advance article. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

Sometimes, historical inaccuracy seems to constitute an aesthetic flaw, but at other times it does not, and it is not clear what makes the difference.
- Nathan Huffine, Signing with the Dead: The Contract behind Historical Fiction

British Journal of Aesthetics@britjaesth· 24d

Errol Lord has a look at Edith Landmann-Kalischer’s aesthetics in this symposium on her work from our latest issue. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

In my view, the philosophy of beauty took a very wrong turn with Kant. Given the history of the sub-discipline, this is close to saying that it took a very wrong turn with the inauguration of aesthetics as an official branch of philosophy.
- Errol Lord, To Know Beauty Exactly: The Aims of Eros and Aesthetic Judgment

British Journal of Aesthetics@britjaesth· 25d

Antonia Peacocke considers "mirror portraits" and their implications for pictorial fictions in this advance article. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

Wollheim was wrong to claim that an external spectator could never form part of the representational content of a painting.
- Antonia Peacocke, When You Look at a Mirror Portrait, It Represents You

British Journal of Aesthetics@britjaesth· Jul 16

Nicola Ramazzotto offers a pragmatist redefinition of what counts as art in this open access 🔓 advance article. doi.org/10.1093/aest...

Unlike modern institutional practices and much of modern aesthetic theory, which sought criteria capable of securing the autonomy of art and defining it, pragmatism does not begin from the question ‘What is art?’, as if art were a given and circumscribable domain. Its guiding concern is instead with the conditions under which ordinary experiences become aesthetic, and with the processes through which aesthetic experiences come to count as artistic.
- Nicola Ramazzotto, From Art to Experience and Back: A Pragmatist Redefinition of Art

British Journal of Aesthetics@britjaesth· Jul 14

What does a person grasp when she understands an artwork? Something like what she grasps when she understands another person’s intentional action. So argues Matthew Heeney in this open access 🔓 advance article. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

[I]n understanding another person’s intentional action, we reach an integrated understanding of what a person does, why they do it, and how they get it done—the very components, I will go on to argue, which are integrated by the form of aesthetic understanding.
- Matthew Heeney, The Form of Aesthetic Understanding

British Journal of Aesthetics@britjaesth· Jul 8

Marta Vaamonde reconsiders the "dehumanization" of art and the fictive as a condition of creativity in this advance article. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

Rather than offering a normative account of how humans ought to appreciate nature, this article develops an ontological account of sensibility that understands art and aesthetic expression as capacities of living beings more generally. From this standpoint, the aesthetic is not a perspective one adopts, but a condition that situates and affects organisms. Sensibility—the capacity to be affected by and to express certain forces of the world—is thus not exclusively human, but a feature of life itself.
- Marta Vaamonde, Reframing the Dehumanization of Art: Towards a Bioaesthetic Account

British Journal of Aesthetics@britjaesth· Jul 5

Does great art make or just mirror reality? It's a question Keren Gorodeisky takes up in our latest issue. From the symposium on Edith Landmann-Kalischer's aesthetics: doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

[A]rt can be world-mirroring (to paraphrase Landmann-Kalischer) only to the extent that it is also ‘world-creating’: art reflects and teaches us about our ways of being in the world partly by constituting or ‘inventing’ them. […] If art teaches us to see the fogs in our world, it is not by replicating them as they are, not by expressing our existing ways of seeing and looking, as they are ‘in themselves’, as Landmann-Kalischer has it, but, if Oscar Wilde is right, by inventing them[.]
- Keren Gorodeisky, The Art of Expressing Selves

British Journal of Aesthetics@britjaesth· Jul 3

Is beauty well-formedness? Evers and Janich don't think so. Free to read in this open access advance article. academic.oup.com/bjaesthetics... #philsky

[T]here are no clear examples where functional properties are themselves responsible for beauty[…]. So we doubt that there is a species of beauty specifically tied to functional wellformedness. This does not mean that functional objects cannot be beautiful. It does mean, however, that their beauty cannot (in general) be understood by reference to their functionality. And that, in turn, means that functionality should not be central in a theory of beauty.
- Daan Evers & Julian Hanich, Beauty as a Specific Aesthetic Concept: A Response to Panos Paris

British Journal of Aesthetics@britjaesth· Jun 30

'Tis the season to be in the garden. But can gardens be conceptual art? David Fenner investigates in our most recent issue. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

Fairly recently, a new style of gardening called ‘chaos gardening’ has made the scene. Chaos gardening is typified by taking some unorchestrated mélange of seeds and distributing them, as one wills, over some patch of ground to see what will take. Chaos gardeners typically do not prepare the soil or the site; they do not worry about providing irrigation or fertilizer; they do not weed. And the seeds spread over whatever area the wind and the strength of the sower's arm take them.
- David Fenner, Conceptual Gardens

British Journal of Aesthetics@britjaesth· Jun 26

Is AI art theft? T. J. Broy doesn't think so. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

Why should we think that a human using an artist’s work as an object of inspiration to produce new artworks does not require the artist’s consent but the use of an artist’s work as training data for an AI text-to-image generator to produce new artworks does require the artist’s consent? What is the difference between how artists permissibly use each other’s works and how an artist’s work is used in training an AI text-to-image generator? […T]he difference lies in how the two satisfy (or fail to satisfy) norms internal to artistic practice.
- TJ Broy, What is Wrong with AI Art?

British Journal of Aesthetics@britjaesth· Jun 15

Morally fraught jokes might risk harm. But their invitation to engage also gives them a potential for stimulating moral growth. So argues Connor Kianpour in our newest issue. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

Humour’s combination of non-literality, imaginative distance, and play allows it to disarm, provoke, and invite reflection, even from resistant audiences. That distinctiveness supports a more permissive ethical stance: immoral jokes often expose social and moral incongruities, making them valuable tools for moral-epistemic growth.
Connor K Kianpour, Learning by Laughing: Humour as Moral Error Detection and the Ethics of Immoral Jokes

British Journal of Aesthetics@britjaesth· Jun 14

Kant the proto-environmentalist? Read it here first, folks. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

The ferns I buy for my apartment might be put to good sociable uses, or I might use them in a ‘performative’ way to show that I am a better decorator than many of my peers, or ‘more green’ than people of my parents’ generation. We have here only an ambiguous bridge—if one at all—between the agreeable pleasure one experiences in sociability and one’s moral vocation. However, there is a less ambiguous bridge to morality on offer in the form of the second kind of interest one might combine with pure judgments of taste, namely, an ‘intellectual interest’ in the beauty of nature.
- Corey A Beckford, Faked Nature? A Kantian Proto-Environmental Aesthetics

British Journal of Aesthetics@britjaesth· Jun 9

Literary and musical works don't exist. So argues Anders Pettersson in our latest issue anyway. Open access 🔓. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

The ordinary-language concept of a literary or musical work functions admirably well in everyday language and in many contexts in literary studies and musicology, but its theoretical deficiencies should be obvious. Works become at once physical and non-physical, and, in a sense at least, they become at once one and many. What is to be done?
- Anders Pettersson, A Critique of the Idea of Literary and Musical Works

British Journal of Aesthetics@britjaesth· Jun 1

Frederico Rampini reconsiders Kant's ambivalence towards music in the Third Critique. From our latest issue. Open access 🔓. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

[F]rom a historical-philosophical perspective, it becomes evident that Kant’s account of music is neither dismissive nor contradictory; rather, it emerges as one of the most comprehensive theorizations of the arts within his critical system. The theoretical insights it offers can significantly contribute to contemporary discussions.
- Federico Rampinini, Kant’s Assessment of Music

British Journal of Aesthetics@britjaesth· May 25

In this advance article, Lauren Levine investigates the normative limits of experiencing parts of a work in different sequential orders. academic.oup.com/bjaesthetics...

Imagine someone seeing the Bayeux Tapestry (1070) but who walks between random sections rather than in its chronological order. They see King Harold’s death, then Norman troops travelling across the Channel, then Edward the Confessor sending Harold to Normandy. Intuitively, we would describe them as having seen the Bayeux Tapestry. But we also sense that they have missed out on something by not looking at the tapestry in chronological order.
- Lauren Levine, Arbitrariness

British Journal of Aesthetics@britjaesth· May 20

Our brand new issue is here with papers on humour, Kant, portraiture, beauty, and a symposium devoted to the work of Edith Landmann-Kalischer, among other treats. academic.oup.com/bjaesthetics... #philsky

The cover of the BJA, Vol. 66, Iss. 2, April 2026.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Faked Nature? A Kantian Proto-Environmental Aesthetics
Corey A. Beckford

Learning by Laughing: Humour as Moral Error Detection and the Ethics of Immoral Jokes
Connor K. Kianpour

True Beauty
Ryan P. Doran

A Critique of the Idea of Literary and Musical Works
Anders Pettersson

Kant’s Assessment of Music
Federico Rampinini

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Framing Resemblance and Expressiveness in Music
Vítor Guerreiro

What Is a Portrait? A Functionalist Account
Frédéric Wecker

Having a Good Laugh:
The Comic Advantages of Moral Virtue
Brandon Yip

Conceptual Gardens
David Fenner

TABLE OF CONTENTS (Symposium)
Aesthetic Realism and the Importance of Firsthand Experience: On Edith Landmann-Kalischer’s View of Beauty
Antonia Peacocke

On the Theory and Practice of Aesthetic Judgment:
Edith Landmann-Kalischer’s Perspective
Samantha Matherne

To Know Beauty Exactly:
The Aims of Eros and Aesthetic Judgment
Errol Lord

Cognition and Feeling in Aesthetic Judgment
Robbie Kubala

The Art of Expressing Selves
Keren Gorodeisky

British Journal of Aesthetics@britjaesth· May 20

What is beauty and how does it differ from nearby concepts, like prettiness? Ryan Doran investigates in our brand spanking new issue... #philsky (open access 🔓)

A more radical difference yet is that prettiness is often described as ‘shallow’, but beauty is described as ‘deep’. Depth seems to be primarily intended in its metaphorical sense in this context, as referring to importance or significance, but at times also has intimations of its literal meaning of referring to spatial depth. It is common to hear prettiness spoken of as a property of mere sensory surfaces and appearances, and as trivial, and of beauty as somehow reaching beyond appearances, and as being significant or even profound.
- Ryan Doran, True Beauty

British Journal of Aesthetics@britjaesth· May 18

Here come's this year's summer banger. 🎵 academic.oup.com/bjaesthetics...

The cover of the British Journal of Aesthetics, Volume 66, Number 2.

British Journal of Aesthetics@britjaesth· May 13

Matt Strohl says 'This Book' to Nick Riggle's 'This Beauty' in our latest issue. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

This is the good stuff—the kind of bold intellectual confrontation with the mortal condition that I imagined when I first resolved to study philosophy.
- Matthew Strohl, Review of Nick Riggle’s This Beauty: A Philosophy of Being Alive

British Journal of Aesthetics@britjaesth· May 9

In our latest issue, Peter Lamarque responds to Eliza Ives’, writing about A. C. Bradley’s account of form-content unity. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

It is a curious fact of history that Bradley’s own works of literary criticism seem to rest on a pronounced separation of form and content. His essays on Shakespearean tragedy, for example, are almost exclusively centred on character studies, offering a kind of speculative psychology exploring actions and motives rather than giving finegrained attention to poetic effect and imagery. Even his essays on Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats are surprisingly thin in detailed reflection on the poetic texts.
- Peter Lamarque, Poetry, Sound, and Form: A Reply to Eliza Ives

British Journal of Aesthetics@britjaesth· May 7

Nicole Hall reviews Alice Palmer’s recent book merging environmental aesthetics and environmental international law in our most recent issue. academic.oup.com/bjaesthetics... #philsky

What is innovative about Palmer’s approach, then, is the identification, examination, and analysis of aesthetic value, through combined understandings of image in environmental aesthetics and the philosophy of art, for its expression in international environmental law. Her principal aim is to accord diversities of aesthetic value to images used in the administration and enforcement of international environmental treaties, extending the cultural value of environments and biodiversities beyond the mere reporting of objective fact in photographic images.
- Nicole A Hall, Review of Alice Palmer’s Natural Perception: Environmental Images and Aesthetics in International Law

British Journal of Aesthetics@britjaesth· May 3

Kathleen Higgins is seeing the funny side of grief in this advance article. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

Humour that refers to death may be especially liable to offend sensibilities because death assaults a person’s dignity, replacing a sensitive, lively being with a rigid, thing-like corpse.
- Kathleen Higgins, Humour in Grief

British Journal of Aesthetics@britjaesth· Apr 27

In this open access 🔓 advance article, Lesel Dawson looks at how artworks can capture the ambiguity and ambivalence of grief from the griever's perspective. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

Approaches based on ‘meaning-making’ suggest that creative activities can help us express and reconstruct a world of meaning that has been challenged by loss.
- Lesel Dawson, Grief, Creativity, and Ambiguity: The ‘as if’ of Artistic Play

British Journal of Aesthetics@britjaesth· Apr 20

Are musical works created or discovered? And what implications does this theoretical choice have for our ontology more broadly. All this and more in this open access 🔓 advance article. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

The puzzles presented in this paper strike at the heart of creationism’s supposed advantages. Far from offering a coherent account of changeability and modal flexibility, creationism leads us into metaphysical quagmires that require either abandoning these features or adopting highly problematic frameworks to accommodate them. These difficulties suggest a deeper truth: perhaps our intuitions about changeability and modal flexibility of repeatable artworks are fundamentally mistaken.
- Yoorim In, Changeability and Modal Flexibility: Two Puzzles Against Creationism

British Journal of Aesthetics@britjaesth· Apr 14

Irida Altman and Caleb Labbe Phelan offer a framework for translating musical meaning in this open access advance article. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

Every new performance of a piece of music thus both accesses the abstract musical object, imbuing the experience (of an interpreter) with musical meaning (for that interpreter), and contributes to future musical meaning by modifying the abstract object in some, likely rather small, way. […] Trying to divorce meaning from either a concrete performance or from the abstract object conditioned by the community opinion is not possible.
- Irida Altman & Caleb Labbe Phelan, Musical Performance as Translation: A Hermeneutics

British Journal of Aesthetics@britjaesth· Apr 10

Can AI systems create with flair? You bet your cold, metal ass they can! doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky