Oscar Reutersvärd, one of a series of Swedish stamps celebrating his work
Publications
Forthcoming 2023. "Music as Misdirection," in Jacob Johnson, ed., The Possibility Machine: Music and Myth in Las Vegas..
2022. "Oscar Reutersvärd's Impossible Triangle," in Darren Hick, ed., Bloomsbury Contemporary Aesthetics.
2021. "Sonic Pictures." The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 79 (3): 354–65. | Prize-Winning Version
- Winner of the American Society for Aesthetics' inaugural Peter Kivy Prize -
Peter Kivy is famous for his musical formalism, but he was also deeply sensitive to the representational powers of music. This essay brings Kivy's original work on musical picturing into conversation with recent work in philosophy of perception to argue that musical picturing is more powerful, widespread, and interesting than even Kivy acknowledged. Topics discussed include the metaphysics of sound, the nature of musical listening, film sound, beatboxing, and cover songs.
2020. "Comic Impossibilities." The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 78 (4): 547–58. | Accepted Version
This article argues for the initially counterintuitive thesis that theatrical magic is a limit-case of standup comedy.
2019. "Sounds fully simplified." Analysis 79 (4): 621–9. | Published Version (free access)
In ‘The Ockhamization of the event sources of sound’ (2013), Roberto Casati, Elvira Di Bona, and Jérôme Dokic argue that ‘ockhamizing’ Casey O’Callaghan’s account of sounds as proper parts of their event sources yields their preferred view: that sounds are identical with their event sources. This article argues that the considerations Casati et al. marshal in favor of their view are actually stronger considerations in favor of a quite different view: a variant on the Lockean conception of sounds as ‘sensible qualities’ that treats sounds as audible properties of their event sources.
2018. "Review of Tomáš Koblížek (ed.), The Aesthetic Illusion in Literature and the Arts." Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. | Published Version
A philosophically-substantive review of a recent collection of essays on immersive experience. Against much of the literature on this topic, I argue that we should not think of immersion as immersion in a represented world, but as immersion in a work. This minimalist position allows for a theory of immersion that avoids troublesome (and, I think, misguided) questions concerning the metaphysical status of—and our epistemic and experiential access to—the "world" of the work as a place (actual or possible) to which we are "transported."
2018. “Fallibility for Infallibilists,” in Johan Gersel, Rasmus Thybo Jensen, Morten Sørensen Thaning, and Søren Overgaard, eds., In the Light of Experience: Essays on Reasons and Perception (Oxford: Oxford University Press). | Penultimate Draft
Infallibilism is the view that knowledge requires conclusive grounds. Despite its intuitive appeal, most contemporary epistemology rejects Infallibilism; however, there is a strong minority tradition that embraces it. Showing that Infallibilism is viable requires showing that it is compatible with the undeniable fact that we can go wrong in pursuit of perceptual knowledge. In other words, we need an account of fallibility for Infallibilists. By critically examining John McDowell’s recent attempt at such an account, this paper articulates a very important general lesson for Infallibilists. The paper concludes by briefly discussing two ways to do justice to this lesson: first, at the level of experience; and second, at the level of judgment.
2017. “The Enjoyment of Negative Emotions in the Experience of Magic,” a commentary on Menninghaus, et al., "The Distancing-Embracing model of the enjoyment of negative emotions in art reception." Behavioral and Brain Sciences 40. | Published Version
2017. “Understanding ‘Understanding’ in Public Understanding of Science.” With J. Huxster, J. Bresticker, V. LoPiccolo, and M. Slater. Public Understanding of Science. | Published Version
2017. “Attempts to Prime Intellectual Virtues for Understanding of Science: Failures to Inspire Intellectual Effort.” With J. Huxster, M. Hopkins, J. Bresticker, and M. Slater. Philosophical Psychology. | Published Version (Access Required)
2017. "Magic: Art of the Impossible," in Goldblatt and Partridge, eds., Aesthetics: A Reader in Philosophy of the Arts (Routledge). | Accepted Version
2016. "The Experience of Magic." Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 74 (3): 253–264. | Accepted Version | Published Version (Access Required)
Despite its enduring popularity, theatrical magic remains all but ignored by art critics, art historians, and philosophers. This longstanding critical inattention is unfortunate, since magic seems to offer a unique and distinctively intellectual aesthetic experience, and reflection on magic raises a host of interesting philosophical and psychological questions. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to initiate a philosophical investigation of the experience of magic. The paper has five parts. Part one dispels two misconceptions about the nature of magic and discusses the special sort of depiction it requires. Parts two and three lay the groundwork for an account of the experience of magic in terms of Tamar Szabó Gendler's notion of “belief-discordant alief.” On this basis, part four presents an account of the experience of magic and connects it to both the Kantian mathematical sublime and Socratic aporia. Finally, part five introduces two new aesthetic paradoxes and resolves them by appeal, first, to Alison Gopnik’s work on the psychology of explanation, and second, to parallels between magic and horror and humor. The result is a philosophically rich account of the experience of magic that opens new avenues for inquiry with direct relevance to core issues in contemporary aesthetics.
2016. "Arts of the Impossible." Newsletter of the American Society for Aesthetics 36 (1): 1–4. | Published Version
2013. “What We Hear,” in Richard Brown, ed., Consciousness Inside and Out: Phenomenology, Neuroscience, and the Nature of Experience. (Dordrecht: Springer). Published with critical commentaries by Matthew Nudds (University of Edinburgh) and Casey O’Callaghan (Rice University). | Penultimate Draft
A longstanding philosophical tradition holds that the primary objects of hearing are sounds rather than sound sources. In this case, we hear sound sources by—or in virtue of—hearing their sounds. This paper argues that, on the contrary, we have good reason to believe that the primary objects of hearing are sound sources, and that the relationship between a sound and its source is much like the relationship between a color and its bearer. Just as we see objects in seeing their colors, so we hear sound sources in hearing their sounds.
2012. “Look-Blindness.” Analysis 72 (2): 244-251. | Published Version (Access Required)
In Consciousness Revisited, Michael Tye presents an argument for the conclusion that we can see objects without knowing anything about them. This paper shows that Tye’s argument fails, and that this has important lessons for the philosophy of perception.
2011. “A Nonrepresentational Approach to Perception,” in Georg Bertram, Robin Celikates, Christophe Laudou, and David Lauer, eds., Expérience et Réflexivité (Paris: L’Harmattan). | Page Proofs
This paper challenges the common assumption that perceptual episodes are bearers of representational content by developing a naïve realist theory of perception that can account for a number of central perceptual phenomena.
2009. “Perceptual Presence.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 90: 482-502. | Penultimate Draft | Published Version (Access Required)
This paper argues for a naïve realist theory of perception on the basis of a critical examination of Alva Noë's sensorimotor (or enactive) solution to the “problem of perceptual presence.” According to Noë, a principal point in favor of a sensorimotor approach is that it easily handles the problem of perceptual presence, which, by contrast, poses serious problems for mainstream representational approaches. However, the first half of this paper argues that sensorimotor views inevitably collapse into a form of phenomenalism that is incompatible with a plausible direct realism. Thus, both sensorimotor and representational views come with significant costs, and the second half of this paper argues for a naïve realist alternative that faces none of these difficulties.
Forthcoming 2023. "Music as Misdirection," in Jacob Johnson, ed., The Possibility Machine: Music and Myth in Las Vegas..
2022. "Oscar Reutersvärd's Impossible Triangle," in Darren Hick, ed., Bloomsbury Contemporary Aesthetics.
2021. "Sonic Pictures." The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 79 (3): 354–65. | Prize-Winning Version
- Winner of the American Society for Aesthetics' inaugural Peter Kivy Prize -
Peter Kivy is famous for his musical formalism, but he was also deeply sensitive to the representational powers of music. This essay brings Kivy's original work on musical picturing into conversation with recent work in philosophy of perception to argue that musical picturing is more powerful, widespread, and interesting than even Kivy acknowledged. Topics discussed include the metaphysics of sound, the nature of musical listening, film sound, beatboxing, and cover songs.
2020. "Comic Impossibilities." The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 78 (4): 547–58. | Accepted Version
This article argues for the initially counterintuitive thesis that theatrical magic is a limit-case of standup comedy.
2019. "Sounds fully simplified." Analysis 79 (4): 621–9. | Published Version (free access)
In ‘The Ockhamization of the event sources of sound’ (2013), Roberto Casati, Elvira Di Bona, and Jérôme Dokic argue that ‘ockhamizing’ Casey O’Callaghan’s account of sounds as proper parts of their event sources yields their preferred view: that sounds are identical with their event sources. This article argues that the considerations Casati et al. marshal in favor of their view are actually stronger considerations in favor of a quite different view: a variant on the Lockean conception of sounds as ‘sensible qualities’ that treats sounds as audible properties of their event sources.
2018. "Review of Tomáš Koblížek (ed.), The Aesthetic Illusion in Literature and the Arts." Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. | Published Version
A philosophically-substantive review of a recent collection of essays on immersive experience. Against much of the literature on this topic, I argue that we should not think of immersion as immersion in a represented world, but as immersion in a work. This minimalist position allows for a theory of immersion that avoids troublesome (and, I think, misguided) questions concerning the metaphysical status of—and our epistemic and experiential access to—the "world" of the work as a place (actual or possible) to which we are "transported."
2018. “Fallibility for Infallibilists,” in Johan Gersel, Rasmus Thybo Jensen, Morten Sørensen Thaning, and Søren Overgaard, eds., In the Light of Experience: Essays on Reasons and Perception (Oxford: Oxford University Press). | Penultimate Draft
Infallibilism is the view that knowledge requires conclusive grounds. Despite its intuitive appeal, most contemporary epistemology rejects Infallibilism; however, there is a strong minority tradition that embraces it. Showing that Infallibilism is viable requires showing that it is compatible with the undeniable fact that we can go wrong in pursuit of perceptual knowledge. In other words, we need an account of fallibility for Infallibilists. By critically examining John McDowell’s recent attempt at such an account, this paper articulates a very important general lesson for Infallibilists. The paper concludes by briefly discussing two ways to do justice to this lesson: first, at the level of experience; and second, at the level of judgment.
2017. “The Enjoyment of Negative Emotions in the Experience of Magic,” a commentary on Menninghaus, et al., "The Distancing-Embracing model of the enjoyment of negative emotions in art reception." Behavioral and Brain Sciences 40. | Published Version
2017. “Understanding ‘Understanding’ in Public Understanding of Science.” With J. Huxster, J. Bresticker, V. LoPiccolo, and M. Slater. Public Understanding of Science. | Published Version
2017. “Attempts to Prime Intellectual Virtues for Understanding of Science: Failures to Inspire Intellectual Effort.” With J. Huxster, M. Hopkins, J. Bresticker, and M. Slater. Philosophical Psychology. | Published Version (Access Required)
2017. "Magic: Art of the Impossible," in Goldblatt and Partridge, eds., Aesthetics: A Reader in Philosophy of the Arts (Routledge). | Accepted Version
2016. "The Experience of Magic." Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 74 (3): 253–264. | Accepted Version | Published Version (Access Required)
Despite its enduring popularity, theatrical magic remains all but ignored by art critics, art historians, and philosophers. This longstanding critical inattention is unfortunate, since magic seems to offer a unique and distinctively intellectual aesthetic experience, and reflection on magic raises a host of interesting philosophical and psychological questions. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to initiate a philosophical investigation of the experience of magic. The paper has five parts. Part one dispels two misconceptions about the nature of magic and discusses the special sort of depiction it requires. Parts two and three lay the groundwork for an account of the experience of magic in terms of Tamar Szabó Gendler's notion of “belief-discordant alief.” On this basis, part four presents an account of the experience of magic and connects it to both the Kantian mathematical sublime and Socratic aporia. Finally, part five introduces two new aesthetic paradoxes and resolves them by appeal, first, to Alison Gopnik’s work on the psychology of explanation, and second, to parallels between magic and horror and humor. The result is a philosophically rich account of the experience of magic that opens new avenues for inquiry with direct relevance to core issues in contemporary aesthetics.
2016. "Arts of the Impossible." Newsletter of the American Society for Aesthetics 36 (1): 1–4. | Published Version
2013. “What We Hear,” in Richard Brown, ed., Consciousness Inside and Out: Phenomenology, Neuroscience, and the Nature of Experience. (Dordrecht: Springer). Published with critical commentaries by Matthew Nudds (University of Edinburgh) and Casey O’Callaghan (Rice University). | Penultimate Draft
A longstanding philosophical tradition holds that the primary objects of hearing are sounds rather than sound sources. In this case, we hear sound sources by—or in virtue of—hearing their sounds. This paper argues that, on the contrary, we have good reason to believe that the primary objects of hearing are sound sources, and that the relationship between a sound and its source is much like the relationship between a color and its bearer. Just as we see objects in seeing their colors, so we hear sound sources in hearing their sounds.
2012. “Look-Blindness.” Analysis 72 (2): 244-251. | Published Version (Access Required)
In Consciousness Revisited, Michael Tye presents an argument for the conclusion that we can see objects without knowing anything about them. This paper shows that Tye’s argument fails, and that this has important lessons for the philosophy of perception.
2011. “A Nonrepresentational Approach to Perception,” in Georg Bertram, Robin Celikates, Christophe Laudou, and David Lauer, eds., Expérience et Réflexivité (Paris: L’Harmattan). | Page Proofs
This paper challenges the common assumption that perceptual episodes are bearers of representational content by developing a naïve realist theory of perception that can account for a number of central perceptual phenomena.
2009. “Perceptual Presence.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 90: 482-502. | Penultimate Draft | Published Version (Access Required)
This paper argues for a naïve realist theory of perception on the basis of a critical examination of Alva Noë's sensorimotor (or enactive) solution to the “problem of perceptual presence.” According to Noë, a principal point in favor of a sensorimotor approach is that it easily handles the problem of perceptual presence, which, by contrast, poses serious problems for mainstream representational approaches. However, the first half of this paper argues that sensorimotor views inevitably collapse into a form of phenomenalism that is incompatible with a plausible direct realism. Thus, both sensorimotor and representational views come with significant costs, and the second half of this paper argues for a naïve realist alternative that faces none of these difficulties.