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The authors described their methods as follows:
nlike many contemporary philosophers, Wisdom is deeply interested in art, religion and personal relationships, about all of which he has made illuminating remarks.
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References
Passmore,A Hundred Years of Philosophy, 2nd. ed. Penguin (1968) p.437
Wisdom, Philosophy and Psycho-Analysis, Black- well (1953). Throughout, I shall use the following abbreviations for Wisdom ’s work: Philosophy and Psycho-Analysis, PPA; Paradox and Discovery, Blackwell (1965), PD; Other Minds, Blackwell (1952), OM; Problems of Mind and Matter, (1934), 2nd. ed. Cambridge University Press (1963), PPM; ‘Proof and Explanation’ unpublished lectures given at the University of Virginia in 1957, VL.
For example, by Dilman Induction and Deduction, Blackwell (1973); also Dilman ’Review article: Paradox and Discovery ’ Philosophy 1967. The thought is implicit or explicit in many of the contributions to Bambrough’s anthology, Wisdom: Twelve Essays, Blackwell (1974).
This is most thoroughly discussed in VL. See also R.W.Newell, The Concept of Philosophy, Methuen (1967) passim
See, for example, those noted in footnote 4.
Reprinted in Elton ed. Aesthetics and Language, Blackwell (1954) pp.36-55; hereafter cited as E. followed by page number.
See, for example, J.Jobes “A Revelatory Function of Art” BJA 1974 pp. 124-33, which considers Wisdom on this point.
Kennick ‘Does Traditional Aesthetics Rest on a Mistake?’, Mind 1958, esp. p.324
Clive Bell, Art, Chatto and Windus (1914) p. 7
See my Much of Jackson Pollock is Vivid Wallpaper, ch.2 and 3, University Press of America (1978).
See many of the writings of R.M.Hare: especially his ‘Principles’, PAS 1972–3.
See also Yalden-Thompson ‘The Virginia Lectures’ in Bambrough ed. Wisdom: Twelve Essays, pp. 64–5 on the question of whether case-by-case arguments ’leave something out1.
See A.Mitchell ‘Truth and Fiction’ in Vesey ed. Philosophy and the Arts: Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures 1971–2 vol.6 Macmillan (1973). See also my paper ‘The Fraudulent in Art’ BJA 1980, esp. pp.225–6.
Beardsmore ’Learning from a Novel ’ in Vesey ed. Philosophy and the Arts: Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures 1971–2 vol.6
Savile ‘The place of Intention in the Concept of Art’ in Osborne ed. Aesthetics OUP (1972); the quotation comes from p. 159.
See McFee ‘The Fraudulent in Art’, pp.255–6; Cavell ‘Epistemology and Tragedy: A Reading of Othello’ Daedalus 1979, esp. pp.27–32.
Compare Fischer The Necessity of Art, Penguin (1963) pp.7-8.
See Dummett Truth and Other Enigmas, Duckworth (1978) pp.283–4. See also ‘Historicity of Art’, JAAC 1980, p. 312.
See Much of Jackson Pollock is Vivid Wallpaper, pp.129–30.
From Beardsmore ’Two Trends in Contemporary Aesthetics ’ BJA 1973, the quotation is on pp.351–2.
Alvarez The Savage God, Weidenfeld and Nicholson (1971) p.236
Cavell The World Viewed (enlarged edition), Harvard University Press (1979) p. xiv
See Beardsmore Art and Morality, Macmillan (1971) pp.17–8.
Phillips ‘Allegiance and Change in Morality: A Study in Contrasts’ in Vesey ed. Philosophy and the Arts: Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures 1971–2, esp. p.52
Such a superficial reading of the Alexandria Quartet comes all too too easily. For example, that it is an English version of the Rashomon Gate story, where events are successively retold from different perspectives, a misconception supported by aspects of the text.
Durrell Alexandria Quartet, Faber (1968). The four individual volumes were published in 1957, 1958, 1958 and 1960 respectively. References to ’Q ’ followed by page number are to the one-volume edition.
Durrell himself remarked that the central topic of the book is an investigation of modern love - ‘Note’ to Balthazar, Dutton paperback ed. 1961.
Weigel Lawrence Durrell, Twayne Publishers (1965) p.99. My discussion here owes a lot to this useful book.
For Wisdom ’s injunction, see PPA., p.225. Also see Rhees ‘The Tree of Nebuchadnezzar’, The Human World, no. 4 (1971) p. 24.
Wisdom used this example VL., p.94.
See Cavell ’Epistemology and Tragedy: A Reading of Othello1 p. 28.
Best Philosophy and Human Movement, Allen and Unwin (1978) p.117
See Diffey ‘Aesthetic Instrumentalism’ BJA 1982; Beardsmore Art and Morality, Macmillan (1971) esp. ch. 1 and 2.
This section owes a general debt to Baker and Hacker Wittgenstein ’ Understanding and Meaning, Blackwell (1980) esp. their essay ’Explanation ’ pp.69–85.
See Wittgenstein Philosophical Grammar (PG.) Blackwell (1974) p. 59; also Baker and Hacker ‘Critical Notice: Wittgenstein’s ‘Philosophical Grammar’ Mind 1976, esp. p.274 ff.
See Wittgenstein on ‘family resemblances’; and the discussion in Baker and Hacker Wittgenstein: Understanding and Meaning, pp.320-343.
Wittgenstein ’s ‘Big Typescript’ (TS., 213) p.11 makes this point.
For example, R.K.Elliot ‘Aesthetic Theory and the Experience of Art’ reprinted in Margolis ed. Philosophy Looks at the Arts (2nd ed.), Temple University Press (1978); ‘Imagination in the Experience of Art’ in Vesey ed. Philosophy and the Arts: Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures vol.6 1971-2. (Let Elliot ’s eloquent statements stand for all those who take this view.)
See Cavell Pursuits of Happiness, Harvard University Press (1981) p.82.
See, for example, Betty Redfern ‘Child as Creator, Performer, Spectator’, in Proceedings of 1st Dance and the Child: International Conference (vol.1 Keynote Addresses and Philosophy Papers) Canadian Assn. of Physical and Health Education and Recreation (1979).
Best ‘The Aesthetic and the Artistic’, Philosophy 1982 p.371 seems to have just this concern.
See Baker ‘Defeasibility and Meaning1 in Hacker and kaz eds. Law, Morality and Society Oxford (1977), McFee ’On the Interpretation of Wittgenstein’, Mind 1981.
As will be obvious, I am here endebted to and drawing on Beardsmore ’s discussion of Tolstoy Art and Morality, pp.41-2.
Tolstoy What is Art? Oxford (1930) p. 78, mis-cited as p. 77 in Beardsmore Art and Morality, p. 42.
See Shiner ‘Wittgenstein and the Foundations of Knowledge’ PAS 1977–8 pp.103–24 (quotation p.103).
Carnap Der logische Aufbau der Welt, (1928) published in English as The Logical Structure of the World RKP (J 967)
Rorty Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton University Press (1979) p.368
In this context, see the criticism of Bambrough on objectivity in A.W.Price ‘Varieties of Objectivity and Values’, PAS 1982–3, esp. p.103.
A useful beginning here might be a comparison with John McDowell ’s paper ’Non-cognitivism and Rule- Following ’ in Holtzman and Leich eds. Wittgenstein: To Follow a Rule, RKP (1981).
Bambrough ‘Principia Metaphysical’ Philosophy
pp.97–109: quotation comes from p.104.
Hence Wisdom’s views on aesthetics are no more ‘… out of date…’ than were those views of Moore’s which Wisdom persuaded him to publish as Some Main Problems of Philosophy, Allen and Unwin (1953).
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McFee, G. (1984). Wisdom on Aesthetics: Superstructure and Substructure. In: Dilman, İ. (eds) Philosophy and Life. Nijhoff International Philosophy Series, vol 17. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-6184-5_6
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