Performatives

By Bach, Kent

There are certain things one can do just by saying what one is doing. This is possible if one uses a verb that names the very sort of ...

Performing art

see Art, performing.

Art, performing

By Davies, Stephen

Some works, such as plays and pieces of classical music, are created as instructions (either notated or implicit in an exemplar) for performers; performances of such pieces arise ...

Art, performing

Some works, such as plays and pieces of classical music, are created as instructions (either notated or implicit in an exemplar) for performers; performances of such pieces arise ...

Art, performing

Some works, such as plays and pieces of classical music, are created as instructions (either notated or implicit in an exemplar) for performers; performances of such pieces arise ...

Buddhist philosophy, Indian

By Hayes, Richard P.

Buddhism was an important ingredient in the philosophical melange of the Indian subcontinent for over a millennium. From an inconspicuous beginning a few centuries before Christ, Buddhist scholasticism ...

Music, aesthetics of

By Levinson, Jerrold

The aesthetics of music comprises philosophical reflection on the origin, nature, power, purpose, creation, performance, reception, meaning and value of music. Some of its problems are general problems ...

Dance, aesthetics of

By McFee, Graham

The aesthetics of dance is the philosophical investigation of the nature of dance, of our interest in it, especially as an art form, and of the variety of ...

Music, aesthetics of

Article Summary ...

Music, aesthetics of

By Trivedi, Saam

Philosophical reflection on music goes back in the West at least as far as the Pythagoreans and Plato, and has undergone an exceptionally fertile period within analytic philosophy ...

Language, medieval theories of

By Ebbesen, Sten

A great deal of theorizing about language took place in western Europe between 1100 and 1400. The usual social context of this theorizing was the teaching of grammar, ...

Aesthetic issues in jazz

By Kania, Andrew

Article Summary ...

Modernism

By Ross, Stephen

The term modernism denotes an explosion of aesthetic innovation in Europe, Britain, Ireland and America from roughly 1880 to 1950. It embraces a hugely diverse group of works ...

Sport and ethics

By Hyland, Drew A.

Ethical controversies have formed some of the liveliest debate in the philosophy of sport. Some of the issues arise out of the very nature of sport as a ...

Improvisation in the arts

By Ravasio, Matteo

Broadly defined as extemporaneous decision-making, improvisation has until recently been given scant attention by philosophers of art. The reasons for this are hard to pin down, but it ...

Butler, Judith (1956–)

By Murphy, Ann

Judith Butler (1956–) is an American philosopher working in feminist and queer theory, psychoanalysis and continental philosophy. She is known for her work on gender, sexuality, power, vulnerability ...

Enhancement in sport

By Thau, Tena

The philosophical literature on enhancement in sport focuses largely on the question of whether, and what sort of, restrictions on enhancement in sport are morally justified. Those who ...

Popular music

By Gracyk, Theodore

Popular music is a neglected topic in philosophy, and only recently have philosophers examined it sympathetically and with concern for its positive attributes. The distinction of some music ...

Art, abstract

Article Summary ...

Art works, ontology of

By Currie, Gregory

In trying to decide what kinds of thing art works are, the most natural starting point is the hypothesis that they are physical objects. This is plausible only ...

Freedom, divine

By Rowe, William L.

In the theistic tradition, many thinkers have held that God is infinitely powerful, all-knowing, perfectly good and perfectly free. But since a perfectly good being would invariably follow ...

Austin, John Langshaw (1911–60)

By Urmson, J.O.

J.L. Austin was a leading figure in analytic philosophy in the fifteen years following the Second World War. He developed a method of close examination of nonphilosophical language ...

Supererogation

By Archer, A.T.M.

A supererogatory act is an act that is beyond the call of duty. In other words, it is an act that is morally good to perform but that ...

Animal thought, recent work on

By Rey, Georges; Hauser, Marc

In recent years there has been a good deal of experimental work on the question of animal cognition, much of it modelled on recent experiments in infant cognition. ...

Desert and merit

By Miller, David

The ideas of desert and merit are fundamental to the way we normally think about our personal relationships and our social institutions. We believe that people who perform ...