Elephants, Microscopes and Free Beauty
Reply to Davies
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10690798 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Hans Maes, Hans R V Maes (University of Kent, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2009 |
| Volume | 59 |
| Issue | 235 |
| Pages | 332-336 |
| Publication date | 2009-04-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Philosophical Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0031-8094 • E-ISSN: 1467-9213 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9213.2008.592.x |
| OpenAlex | W2071419068 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
According to Stephen Davies, there is no such thing as free beauty. Using actual and imaginary examples, he tries to show that our aesthetic evaluations of objects inevitably pay heed to the kinds to which they belong or in which we judge them to belong. His examples are not as compelling as he thinks, however. Furthermore, nature looked at through a microscope (or a telescope) provides us with a particular class of counter‐examples which have not been dealt with by Davies and which put considerable pressure on his account
Aesthetics · Art · Beauty · Class (philosophy) · Epistemology · Microscope · Optics · Physics · Psychoanalysis · The Imaginary · Aesthetic Perception and Analysis · Philosophy · Psychology
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |