In the last few years, a remarkable convergence of interests and results has emerged between scholars interested in the arts and aesthetics from a variety of perspectives and cognitive scientists studying the mind and brain within the Predictive Processing framework. The result is a vast and fast-growing research programme that promises to deliver important insights into our aesthetic behaviours as well as a wide range of psychological phenomena of general interest, including perception, cognition, learning, attention, curiosity, affect, motivation, well-being, and the dynamics of sub-personal and person-level experience. This theme issue provides a timely synthesis of this ambitious research programme, laying down a framework within which aesthetics and cognitive science can partner up to illuminate crucial aspects of the human mind.

Most of the papers (including the ) are available open access at: .

This two-day conference is a collaboration between the European Commission-funded research project Art and Ethics and the Aesthetics and Ethics Research Group and is funded in part by a generous grant from the Thought Trust. It will take place on the 19th and 20th of September 2019 at the University of Southampton.

The conference’s aim is to get ethicists to think about issues in aesthetics and aestheticians to think about those in ethics, or something in between the two sub-disciplines, in the hope of setting a precedent of mutually beneficial exchanges. Possible issues the conference may address include, but are not limited to:

The relationship between aesthetic and ethical value in the arts
Similarities and differences between virtue theoretic approaches to both fields
The role of aesthetic considerations to living well, doing good, or right action
Meta-normative questions about the (dis)unity of the different values

The confirmed keynote speakers are Prof Paul C. Taylor and Prof Heather Widdows.
The organisers are pleased to invite abstracts sufficiently in keeping with this aim of no more than 1,000 words. Abstracts should:
Outline the paper’s principal argument(s)
Give a good sense of the paper’s philosophical contribution(s).
Be anonymized.
Papers should be suitable for a 35-minute presentation, followed by 30 minutes for discussion.
Please submit your abstract to artandethics@soton.ac.uk with the subject heading ‘Beauty and Goodness’. The deadline is the 7th June, 2019. Potential applicants with doubts about the suitability of their paper may contact us at artandethics@soton.ac.uk.
The organisers will cover the cost of travel for authors without access to relevant research funds, and up to three nights’ accommodation where the cost of this would be otherwise prohibitive. We will also aim to provide and pay for authors’ childcare, should it be required, through the University of Southampton’s Early Years Centre. Applicants should inform us of their eligibility for support once their papers have been accepted. Authors who are unable to participate in person, will be invited to participate remotely via video-conferencing software.
The organisers sincerely encourage participants from groups whose voices are disproportionately excluded from philosophical discourse to submit abstracts.
The conference is being organized in accordance with the BPA/SWIP’s Good Practice Scheme and their Guidelines for Accessible Conferences.
Accessibility Information
The organisers aim to make this conference as accessible as possible, in line with the SWIP/BPA guidance for accessible conferences. While the precise venue is yet to be confirmed, it is anticipated that the event will take place in Building 65, Avenue Campus, Highfield Road, Southampton, SO17 1BF, and that…
The organisers will be able to provide a hearing loop if it is required.
The organisers will be able to permit service animals to attend.
The venue will be wheelchair accessible.
The venue will have nearby accessible toilets.
The organisers will be able to provide a quiet room if it is required.
The venue will have available seating.
There will be nearby parking to all venues.
There will be at least a 15 minute break between each 70 minute session.
The organisers will be able to permit written, rather than spoken, questions during discussion.
Accessibility information about the building (Building 65) can be found here: https://www.accessable.co.uk/venues/building-65-parkes

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Dr. Nils-Hennes Stear
Marie Curie Fellow, University of Southampton
https://nilsstear.wordpress.com | https://adpopulumblog.wordpress.com | https://artandethics.wordpress.com

Edited by Cristina Meini

Deadline: 30.06.2017

Depending on whatkind of thing“language” is intended to be, different artistic–communicative codes can be considered as languages. For example, music is arguably a communicative code with a syntax – though by no means a universal syntax – but without a semantics. Or, perhaps,music has a peculiar semantics connected to the affective domain.Yet, what about dance? Dance and music share dynamicity, what Daniel Stern takes to be the fundamental aspect for communicating “forms of vitality”. Does this imply that dance hasa syntax, or a semantics, too?

Not less interesting are reflections concerning the “languages” of pictorial arts, both figurative and abstract.

The following list aims to suggest some possible topics, while certainly not exhausting the possible contributions:

– According to some influential models, verbal language is the expression of a universal grammar, while the syntax of artistic “languages”, when it exists, seems to be much more culturally determined. Which consequences should be drawnfrom such a difference? In what sense can we really speak of languages of art?

– Similarly, how can non-referential forms of art (such as pure music), be considered languages?

– Concerning music again – but the same could be said of dance -, which kind of relationship does it have with emotions? Does it depict them? Or rather it expresses them? Moreover, is the relationship literal, metaphorical or symbolic?

– More in general, could the relationship between languages of art and emotions possess a therapeutic value?The psychoanalyst Daniel Stern has developed a psychotherapy based on the analysis of the present moment that in each everyday action spontaneously expresses those Forms of vitality (a sort of proto-emotions) that art is particularly apt to convey. In this sense, Stern suggests a therapy using languages of art to overcome the traditional centrality of verbal language.

-What kind of contribution can cognitive sciences offer to the comprehension of the relationship between the different languages? In particular, neurophysiological studies and neuropsychological researches on cognitive dissociations both point to important commonalities as well as interesting overlappings, which are interesting to confront with.

Submissions may be in English, French, Italian and Spanish. Abstract in English of no more than 250 words is required for all manuscripts submitted. Each manuscript should have title and 5 keywords in English. Submissions must be prepared for blind review. The author’s name, the institutional affiliation and the title’s paper must be placed in a separate file. Manuscripts must be sent as Microsoft Word file (.doc or .rtf) to: segreteria.rifl@gmail.com

Instructions for authors:

Max length:
40000 characters (including spaces) for articles (including the references) and reviews;
20000 characters (including spaces) for interviews;
10000 characters (including spaces) for specific paper review.

Submission deadline: 30.06.2017
Issue publication: December 2017

The deadline for receipt of submission is: 15 February 2016.

We invite short and tightly argued critical articles concerning any aspect of Stephen Davies’s published works. Subject to peer-review, commentaries will be published in the special issue along with a response to the commentaries from Stephen Davies.

Stephen Davies has contributed to a range of debates in philosophical aesthetics including those concerning the definition of art, the expressiveness of music and, most recently, whether art serves an adaptive function. A list of his published work is available at http://philpapers.org/s/Stephen%20Davies

Naturally, we strongly encourage submissions from postgraduate philosophers, but we also welcome contributions from professional philosophers alike.

This is the first in what the PJA hopes will be a series of special issues on the work of senior aestheticians and their critics. The aims of this series are to offer a valuable forum for discussing influential philosophical arguments and ideas, create continuity between postgraduate and professional aestheticians, and nurture nascent talent in the postgraduate community.

Submissions should be accessible, concise, and of a standard commensurate to excellent postgraduate level work. They should be up to 3,500 words in length.

_____________________________________________________________________

The Postgraduate Journal of Aesthetics is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal for high quality articles, interviews and book reviews in philosophical aesthetics. Published by the ������Ƶ, it offers postgraduates and professional philosophers a space to exchange ideas, and is a valuable resource for anyone interested in aesthetics and the philosophy of art.

Following the publication of the Spring 2015 issue, the journal will be published biannually. Articles are invited from postgraduate students and professional philosophers alike on any topic in aesthetics. The journal wishes to encourage a wide construal of the study of aesthetics to include papers from analytic, continental or historical points of view. Articles should be of a standard commensurate with excellent postgraduate work. We also welcome book reviews of a similar length and proposals for interviews with senior philosophers of art.

Articles are accepted and assessed on a rolling basis, and will be published in the next available issue. Where articles require re-submission or revisions, articles may need to be published in a later issue.

The PJA operates a strict anonymous editorial procedure in order to increase fairness for those from groups currently underrepresented in philosophy. For more information about the journal, and to submit an article, visit the journal’s website.

The conference aims at offering an opportunity to carry on pondering over different theoretical approaches; over how to conceptualise the various relations within the creative and reception processes of any art work; and finally over any further critical readings of them all.

Keynote speakers:
Carola Barbero (Università di Torino, Labont)
Jean-Pierre Cometti (Aix-Marseille Université)
Roberto Diodato (Università Cattolica, Milano)
Bernard Vouilloux (Université Paris IV Sorbonne)

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Paper proposals (max 300 words) together with a bio-bibliographical note (max 100 words) should be submitted by 15 February 2015 to

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Acceptance for proposals will be sent by 15 March 2015.

Authors of accepted proposals are expected to submit full papers prior to the conference by 15 October 2015. Preliminary research results will thus be shared among the conference participants to further enhance conversation and discussion.
Accepted and presented papers will be published in the official conference proceedings.

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Description
An interdisciplinary research group bringing together scholars, researchers and PhD students from the Modern Languages (LCM) and Philosophy (DAFIST) department at Genoa University announces an international conference themed around issues relating to recent experimental phenomena in the field of contemporary art and literature.
After the extraordinary flourishing avant-garde and new avant-garde art, in the last decades of the 20th century and early 21st century, an increasing number of hybrid works has been produced in literature, visual arts, and new media: the way creative practices circulate within them is not only worth noting but plays a role of paramount importance.

Hybridism, intermediality, transmediality, multimediality, and intersemiosis are the terms that allow us to deal with the variety of such intertwining processes where all sorts of blending take place – i.e. loans from film, photography, digital and video art, literature, etc. – but a clear-cut distinction among these concepts has not been drawn yet. By adopting an interdisciplinary approach, this international conference aims to enhance critical reasoning around the topic and to create a lively theoretical debate.

In the art field, nowadays, there is an increasing openess among artists to make their practices combine different media – i.e. pictorial storytelling, reading/video/performance, conceptual art, new artistic media, etc. More and more works are conceived regardless of their traditional boundaries and away from institutional places. In addition artistic collaborations stemming from a range of cultural backgrounds have increased exponentially.
In the literary field, the word-image relationship is a topic that has been and continue to be extensively explored and the one criticism has mainly focused on. Equally consistent is the amount of works devoted to themes that span across different art fields. Lately, an up-to-date, innovative critical trend has seen attention intensify around literature “outside” the text, namely forms of representation and performance stemming from a written work that reshape it into a vast array of genres.

More and more actively, critical enquiry has examined transmedial phenomena. As a matter of fact, several are the research areas in which epistemological approaches have been applied – e.g. media and visual studies, literary theory, cognitive philosophy and sciences – some of the most popular researched topics for istance are: the central role played by the addressee in the transmedial arts and his/her role in the building up of meaning/message; the role played by the body in the artistic creation – i.e. the “virtual body” as a “body-image”; the new media performance; the intersemiotic relations; etc.

Scientific Commitee:
Elisa Bricco (Università di Genova, Dip.LCM) Michaela Bürger (Università di Genova, Dip.LCM) Jean-Pierre Cometti (Aix-Marseille Université) Nicola Ferrari (Università di Genova, Dip.LCM) Céline Flécheux (Université de Paris 7) Marcello Frixione (Università di Genova, DAFIST) Oscar Meo (Università di Genova, DAFIST) Luisa Montecucco (Università di Genova, DAFIST) Nancy Murzilli (Università di Genova, Dip.LCM/IFI) Magali Nachtergael (Université de Paris 13) Laura Quercioli (Università di Genova, Dip.LCM) Chiara Rolla (Università di Genova, Dip.LCM) Bernard Vouilloux (Université de Paris IV Sorbonne)

Organizing Committee:
Elisa Bricco Ilaria Boeddu Alessandro Bruzzone Michaela Bürger Anna Fochesato Marcello Frixione Oscar Meo Luisa Montecucco Valeria Mosca Nancy Murzilli Laura Quercioli Chiara Rolla Laura Santini

University of Murcia (Spain) 30 September-2 October 2015

Invited Speakers: SUSAN FEAGIN (Temple University); EILEEN JOHN (University of Warwick)

The Interuniversity Workshop on Mind, Art and Morality promotes the relation between different areas in philosophy; more specifically, the Workshop aims at exploring issues lying at the intersection of ethics, aesthetics and the philosophy of mind. In former editions, the Workshop has been devoted either to the work of specific philosophers, such as, Richard Wollheim, Jonathan Dancy, Christine Korsgaard, Shaun Nichols and David Filkenstein, Malcolm Budd or to broad subjects, such as the Philosophy of Music (with the presence of Peter Kivy, Noël Carroll or Derek Matravers) or Self-Knowledge (with the presence of D. Filkenstein and Sarah Sawyer). In this occasion, the Workshop will focus on the significance of negative emotions in aesthetic appreciation, focusing particularly but not exclusively on the aesthetic appreciation of art and literary works.

We invite philosophers and other scholars interested in discussing topics related to the paradox of tragic emotions, the value of immoral or negative responses in literature, or the significance of negative qualities in art to send their proposals. Proposals on these themes are especially encouraged, but papers on other aspects related to aesthetic appreciation and negative responses are also welcome. Papers should be about 15 pages long (5000 words). They will be presented in 40 minutes maximum, to allow for a 20 minutes discussion period. Extended abstracts, of about 2000 words, will also be accepted for review. Notification of intent to submit including title (even tentative) and subject matter will be greatly appreciated.

For more information you can visit the website:

Correspondence and submissions:

Prof. María José Alcaraz León Departamento de Filosofía Universidad de Murcia

30100 (España)

E-mail: mariajo@um.es

Deadline: February 2nd, 2015. Acceptance by April 1st, 2015.