Expressiveness: Perception and Emotions in the Experience of Expressive Objects

Marta Benenti

Published by De Gruyter 2020

Expressiveness

Perception and Emotions in the Experience of Expressive Objects

Marta Benenti

Volume 45 in the series Epistemic Studies

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110670011

Overview
Contents

About this book

A natural landscape can look serene, a shade of colour cheerful and a piece of music might sound heartrending. Why do we ascribe affective qualities to objects that can't entertain psychological states?

The capacity that objects, and especially artworks, have to express affective states is a bizarre phenomenon that needs to be clarified in numerous respects. Philosophers are still struggling with the phenomenon of expressiveness being a matter of imagination, perception, or mnemonic association, and usually do not agree on the role that emotions and human bodily expressions play in it. Benenti questions the main theories that populate the aesthetics domain using the tools of philosophy of mind. This study deals with crucial debates concerning seeing-in, cognitive penetration, the relation between phenomenal character and representational content and between emotions and expressions. It aims at providing a viable account of the experience we have of expressive properties by casting light on its fundamentally perceptual nature. The outcome is an empirically informed and critical overview of a topic which has been rather neglected in the philosophy of mind.

The book will be of interest to scholars of the philosophy of mind, aesthetics, the cognitive sciences, and psychology.

Author / Editor information

Marta Benenti, University of Turin, Italy.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	I
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	V
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	VII
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter 1. Theories of Expressiveness: Some Desiderata and an Overview Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	7
Chapter 2. The Phenomenology of Expressive Experience Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	55
Chapter 3. The Content of Expressive Experience Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	85
Chapter 4. Metaphors and Resemblances Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	119
Chapter 5. Secondary Meaning and Core Affect Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	141
Conclusions Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	171
References Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	173
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	185

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter
Audience: Scholars, institutes, libraries (epistemology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science)
Pages
- Front matter: 8
- Main content: 190
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 3
Keywords: Expressiveness; perceptual properties; affective qualities; phenomenal character

eBook

Published: October 12, 2020
ISBN: 9783110670011

Hardcover

Published: October 12, 2020
ISBN: 9783110669565

Paperback

Published: July 18, 2022
ISBN: 9783110996753