August 31-September 2, 2012
Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Campus in Wroclaw (Poland)
Theme:
Pragmatist
aesthetics is a rich theoretical tradition which has its beginnings in
the work of classical pragmatists (most notably, John Dewey’s 1934 book
Art as Experience), and which was rejuvenated in the 80s and the 90s by
such scholars as Richard Rorty, Joseph Margolis, and Richard
Shusterman. The latter’s 1992 book Pragmatist Aesthetics can be seen as a
symbolic moment in the emergence of the second wave of pragmatist
aesthetics, and today, twenty years after its publication, it is perhaps
the right time to rethink pragmatism’s contribution to aesthetic
theory.
The
aim of this conference is to reflect on pragmatist aesthetics’ history
and current condition, but also on its potential to address the most
pressing problems of contemporary philosophical aesthetics, and to
project the future avenues for its progress. In particular, we welcome
submissions that: provide historical accounts of pragmatist aesthetics’
development; address aesthetic themes in the work of classical
pragmatists (Peirce, James, Dewey, F.C.S. Schiller, etc.) and/or
neopragmatists (Rorty, Goodman, Margolis, Shusterman, Putnam, et al.);
deploy a (neo-)pragmatist perspective in addressing a given aesthetic
problem or in interpreting concrete works of art; provide a comparative
analysis of pragmatist aesthetics and aesthetic theories developed in
other philosophical traditions or in different disciplines – for
instance in analytic philosophy, continental and post-continental
thought, evolutionary psychology, psychoanalysis, etc.
Keynote speaker: Richard Shusterman (Florida Atlantic University)
Abstracts of between 350 to 500 words and a short author profile should be sent to prof. Leszek Koczanowicz (leszek@post.pl) or dr. Wojciech Malecki (wojciech.malecki@wp.pl) no later than May 15th, 2012. The conference language is English.
