I will be presenting my paper, “Kant on the Puzzle of Imaginative Resistance,” at the APA Central in February 2021. Hopefully, in person, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Here is the abstract:

Abstract: The phenomenon of “imaginative resistance” (IR) refers to psychological difficulties otherwise competent imaginers experience when engaging in particular imaginative activities prompted by works of fiction. While the topic has attracted considerable philosophical attention, so far no historical investigation of the phenomenon has been carried out. I want to amend this gap in the literature by constructing a Kantian explanation. The choice to focus on Kant is not arbitrary. We can derive important insights from his empirical psychology which allow us to articulate certain aspects of IR that have been neglected, particularly the role of emotions. The main Kantian contribution to this debate, as I will show, is to upset the polarization between rival explanations of IR, by suggesting that our possible responses to morally flawed works can vary. In some cases, we resist imagining counter-evaluative claims due to our unwillingness to do so, and in others, due to an inability.

Octavian Ion and I will be presenting our paper titled “Apt Perception, Aesthetic Engagement, and Installation Art” at the American Society for Aesthetics Annual Meeting which will be held virtually the week of November 9-14, 2020. We will also be presenting it at the “Space, Site, Installation” Conference which was initially set to held in Padova on March 23-25 but now postponed and at the 2021 Eastern APA.

Here is the abstract:

In this paper we apply the account Susanna Siegel develops in The Rationality of Perception to aesthetic cases and explore the implications of such an account for aesthetic engagement as well as curatorial and exhibitionary practices. We contend that one’s prior outlook – expertise, beliefs, desires, fears, preferences – can have both aesthetically good and bad influences on perceptual experiences, just as it can have both epistemically good and bad influences. Unless we take our perception of high-level and low-level aesthetically relevant properties to be assessable as apt or inapt, we will be at a loss to explain cases of “hijacked” aesthetic perception. We explore the merits of the aptness of perception thesis for reconceptualizing aesthetic engagement in more pluralist terms and show how such reconceptualization allows us to make sense of our engagement with installation art. We end by discussing some practical implications this approach has for curatorial and exhibitionary practices.

One of the examples we talk about is the 2019 Mickalene Thomas exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Hence the photograph.

I will be presenting my paper, “Kant on the Puzzle of Imaginative Resistance,” on June 8th at 12:30 pm (EST) at the North American Kant Society Biennial Meeting. It will be a virtual talk. Here is the abstract:

Abstract: The phenomenon of “imaginative resistance” refers to psychological difficulties otherwise competent imaginers experience when engaging in particular imaginative activities prompted by works of fiction. While the topic has attracted considerable philosophical attention since 1994, Hume is often cited as the first philosopher to have diagnosed the phenomenon. Unfortunately, so far no historical investigation of the phenomenon has been carried out and no attempt has been made to examine how imaginative resistance connects up with the writings of any of the major philosophical figures in the history of aesthetics. I want to amend this gap in the literature by constructing a Kantian explanation of the phenomenon. The choice to focus on Kant is not arbitrary since I believe that we can derive important insights from his empirical psychology which allow us articulate certain aspects of the imaginative resistance phenomenon that have been neglected within the existing literature, particularly the role of emotions. The main Kantian contribution to this debate, as I will show, is to upset the polarization between rival explanations of imaginative resistance, by suggesting that our possible responses to morally flawed works can vary. In some cases, we resist imagining counter-evaluative claims due to our unwillingness to do so, and in others, due to an inability.

My Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on imaginative resistance is out! Here is the link.

I will presenting my paper titled “Aptness of Perception and Aesthetic Normativity” at the European Society for Aesthetics Conference in Tallinn, Estonia, in June.  Here is the short abstract for the talk:

ABSTRACT: In this paper I apply the account Susanna Siegel develops in The Rationality of Perception to aesthetic cases and explore the implication of such an account for rethinking one of the traditional problems in philosophical aesthetics. I contend that one’s prior outlook – expertise, beliefs, desires, fears, preferences – can have aesthetically good and bad influences on perceptual experiences, just as it can have epistemically good and bad influences. Analyzing these bad influences in cases of “hijacked” aesthetic perception will reveal that, unless we realize that our perception of high-level and low-level aesthetically relevant properties is assessable as apt or inapt, we will be at a loss to explain what goes wrong in these cases. I argue that, just as perception can be rational or irrational (“the rationality of perception thesis”), so too can it be apt or inapt (“the aptness of perception thesis”). I explore the merits of the aptness of perception thesis for reconceptualizing aesthetic normativity.

The CFP for the 2020 ASA Pacific Meeting is out! I am co-organizing next year’s meeting with the wonderful Shelby Moser! Anne Eaton kindly accepted to be our keynote speaker! Please consider sending a paper or commenting or just attending our meeting which will take place at the beautiful Berkeley City Club, designed by Julia Morgan. Please feel free to share the CFP! Here is the link.

My paper, titled “Self-Standing Beauty: Tracing Kant’s Views on Purpose-Based Beauty,” is published in Southwest Philosophy Review. Here is the link.

My review of Michel Chaouli’s book, Thinking with Kant’s Critique of Judgment is out! You can find it in the latest issue of the Journal of the History of Philosophy.

KANT, NORMATIVITY AND RELIGION

The workshop will take place at Boğaziçi University, on Friday June 29th from 1pm until 6.30pm in JF507. Everyone is welcome.

Schedule:

1.00 – 2.15:    Martin Sticker (Dublin) “Kant on Beneficence”

2.15 – 3.30     Emine Hande Tuna (Brown) “Objective Purposiveness and Value”

4.00 – 5.15     Taylan Susam (Brown) “Upon this rock: Kant on the Churches Visible and Invisible”

5.15 – 6.30     Saniye Vatansever (Bilkent) “Kant on Miracles”

The conference is organised a part of the joint Boğaziçi -Southampton Newton-Katip Çelebi project “Agency and Autonomy: Kant and the Normative Foundations of Republican Self-Government”, run by Lucas Thorpe (Boğaziçi) and Andrew Stephenson (Southampton).