International Workshop - Epistemology of aesthetics : facts, models and theories


Jeudi 20 Octobre 2016, 17h00
International Workshop - Epistemology of aesthetics : facts, models and theories

Organized by Lorenzo Bartalesi (IMéRA Fellow 2015-2016 ; Marie Curie Fellow) in collaboration with CEPERC - Centre d’Epistémologie et d’Ergologie Comparatives of Aix-Marseille University


Doctorants : inscription sur le site de la Direction de la Formation Doctorale - ADUM

Aesthetic knowledge is a fundamental dimension of the human culture and it has been crucial in the development of a scientific understanding of the natural world. However, a study of the anthropological meaning of aesthetic behaviours faces currently with countless problems. Philosophical aesthetics traditionally oscillates between a theory of knowledge and a theory of art. As a result, all attempts of conceptual framing of aesthetics have failed and so far, there isn't an accepted definition of aesthetic behaviour. Nevertheless, human sciences like archaeology, social anthropology, psychology or neurobiology adopt the aesthetic theories proposed in the occidental philosophical tradition in order to analyse the complexity of the aesthetic dimension. This fact causes several conceptual and epistemological problems for the scientific approach to aesthetic domain.

What we need is an epistemology of aesthetics – a theory of how we know (and what we know about) the world through an aesthetic experience. The aim of the workshop is an epistemological clarification of the aesthetics as a mode of knowledge culturally diversified and anchored in our cognitive architecture: What is aesthetic knowledge? Which kind of epistemology for the aesthetic knowledge? What is the place of the knowledge through art? What lesson from the historical tie between aesthetic and scientific theory can be applied today?


The topic will be developed from the main categories of epistemology: fact, model and theory. Following are some topics we would like to approach:

  • Fact: What is an aesthetic fact? Is it a perceptual fact? Can we speak of the aesthetic facts in a descriptive way? What does it mean that aesthetic is an intrinsically normative notion? What is the epistemic object of aesthetics?
  • Model: Could we model aesthetic knowledge? Which kind of model should be implemented? An aesthetic model does always involve a form of reductionism? What’s the relationship between model and theory in aesthetics?
  • Theory: Which kind of theory for aesthetic knowledge? Can we reduce aesthetic theory to perceptual theory? What's the relationship between aesthetic theory and art criticism? Despite the modern segregation of scientific and aesthetic knowledge, could epistemology of science be a model for aesthetics?


Invited speakers

  • Gregory Currie (University of York)
  • Fabrizio Desideri (University of Firenze)
  • Giuseppe Di Liberti (Ceperc, Aix-Marseille University)
  • Bence Nanay (Antwerp University)
  • Jean-Marie Schaeffer (CRAL, EHESS Paris)
  • Jerome Dokic (Institut Nicod, EHESS Paris)


14/09/2015 - 12/02/2016