The course aims to introduce students to the debate surrounding the problem of fiction in the enjoyment of works of art. The reference framework is that of contemporary analytical aesthetics, starting from Kendall Walton's text, Mimesis as a Way of Life. In particular, the role of imagination and emotions in the artistic experience will be analyzed. At the end of the course, students will be able to interpret the theme of aesthetic fiction, placing it in the history of philosophical thought and recognizing the different positions in the current debate, linking them to the theoretical orientations that characterize the discipline.
Course Prerequisites
Attending and non-attending students should have notions of the main themes and problems of occidental philosophy, they should be able to chronologically situate the main authors of the history of philosophy, to critically understand a philosophical text and to assume a position, at least in general, in a critical debate. The course is intended for students of master's degree courses afferent to the Department of Humanities
Teaching Methods
The course will be divided into 18 lectures in which will be addressed the critical analysis of some texts significant for the discipline and for contemporary debate. The discussion of the themes dealt with will be encouraged, also through the concrete analysis of works of art.
Assessment Methods
Oral examination: students have to demonstrate to known and to correctly expose the themes discussed during lessons. They should also be able to demonstrate an assimilation and a rephrasing of the studied information through logical comparisons and critical analysis. The exam also foresees a critical comment of a section belonging to one of the philosophical texts discussed during lessons.
Texts
In addition to lecture notes, students are required to prepare the following texts (further information on the parts to be studied will be provided during the lectures): K. Walton, Mimesi come far finta, Mimesis, Milan, 2008. P. Lamarque, Filosofia della letteratura, Mimesis, Milan 2024. G. Currie, What is Fiction? The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 43 (1985), pp. 385–392 D. Matravers, Empathy, Fiction, and Non-Fiction. In: Petraschka, Thomas and Werner, Christiana eds. Empathy's Role in Understanding Persons, Literature, and Art. Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy. New York, USA: Routledge, 2024, pp. 158–173.
Contents
Fictions: the ability to imagine worlds The course will address one of the fundamental issues of contemporary aesthetics, namely the definition of a work of art. The question will be addressed through the notion of fiction, which distinguishes the aesthetic experience. The theme will allow us to reconstruct a particularly lively and still open contemporary debate in the field of analytical aesthetics.
