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Events: Robert Grant, John Hyman, Anthony O’Hear, Kendall Walton conclude the London Lecture Series.

The remaining four events in the Royal Institute of Philosophy’s London Lectures Series have been scheduled. All lectures start at 17.45 in the J Z Young Lecture Theatre, Anatomy Building, Gower Street, London.  The talks last an hour, followed by half an hour of questions. The Institute’s lectures are free and open to the public, who are advised to arrive early to be sure of a seat.

11 February 2011: Robert Grant, ‘Sound Values or Bon Ton? Scruton on Music

Roger Scruton’s The Aesthetics of Music (1997) is actually a complete philosophy of music, the longest, most comprehensive and (some would say) the best of its kind, certainly in English. Yet it received only a handful of notices, most somewhat grudging and many hostile. Some criticisms were purely technical (e.g. regarding ‘ineliminable metaphor’ in music); some were as ideological as (they claimed) Scruton himself was, he being either too populist or too elitist. I shall contend that neither of the latter views is plausible, while acknowledging, as Scruton, his critics, and Plato too claim, that music is not purely abstract, and does indeed have politico-cultural significance and influence. In this respect music is of a piece with the other topics (e.g. sex, architecture) which Scruton has made his special concern, all, in his treatment of them, testifying to his humanistic, anti-reductionist emphasis on ‘the priority of appearance’ and the centrality of ‘tertiary qualities’ to the life of rational beings.

18 February:  John Hyman, ‘Making Sense of Representation in Art’

25 February:  Anthony O’Hear, ‘Reflections on Sculpture

Using Aristotle’s fourfold definition of causation, I intend to explore the distinctive qualities of sculpture as opposed to other art forms. My examples will range from the Ancient Greeks to the present day, and will include the use of sculpture in Medieval religious contexts.

4 March:  Kendall Walton, ‘Learning from Art’

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