British Journal of Aesthetics
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British Journal of Aesthetics
@britjaesth.bsky.social
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The BJA is a quarterly journal and among the world's leading venues for philosophical aesthetics. It is run by the British Society of Aesthetics and published by OUP.
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How can music have moods? Tatyana Kostochka has the answers in our new issue. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky
‘What is distinctive of a mood, then, is not a cognitive element like judgment but a kind of mode of engagement with the objects in one’s environment. My grumpiness as a whole is not about any particular object, but it involves a particular kind of interaction with a variety of different objects.’ - Tatyana Kostochka, ‘A Little Mood Music: On the Relationship between Musical and Psychological Moods’
November 12, 2025 at 12:49 PM
britjaesth.bsky.social
AI art anyone? 😬

Anthony Cross takes the plunge in our brand new issue. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky
In his discussion of forgeries, Dutton is very clear on one point: creating a forgery is a kind of achievement, just not the kind of achievement that we might have initially thought it was. The same is no doubt true of AI-generated art; Allen’s work is an artistic performance, and it is to some degree an achievement. But, as Dutton puts it, ‘the fundamental question then is, what has the artist done, what has he achieved?’. This is a question which, for AI-generated art, has hardly even been asked. - Anthony Cross, Tool, Collaborator, or Participant: AI and Artistic Agency
November 7, 2025 at 11:01 AM
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Chris Earley defends a collaborative account of an artwork's epistemic value in our brand new issue. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky
[E]ven if Shakespeare could not intend to tell us anything specific about the 2016 election, he has tried and non-accidentally succeeded in providing us with prompts that can be applied to topics that, by their very nature, resonate widely in subjects far beyond those his plays address. In order to work out just what the magnitude of Shakespeare’s cognitive achievement is with respect to these themes, we have to test just how far this resonance goes, which involves exploring specific political subjects in the wider world. - Christopher Earley, Co-Producing Art's Cognitive Value
November 6, 2025 at 8:16 PM
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A little peek at the content in our brand new issue. academic.oup.com/bjaesthetics... #philsky
Cover of newest BJA. List of Articles in latest BJA. List of review articles in latest BJA. Symposium on Spectator Gaming in latest BJA.
November 3, 2025 at 10:37 AM
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Volume 65, Issue 4 has landed my friends, and it's a banger. academic.oup.com/bjaesthetics... #philsky
Navy blue cover of the British Journal of Aesthetics - Volume 65, Number 4, October 2025.
November 3, 2025 at 10:30 AM
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Becky Wallbank reviews Jon Robson's defence of knowledge from aesthetic testimony in our latest issue. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky
Robson is open to the idea that some kinds of pessimistic intuitions might be explained by widespread, tacit acceptance of folk relativism. I wonder how compatible this is with the idea that there is a widespread, tacit acceptance of the idea that aesthetic assertions indiscriminately signal qualities such as intelligence, creativity and skill. The latter implies the presence of some kind of shared standard of knowledge. - Rebecca Wallbank, Review of Jon Robson’s Aesthetic Testimony: An Optimistic Approach
October 28, 2025 at 5:24 AM
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Poems as socioeconomic gatekeepers? Open access in our latest issue. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky
‘When I read the poem in my accent, which retains some of its regional inflections, tones, and cadences despite my own years in the formal institutions of British life, the lines do not rhyme. And they do not rhyme to the ear of those with many of the standard accents of the north-east or south-west of England, for example, or of Wales and Northern Ireland. More significantly for what follows, the lines do not rhyme in the voices of those from the post-industrial heartlands of central Scotland, from working-class regions of London, Birmingham, or Liverpool, or from traditional rural constituencies across the United Kingdom.’ - Tom Roberts, ‘Voice, Rhyme, and Aesthetic Injustice’
October 28, 2025 at 4:42 AM
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Ryan Doran is getting to the philosophical bottom of true beauty in this open access 🔓 advance article...

...by ranking the most beautiful philosophers' bottoms 🍎. (You'll never believe who made number 5 😱).* doi.org/10.1093/aest...
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*might be bollocks.
[P]rettiness is often described as ‘shallow’, but beauty is described as ‘deep’. Depth seems to be primarily intended in its metaphorical sense in this context, as referring to importance or significance, but at times also has intimations of its literal meaning of referring to spatial depth. It is common to hear prettiness spoken of as a property of mere sensory surfaces and appearances, and as trivial, and of beauty as somehow reaching beyond appearances, and as being significant or even profound. - Ryan P Doran, True Beauty
October 26, 2025 at 8:54 PM
britjaesth.bsky.social
In this advance article, Alex Fisher argues that the phenomenal experience of virtual reality does not involve seeing-in. And yet it's twofolded 🤯. Unexplode your brains and click the link, people. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky
There is a second aspect to our awareness, simultaneous to our awareness of represented content. Our experience is twofold. Yet this is so without our awareness of the configuration of virtual reality images—we have a twofold experience without seeing-in. - Alex Fisher Virtual Reality, Seeing-In, and Twofoldness
October 21, 2025 at 3:58 PM
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Chris Bartel is playing with toys in this advance article. Come for the nerf guns, stay for the syllogisms. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky
We do not play with toys because we expect to gain something of practical value from them. Rather, we play with toys for aesthetic reasons. This is a broad topic that would require a much longer treatment than I have the space for here. This essay has the more modest goal of attempting to provide a framework for thinking of the aesthetic value of toys by looking at them in relation to games. - Christopher Bartel, When a Balloon is Enough: An Attention-Based Account of Toys and Games
October 17, 2025 at 11:06 AM
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Connor Kianpour defends (many) immoral jokes in this advance article. Will he have cancelled himself by the time you reach the conclusion? Only one way to find out... doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky
Humour’s combination of non-literality, imaginative distance, and play allows it to disarm, provoke, and invite reflection, even from resistant audiences. That distinctiveness supports a more permissive ethical stance: immoral jokes often expose social and moral incongruities, making them valuable tools for moral-epistemic growth. - Connor K Kianpour, Learning by Laughing: Humour as Moral Error Detection and the Ethics of Immoral Jokes
October 8, 2025 at 7:03 PM
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In this advance article, Nils Stear reviews The Passenger, a play adapted from Ulrich Boschwitz's recently rediscovered novel, and reflects on the challenges and promise of literary adaptations. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky
In a remarkable feat of stamina, Neumark Jones gives a compelling performance in which he never leaves the stage, and the set […] never changes. This results in almost continuous movement at a frequently frenetic pace along a narrative track that meanders less than the novel’s on the way to its tragic terminus. If the novel is a tense commuter service stopping periodically at ominous stations, the play is a runaway express train on which the emergency brake has snapped. - Nils-Hennes Stear, Review of The Passenger, Finborough Theatre, London
October 1, 2025 at 8:14 PM
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Ted Gracyk looks at the resistance to casting ugly voices in leading opera roles and its relationship to questions of justice in our latest issue. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky
As our bodies age, we experience predictable changes in both appearance and functionality. […] The voice also ages, most notably because the vocal folds of the larynx become thinner and gradually harden (Stadelman-Cohen and Hillman 2019: 34). The singing voice changes with age, the vocal range diminishes, and therefore the prime years for many opera singers have been brief. - Theodore Gracyk, The Beautiful Voice in Opera: The Injustice of Vocal Discrimination
September 29, 2025 at 7:39 AM
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Bence Nanay looks closely at Tsai Ming-Liang's more experimental work in this advance article published mere minutes ago. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky
Tsai has always been very explicit that, for him, filmmaking is not about stories, not about narratives, but about showing images worth seeing. And the Walker series gives him the opportunity to do this in a pure form. The slow-walking monk is but an excuse for showing us images worth looking at. Bence Nanay, Review of Tsai Ming-Liang: Walker Series, Film Fest Gent and Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst
September 19, 2025 at 12:51 PM
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Christine Hamel and Ann Cahill look at what is needed in actors' voice training to create more just practices in rehearsal and performance. From our latest issue. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky
If affective states flow among discrete bodies, moving those bodies to different actions, experiences, and choices, and if the way they hit and take up residence in bodies is culturally and politically inflected, then how are we to understand how emotion can be effectively and ethically taken up in the space of voice and acting training? Christine Hamel & Ann J Cahill, The Swirl of Emotion Among Us: Affect, the Voice, and Performance Training
September 19, 2025 at 6:47 AM
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Mariajo Alcaraz León takes a closer look at how an artist's identity intersects with the ethical contours of her work in our newest issue. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky
‘[Dana] Schutz could have produced an insightful work even without belonging to—or receiving acknowledgment from—the relevant group. Her failure would not so much depend on these aspects, but—as I will try to show—on her awkward artistic contribution to the story and image she takes as her subject.’ - María José Alcaraz León, An Artist’s Voice: Expressive Achievement, Experiential Content, and Authority
September 18, 2025 at 7:35 AM
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Rossen Ventzislavov lays out two problems with how philosophers conceive of the human body in performance art in our new issue. doi.org/10.1093/aest...
‘Due to the ostensible phenomenological immediacy of the art form, all discussions of performance art involve some manoeuvering—presumptive or otherwise—around what it means to have an experience.’ - Rossen Ventzislavov, Is There Any Body Out There?
September 12, 2025 at 8:37 AM
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Karen Simecek and Toby Young introduce our brand new issue, a special issue on the aesthetics and ethics of embodied performance. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky
Whether in discussions about colour-blind casting in Hollywood or major opera houses deciding if canonical stage works that problematically depict marginalized people should still be performed, the cultural implications of ‘giving voice’ to marginalized experiences and ideas through performance are more important now than ever. To date, these issues have remained largely untouched by philosophy, yet philosophy can bring important and distinctive understanding to the debate through ethical and aesthetic analysis of performance and embodied voice[.] - Karen Simecek, Toby Young, Embodied Voices: An Introduction
September 9, 2025 at 7:12 AM
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This is a public service announcement. The BJA has published a brand new issue. That is all. academic.oup.com/bjaesthetics... #philsky
A cover of the British Journal of Aesthetics, Volume 65, Number 3. A special issue on embodied voices: aesthetics and ethics of bodies in performance. Embodied voices: an introduction Performing arts and affordances: moving toward poetic justice through embodied learning Is there anybody out there? “Her fresh voice”: representatively staging Puccini’s Turandot with Andrea Dworkin An artist’s voice: expressive achievement, experiential content, and authority The swirl of emotion among us: affect, the voice, and performance training The beautiful voice in opera: the injustice of vocal discrimination Voice, rhyme, and aesthetic injustice A list of reviews in the latest issue of the BJA.
September 7, 2025 at 1:36 PM
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Kant! Kant!! KANT!!! Those who love Kant are going to love our latest issue, which is chock full of Königsberg's most famous son. academic.oup.com/bjaesthetics... #philsky
A hyper-realist cartoon of Immanuel Kant sporting aviator sunglasses.
September 4, 2025 at 1:21 PM
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Ellie Jerome is thinking about creeps in this open access 🔓 advance article. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky
[The Objection from Creepiness] is especially powerful in cases of works that aim themselves at creepy audiences. Rape of Europa is one such work, though there is good reason to think that many works target(ed) the creepy. Part of the reason for this, as I detail in the next section, is that creepiness is more common than we might like to think. - Ellie Jerome, Where Ethics and Aesthetics Diverge: Reconsidering the Objection from Creepiness
August 24, 2025 at 5:57 PM
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Constantine Sandis reviews Bob Dylan's book in our latest issue: doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky
Bob Dylan’s first book of new writing […] is ostensibly neither a work of philosophy nor concerned with modern songs. […] Mercifully, closer attention to Dylan’s seemingly random conjectures allows the determined reader to extract a rewarding philosophy of modern song from this hefty, large print tome. - Constantine Sandis, Review of Bob Dylan’s The Philosophy of Modern Song
August 17, 2025 at 10:16 PM
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In this advance article, Daniel Whiting reviews Alison Stone's "groundbreaking and fascinating" book on the philosophy of art by women in the "long" 19th Century. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky
Anyone who has read Stone’s equally impressive Women Philosophers in Nineteenth-Century Britain (2023) will be unsurprised to find here that the exposition is careful, the analysis is meticulous, and the command of the texts is impressive. - Daniel Whiting, Review of Alison Stone’s ‘Women on Philosophy of Art: Britain 1770–1900’
August 12, 2025 at 10:29 PM
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What is the source of a score's normativity? Yili Zhou has an idea in this advance article. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky
I am not implying that pursuing a ‘correct’ score without serial mistakes is aesthetically incorrect or that a performer could not choose to depart from a written score to pursue a better performance. Instead, my view supports the advocators of Stravinsky’s original arrangement and performers who take Stravinsky’s confirmation as the final verdict about the ‘correct’ score. They listen to what Stravinsky is trying to say through the music, just as we try to figure out what our friends are telling us in our conversation, as we set aside the question of whether they are making mistakes. - Yili Zhou, Why Follow the Score? Aesthetic Normativity in Performing Classical Music and the Genuine Performing Experience
August 11, 2025 at 12:33 PM
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We're getting into the Third Critique's weeds (and hoping they're genuine) in this advance article. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky
Kant’s handling of the faked nature case is puzzling. The puzzle is understanding why faked natural beauty should elicit such a shift in the subject’s aesthetic judgment, given that the fake flowers and bird songs did initially please the lover of beautiful forms. Assuming one were never to realize the subterfuge, what difference should it make to the aesthetic appreciator that the flowers and bird songs are actually fakes?' - Corey A Beckford, Faked Nature? A Kantian Proto-Environmental Aesthetics
August 8, 2025 at 9:49 PM