Workshop Report
The workshop took place on June 10th, 2025 at the University of Nottingham. It brought together philosophers working on various topics which could be considered meta-aesthetic, including the analogues of traditional meta-ethical concerns, i.e., the language, epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind behind aesthetics, as well as questions as to whether the methodologies we employ in aesthetics are fit for purpose.
The first talk was delivered by Celia Coll (University of Nottingham) and argued that our understanding of cognitivism about literary value is unduly limited because of an overwhelming tendency to use nineteenth-century novels as case-studies. The second talk was delivered by Mark Silcox (University of Central Oklahoma) and proposed that the problem which stems from didacticism in works of art for standard ethicist and moralist accounts of artistic value can be resolved if we embrace fictionalism about moral value. The third talk was delivered by Clothilde Torregrossa (University of St Andrews) and argued that both externalist and internalist accounts of aesthetic experience have difficulty accommodating works of sequential art—e.g., serialised television shows, reading a novel over several evenings. The fourth talk was delivered by Jinhui Wang (University of Oklahoma) and it argued that whilst convergence on first-order aesthetic judgements is neither possible nor desirable, we have reason to be hopeful about convergence on second-order aesthetic judgements insofar as we are able to make our perspectives on aesthetic objects intelligible to others who do not converge with us on our first-order aesthetic judgements. The closing talk was given by Alex King (Simon Fraser University) and it notes that analytic aesthetics generally distinguishes between two questions: (a) what demarcates the aesthetic domain? and (b) what explains the value of what we find within the aesthetic domain? and tends to proceed to answer (b) whilst remaining silent on (a). King argued that remaining silent on (a) cannot give us a complete account of the aesthetic and proposed that we can begin to answer (a) by thinking about aesthetic experience.
There were about fifteen attendees at the event (around 10 in-person and 5 online) and there was a good mix of students (undergraduate and graduate) and philosophers at various career stages. The discussion at the workshop, both in Q&A sessions and during breaks was extremely enjoyable and productive in that it helped the speakers strengthen the views put forward in their talks. We are very grateful to the BSA for their generous funding of this event.
BPA-SWIP/Best Practice
Selection of Speakers: The organisers chose to invite two women speakers—one early in her careers and one more established. Both of our first invitees accepted (Alex King, Clothilde Torregrossa). In addition to this, one of the organisers, also a woman and early in her career, Celia Coll was also a speaker. The CfA was advertised twice on PhilosL and circulated on various social media platforms. The BSA was mentioned at each instance of our advertisements of the CfA and later in our calls for registration to the workshop.
We received 18 submissions which were anonymised and reviewed by the organisers and four other colleagues in the department. Each submission was double blind reviewed and given a score out of 5. We invited the two highest scoring submissions (from Mark Silcox, University of Central Oklahoma, and Jinhui Want, University of Oklahoma) to give a talk at the workshop. We are pleased to say that 60% of the speakers were women and at an early stage of their careers.
Structure: The event followed BPA-SWIP guidelines on chairing. After each talk we offered a five-minute comfort break and used proactive chairing to avoid dominance/aggression in the discussion (of which none occurred, attendees praised the event for its warm atmosphere and productive discussion). All speakers were given 70 minutes (roughly 35 to present and 35 for Q&A) and there were no structural differences between the timings of the talks of invited and selected speakers’ talks. The talks were advertised in order of appearance. In addition to this, all speakers were offered assistance with childcare, mobility, and other issues and the event was hybrid to accommodate all speakers.