Papers by Mark Windsor
Philosophical Quarterly
Some objects we value because they afford a felt connection with people, events, or places connec... more Some objects we value because they afford a felt connection with people, events, or places connected with their past. Visiting Canterbury cathedral, you encounter the place where, in 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket was murdered by four knights of Henry II. Knowing that you are standing in the very place where Becket’s blood was spilled gives the past event a sense of tangible reality. One feels ‘in touch with’ the past; history seems to ‘come alive’. In this paper, I propose an explanation for the phenomenology of such experiences in terms of an imaginative activity that represents what an object is historically connected with as part of the object in the present. One imagines of the site of Becket’s murder Becket being murdered. According to my account, objects that embody their histories are representations in Kendall Walton’s sense: they have the function of serving as props in games of make-believe.
The Routledge Handbook of Nostalgia, 2025
Keepsakes are nostalgic objects par excellence. We value keepsakes because they prompt nostalgic ... more Keepsakes are nostalgic objects par excellence. We value keepsakes because they prompt nostalgic memories of the past. But perhaps more importantly, we also value them because they afford a feeling of contact with that which they remind us of. Drawing on work in philosophy and psychology, this chapter aims to give an account of the nature and value of keepsakes as nostalgic objects. Keepsakes, it argues, are objects that bear a material continuity with some person, event, or place from one's past to which one has a personal attachment. To understand the distinctive experiential value of keepsakes as nostalgic objects, however, the chapter argues that we need to invoke the imagination. Keepsakes manifest the presence of the past by prompting one to imaginatively project what a keepsake is historically connected with onto the object as one experiences it in the present.
British Journal of Aesthetics , 2024
This introduction to the special issue of the British Journal of Aesthetics, ‘Remote Art: Engagin... more This introduction to the special issue of the British Journal of Aesthetics, ‘Remote Art: Engaging with Art from Distant Times and Cultures’, presents the notion of art’s remoteness in the context of debates about inter-cultural diversity. It discusses the various aspects of remoteness, how it figures in the individual contributions to the issue, and suggests possible avenues for future scholarship.
Analysis, 2023
Many hold that aesthetic appreciation is sensitive to the authenticity or genuineness of an objec... more Many hold that aesthetic appreciation is sensitive to the authenticity or genuineness of an object. In a recent body of work, Carolyn Korsmeyer has defended the claim that genuineness itself is an aesthetic property. Korsmeyer’s aim is to explain our aesthetic appreciation of objects that afford a sense of being ‘in touch with the past’. In this paper, I argue that genuineness cannot explain our appreciation of these objects. There is no aesthetic experience of the genuine.
The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 2023
Anyone familiar with using a film camera will know how easy it is to talk of having taken a roll ... more Anyone familiar with using a film camera will know how easy it is to talk of having taken a roll of photographs and the anticipation involved in waiting to have them developed. In a recent article, Dawn Wilson (2021) has argued that the idea that photographic images exist before development is irredeemably confused. Wilson's aim is to show that single-stage accounts of photography are untenable. According to the single-stage account:
Hume Studies, 2023
One of the gravest charges that has been brought against Hume's essay "Of the Standard of Taste" ... more One of the gravest charges that has been brought against Hume's essay "Of the Standard of Taste" is that of circularity. Hume is accused of defining good art in terms of "true judges," and of defining true judges in terms of their ability to judge good art. First, I argue that Hume avoids circularity since he offers a way of identifying good art that is logically independent of the verdict of true judges. Second, I argue that this clarifies an enduring puzzle in the scholarship on Hume's essay: why he appears to offer not one but two standards of taste. Hume's standard does not consist of general rules; however, Hume needs general rules to establish that some individuals' tastes are more "delicate" than others'.
Philosophy and Literature, 2020
Freud's famous essay on "The 'Uncanny'" is often poorly understood. In this paper, I clear up the... more Freud's famous essay on "The 'Uncanny'" is often poorly understood. In this paper, I clear up the popular misconception that Freud identifies all uncanny phenomena with the return of repressed infantile complexes by showing that he offers not one but two theories of the uncanny: "return of the repressed," and another explanation which has to do with the apparent confirmation of "surmounted primitive beliefs." Of the two, I argue that it is the latter, more often overlooked theory that faces fewer serious objections and carries greater explanatory power in respect of the uncanny.
Estetika: The European Journal of Aesthetics, 2019
‘Tales of dread’ is a genre that has received scant attention in aesthetics. In this paper, I aim... more ‘Tales of dread’ is a genre that has received scant attention in aesthetics. In this paper, I aim to elaborate an account of tales of dread which (1) effectively distinguishes these from horror stories, and (2) helps explain the close affinity between the two, accommodating borderline cases. I briefly consider two existing accounts of the genre – namely, those of Noël Carroll and of Cynthia Freeland – and show why they are inadequate for my purposes. I then develop my own account of tales of dread, drawing on two theoretical resources: Freud’s ‘The “Uncanny”’, and Tzvetan Todorov’s The Fantastic. In particular, I draw on Freud to help distinguish tales of dread from horror stories, and I draw on Todorov to help explain the fluidity between the genres. I argue that both horror stories and tales of dread feature apparent impossibilities which are threatening; but whereas in horror stories the existence of the monster (the apparent impossibility) is confirmed, tales of dread are sustained by the audience’s uncertainty pertaining to preternatural objects or events. Where horror monsters pose an immediate, concrete danger to the subject’s physical well-being, these preternatural objects or events pose a psychological threat to the subject’s grasp of reality.
British Journal of Aesthetics, 2019
I propose a definition of the uncanny: an anxious uncertainty about what is real caused by an app... more I propose a definition of the uncanny: an anxious uncertainty about what is real caused by an apparent impossibility. First, I outline the relevance of the uncanny to art and aesthetics. Second, I disambiguate theoretical uses of ‘uncanny’ and establish the sense of the term that I am interested in—namely, an emotional state (a kind of anxiety) directed towards particular objects in the world which are characteristically eerie, creepy, and weird. Third, I look at Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ as a means of drawing out the conditions that I claim are essential to uncanny experiences, and then elaborate the terms of my proposed definition. Finally, I show how the definition accounts for two paradigmatic kinds of uncanny phenomena: cases of ‘uncanny resemblances’, which include twins, doppelgangers, and very lifelike representations of the human body; and unlikely coincidences of events.
Tate Papers, 2011
This paper looks at the interactivity of Carsten Höller’s Test Site 2006, using Alfred Gell’s Art... more This paper looks at the interactivity of Carsten Höller’s Test Site 2006, using Alfred Gell’s Art and Agency (1998) and Nicolas Bourriaud’s Relational Aesthetics (1998). In the first part Gell is used to examine the interactive relationships between artist and participants mediated by the slides, the aesthetic quality and political significance of which are then revealed in the second part with reference to Bourriaud.
Review by Mark Windsor
The British Journal of Aesthetics, 2020
Through the medium of film and photography, this major exhibition considers how masculinity has b... more Through the medium of film and photography, this major exhibition considers how masculinity has been coded, performed, and socially constructed from the 1960s to the present day. Examining depictions of masculinity from behind the lens, the Barbican brings together the work of over 50 international artists, photographers and filmmakers including Laurie Anderson, Sunil Gupta, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Isaac Julien and Catherine Opie. In the wake of #MeToo the image of masculinity has come into sharper focus, with ideas of toxic and fragile masculinity permeating today’s society. This exhibition charts the often complex and sometimes contradictory representations of masculinities, and how they have developed and evolved over time. Touching on themes including power, patriarchy, queer identity, female perceptions of men, hypermasculine stereotypes, tenderness and the family, the exhibition shows how central photography and film have been to the way masculinities are imagined and understood in contemporary culture
Interview by Mark Windsor
Postgraduate Journal of Aesthetics
Bence Nanay is Professor of Philosophy and BOF Research Professor at the University of Antwerp, a... more Bence Nanay is Professor of Philosophy and BOF Research Professor at the University of Antwerp, and Senior Research Associate at the University of Cambridge. He has published widely on topics in philosophy of mind, philosophy of biology, and aesthetics. He edited Perceiving the World: New Essays on Perception (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), and is the author of Between Perception and Action (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013) and Aesthetics as Philosophy of Perception (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
Conference proceedings by Mark Windsor
Proceedings of the European Society for Aesthetics , 2018
‘Tales of dread’ is a genre that has received scant attention in aesthetics. In this paper, I aim... more ‘Tales of dread’ is a genre that has received scant attention in aesthetics. In this paper, I aim to elaborate an account of tales of dread which (1) effectively distinguishes these from horror stories, and (2) helps explain the close affinity between the two, accommodating borderline cases. I consider two existing accounts of the genre, namely, those of Noël Carroll and Cynthia Freeland, and show why they are inadequate. I then develop my own account of tales of dread, drawing on two theoretical resources: Freud’s essay on ‘The “Uncanny”’, and Tzvetan Todorov’s theory of The Fantastic. In particular, I draw on Freud to help distinguish tales of dread from horror stories, and I draw on Todorov to help explain the fluidity between the genres. I argue that both horror stories and tales of dread feature apparent impossibilities which are threatening; but whereas in horror stories the existence of the monster (the apparent impossibility) is confirmed, tales of dread are sustained by the audience’s uncertainty pertaining to preternatural objects or events. Where horror monsters pose an immediate, concrete danger to the subject’s physical wellbeing, these preternatural objects or events pose a psychological threat to the subject’s grasp of reality.
Proceedings of the European Society for Aesthetics , 2014
Art and magic are often associated with one another in people’s
minds, when people talk about, fo... more Art and magic are often associated with one another in people’s
minds, when people talk about, for example, the power that art has to ‘conjure’ our emotions, or of being put under the ‘spell’ of an artwork. By examining the way in which we regularly emotionally respond to images of people we love, I will explore in this paper one way in which art and magic can be understood as sharing an important connection. First, I will introduce the notion of sympathetic magic and the ‘law of similarity’, according to which, “the image equals the object itself”. Second, drawing on psychological studies conducted by Paul Rozin and his colleagues, I will show how the way we regularly respond to images of loved ones is consistent with the law of similarity. Third, I will use Tamar Szabó Gendler’s recent account of ‘alief’ in order to help understand the mental processes involved in this ‘magical-affective’ (as I call it) level of response. And finally, with reference to Wittgenstein, I will draw out some implications of this in terms of our understanding both of the magical practices of tradition cultures, and of the function of images in contemporary Western societies, drawing
parallels between the two.
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Papers by Mark Windsor
Review by Mark Windsor
Interview by Mark Windsor
Conference proceedings by Mark Windsor
minds, when people talk about, for example, the power that art has to ‘conjure’ our emotions, or of being put under the ‘spell’ of an artwork. By examining the way in which we regularly emotionally respond to images of people we love, I will explore in this paper one way in which art and magic can be understood as sharing an important connection. First, I will introduce the notion of sympathetic magic and the ‘law of similarity’, according to which, “the image equals the object itself”. Second, drawing on psychological studies conducted by Paul Rozin and his colleagues, I will show how the way we regularly respond to images of loved ones is consistent with the law of similarity. Third, I will use Tamar Szabó Gendler’s recent account of ‘alief’ in order to help understand the mental processes involved in this ‘magical-affective’ (as I call it) level of response. And finally, with reference to Wittgenstein, I will draw out some implications of this in terms of our understanding both of the magical practices of tradition cultures, and of the function of images in contemporary Western societies, drawing
parallels between the two.
minds, when people talk about, for example, the power that art has to ‘conjure’ our emotions, or of being put under the ‘spell’ of an artwork. By examining the way in which we regularly emotionally respond to images of people we love, I will explore in this paper one way in which art and magic can be understood as sharing an important connection. First, I will introduce the notion of sympathetic magic and the ‘law of similarity’, according to which, “the image equals the object itself”. Second, drawing on psychological studies conducted by Paul Rozin and his colleagues, I will show how the way we regularly respond to images of loved ones is consistent with the law of similarity. Third, I will use Tamar Szabó Gendler’s recent account of ‘alief’ in order to help understand the mental processes involved in this ‘magical-affective’ (as I call it) level of response. And finally, with reference to Wittgenstein, I will draw out some implications of this in terms of our understanding both of the magical practices of tradition cultures, and of the function of images in contemporary Western societies, drawing
parallels between the two.