Philosophy and Art

Overview

What you will study

In the Philosophy and Art event offered by University of Oxford , using key texts from the Modernist period, including Kafka’s The Trial, Julia Weckend explores how literature and fictional narrative enable humans to navigate the radical uncertainties of scientific and technological progress and of existence in general.

Dan O’Brien considers the relation between philosophy and the visual arts and the various ways in which artists can be seen as pursuing philosophical investigations through their art practice. On Sunday, Warren Buckland then turns our attention to fiction and the ontological status of implicit cinematic narrators in fictional narratives, viewed through the philosophical perspectives of realism, nominalism, and conceptualism.

Finally, Julia Weckend notes about two apparently indiscernible objects that one might be a work of art and the other not. Examples include Andy Warhol’s Brillo Boxes and Tracy Emin’s Bed. Why is Emin’s bed an artwork, while yours isn’t? Getting a hold of that certain extra should give us an idea of what makes something a work of art.