The Role of Theory and the Relevance of Epistemic Models in Contemporary Aesthetics, Second Edition

Dear Colleagues,

The thinner the threshold between virtuality and reality in contemporary aesthetics, the more crucial and influential the theoretic paradigms regulating the modes of accessing and understanding its experience become. As this is manifest in the scene of contemporary arts, the implications of what aesthetic means and is far exceeds the arts’ spectrum, including the very distinction between artefacts and nature. This consolidates the need to put aesthetics back at the centre of the philosophical debate, focusing on the relevance of its theoretical implications. What are the challenges that aesthetic attitude asks contemporary epistemology to face?

This has been particularly evident in recent years, when the contributions from the neurosciences to the aesthetic field have given birth to the discipline of neuroaesthetics, which has become hard to account for without an appropriate epistemic model explaining its functioning and guiding its empirical research.

Naïve approaches often turn into misconceptions, and this is precisely where theory comes into play, dispelling confusion and setting a rigorous basis. As the matter of aesthetics is, perhaps, the most transversal in contemporary philosophy, its claim for theory is urgent but, as is the case with any properly efficient system, the resolutive means do not lay outside the very same field. It is to this extent that the aesthetic field needs a theoretical grounding.

In the intimate confrontation between aesthetics and the meta-aesthetic premises being used to construct its background, we are bound to find the space for the emergence and description of epistemic models such as emotivism, cognitivism, and the likes. In other words, putting aesthetics in confrontation with other theoretical perspectives might challenge its definition or points of view, question its basis and references, and explore its history and implications.

Encouraging such multifaceted analyses is the goal of this Second Edition of the Special Issue, "The Role of Theory and the Relevance of Epistemic Models in Contemporary Aesthetics", as it is aimed at detaching aesthetics from a naive approach to it by consolidating its theoretical background and the epistemic models emerging from it. Within the same context, additional paths of investigation should concern the relationship between new epistemic models of aesthetics and new paradigms of philosophy of the mind so that we can think on a renewed basis about the relationship between aesthetic attitude and thinking.

We are pleased to invite you to present original manuscripts regarding the themes involved in the relationship between epistemology and aesthetics, with particular references to new models of this relationship.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following issues: aesthetics and epistemology; aesthetics and evolutive psychology; aesthetics and ecological thinking; aesthetics  as theory of perception; aesthetics and philosophy of the mind.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 200–500 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the Guest Editors (Email A) or to the Philosophies Editorial Office (philosophies@mdpi.com). Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer-review.

I/We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Fabrizio Desideri
Prof. Dr. Nicola Perullo
Guest Editors

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• aesthetic models
• aesthetic theory
• epistemology
• emotivism
• expressivism
• aesthetic mind
• aesthetic attitude
• neuroaesthetics
• aesthetic experience
• ecological aesthetics