PHIL 1.11 True, Beautiful, Nasty: Philosophy and The Arts
Art is often cast as a pleasant distraction, but artists are lionized, ostracized, imprisoned, and even killed. Devotion to sub-genres of music, video games, literature, and street art builds and divides communities. What explains the role of the arts, and artists, in society, and what should their role be? How do positive (nice!) and negative (nasty!) aesthetic responses affect art’s function? Might art be an important, yet non-scientific, approach to understanding our world?