Philosophy and Literature Network

The “Literature and Art in the Space of Reasons” project aims to clarify the way in which a discussion about literature and art should conform (and could not be otherwise) to what Wilfrid Sellars called “the logical space of reasons” (EPM, 169): i.e. by describing practices associated with the objects of such a discussion is already placing it in the normative realm of justifications. As such it will begin with a more general discussion regarding the normative attitudes in relation to these practices, namely in respect to shared reasons, expectations and dispositions in the context of human communities (which will require, on the one hand, an examination of the different philosophical positions related to what it could mean to be animals who share reasons, dispositions, and expectations; and, on the other hand, an evaluation of the methodological benefits of a discussion about literature and art as a method of making this sharing intelligible).

The concepts of action, narrative, and community will be priviledged as criteria of explanation with which we will try to redescribe the appeal, in contemporary philosophy, to concepts like e.g. function, representation, intentions, artifacts, formal properties, aesthetic experience, conventions, institutions, etc. This option constitutes, from our point of view, a promissory alternative to other philosophical perspectives whose advantages have been well mapped in the philosophy of art and in literary theory.

We expect that the initial phase of this project results in a programmatic description of the original and innovative philosophical position regarding a combination of important questions in the domain of philosophy of art in the analytic tradition – to which we can give the provisional name of an Action-based Aesthetics. It is anticipated and also desirable, that beyond this, the adopted proceeding of the present project extends to contemporary discussions in the fields of philosophy of action and moral philosophy, articulated by examples taken from the fields of literature and art.

This project expands and reconfigures the theoretical scope of the project “Models of definition of ‘art’: Reconsidering Contextualism in Analytic Aesthetics” (previously submitted to FCT call for projects), within which all of the Network’s initiatives were completed in 2009–2010, in particular benefiting the collective work made in the Analytic Aesthetics Seminar, in the Workshop on Definitions in Art, and the meeting held in March 2010 with the panel of consultants.

The new project will have 2 phases: (A) a preparatory phase, from the beginning of September 2010 and until the beginning of its (B) phase of fulfillment. The principal objectives of (A) are:

- Preparing, by means of completing various scientific tasks and within the time period of internal support stipulated by the IFL (Institute for the Philosophy of Language), an R&D project application will be submitted during the next call for projects by the Fundação para a CIência e a Tecnologia. 

- To widen the network of international partners.

- Simultaneously reinforce the qualification of the team members for the foreseen tasks in the (B) phase of fulfillment. For this purpose, the concretization of a list of tasks is foreseen in the following respect: seminars; workshops; crash courses on topics related to the research; a permanent lectures cycle (co-listed in the work sessions of the Argumentation Lab of the IFL); scientific meetings with the international panel of consultants; communications at national and international congresses; an annual international conference (the acts of which will be published); the publication of a semesterly report; the publication of articles in specialized journals and chapters of books, authored by team members; the organization and publication of a book in an international publishing house of high regard.