UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL AUTÓNOMA DE MÉXICO INSTITUTO DE INVESTIGACIONES FILOSÓFICAS

Nature's
     Handmaid, Art

In this presentation, Elgin argues scientific experiments and works of art use the same devices to disclose aspects of the world.  Both create contexts that enable them to exemplify features that are ordinarily difficult to discern.  Additionally, she discusses the cognitive functions of the emotions, arguing that the arts provide a venue for refining and our emotional range and exploiting emotions' cognitive deliverances.  Finally she discusses response-dependent properties (e.g., being green or being ugly). These are properties that owe their identities to responses they evoke.  The arts sensitize us to such properties.  Moreover, by refining our sensibilities, they may actually create new properties.