Pablo Picasso’s version of Velázquez’s Las Meninas

This course examines a number of the efforts to explain and account for the nature of art, for what makes an object a work of art, the special characteristics of such objects, if any, and whether there are any cross-cultural constants with respect to the nature of artistic activity as distinct from other activities. These and other questions will be examined alongside discussions of particular artistic genres. In this course we will discuss literature/poetry, music, painting, film, and architecture.

Spring 2022 Course Syllabus


Resources for Philosophy of Literature and Poetry.

William Shakespeare

Below are a some helpful sites that have information related to our discussions on literature and poetry. There are other links that will be helpful to the course in general.

Stanford’s Philosophy + Literature page is a helpful resource with numerous links that are related to this course.

A Philosophy Now story on philosophy and poetry.

Example 2

Example 3

Example 4

Example 5


Resources for Philosophy of Music

Below are some links related to the philosophy of music and to a number of the musicians and themes discussed in the course.

Here is