Frank Noel Sibley

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Frank Noel Sibley (born February 28, 1923 in London , † February 18, 1996 in Lancaster ) was an English philosopher who was best known for his work in the field of aesthetics . Sibley is one of the most important representatives of language- analytical aesthetics , which he shaped with his distinction between aesthetic and non-aesthetic terms. Although he did not leave behind a major work on aesthetics, his two essays Aesthetic Concepts (1959 and 1962) and Aesthetic and Non-aesthetic (1965) in particular are fundamental to the modern debates within aesthetics and are widely and controversially discussed to this day.

Sibley studied with Gilbert Ryle and JL Austin philosophy at University College in Oxford . From 1949 to 1964 he taught at various universities in the USA . From 1964 until his retirement (1985) he taught at the University of Lancaster in Great Britain .

aesthetics

Aesthetic terms

With his essay Aesthetic Concepts , Sibley brought about a turn from philosophical aesthetics to language analysis . In it he tries to answer the question of what is specifically aesthetic by analyzing the meaning of the terms with which we ascribe aesthetic properties to works of art.

Sibley differentiates between aesthetic and non-aesthetic terms. We use non-aesthetic terms e.g. E.g. when we say about a painting that pale colors were used in it. If, on the other hand, we say of it that it exudes a certain serenity and calm, we are using aesthetic terms. While, in order to use non-aesthetic terms correctly, we only need a normal faculty of sensory perception, in order to use aesthetic terms correctly we also need the faculty of taste .

For Sibley, aesthetic terms also have a descriptive content and can therefore be explicated by non-aesthetic terms to a certain extent, but never completely. So we can z. For example, when it comes to colors, explain the aesthetic term “delicate” with non-aesthetic terms such as “pastel-colored” and “low-contrast”, but not the difference between the aesthetic terms “delicate” and “bland”, because both terms are very similar in terms of their descriptive content are. We can only give negative descriptive predicates that are incompatible with certain aesthetic properties (e.g. pastel-colored pictures cannot have the aesthetic quality of “garish”).

Aesthetic objects

In Aesthetic and Non-aesthetic , Sibley explains that philosophical aesthetics has a specific type of perception as its theme. Their objects are not physical, but phenomenal objects. The aesthetic qualities of a work of art in terms of its non-aesthetic properties emergent ; they depend on and are determined by its non-aesthetic properties.

Important essays

  • Seeking, scrutinizing and seeing. In: Mind 64 (1955), pp. 455–478.
  • Aesthetic Concepts. In: The Philosophical Review 68 (1959), pp. 421–450 (German in: W. Henckmann (Ed.): Ästhetik , Darmstadt 1979, pp. 230–265)
  • Aesthetics and the Look of Things. In: Journal of Philosophy 56 (1959), pp. 905-915
  • Aesthetic Concepts (revised version), in: J. Margolis (ed.): Philosophy Looks at the Arts , New York 1962, pp. 623–687 (German in: R. Bittner / P. Pfaff (ed.): Das Aesthetic judgment. Contributions to language-analytical aesthetics , Cologne (Kiepenheuer) 1977, pp. 87–110)
  • Aesthetic Concepts: A Rejoinder. In: The Philosophical Review 72 (1963), pp. 79-83
  • Aesthetic and Non-aesthetic In: The Philosophical Review 74 (1965), pp. 135–159 (German in: R. Bittner / P. Pfaff (Hrsg.): The aesthetic judgment. Contributions to language-analytical aesthetics , Cologne (Kiepenheuer) 1977, pp. 134–155)
  • About button. In: The British Journal of Aesthetics 6 (1966), pp. 68-69
  • Colors. In: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 42 (1967/68), pp. 145-166
  • Objectivity and Aesthetics. In: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 42 (Suppl .; 1968), pp. 31-54.
  • Ryle and Thinking. In: OP Wood / G. Pitcher (eds.), Ryle: A Collection of Critical Essays , New York 1970, pp. 75-104
  • Particularity, Art and Evaluation. In: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 48 (Suppl.) (1974), pp. 1-21
  • General Criteria and Reasons in Aesthetics. In: J. Fisher (Ed.), Essays on Aesthetics. Perspectives on the work of Monroe C. Beardsley , Philadelphia 1983.8. 3 - 2 0
  • Originality and Value. In: British Journal of Aesthetics 25 (1985), pp 169-184
  • Making music our own. In: M. Krausz (Ed.), The Interpretation of Music , Oxford 1993, pp. 165-176
  • Approach to Aesthetics : Collected Papers on Philosophical Aesthetics , ed. by J. Benson et al., Oxford 2001.

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ See Christel Fricke: Frank Noel Sibley. In: Monika Betzler, Julian-Nida Rümelin, Mara-Daria Cojocaru (eds.): Aesthetics and philosophy of art. From antiquity to the present in individual representations , p. 827
personal data
SURNAME Sibley, Frank Noel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH February 28, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH February 18, 1996
Place of death Lancaster