Rights statement: This is a pre-copy-editing, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in British Journal for the Philosophy of Science following peer review. The definitive publisher-authenticated version Alison Stone, The Aesthetic Theory of Frances Power Cobbe, The British Journal of Aesthetics, Volume 62, Issue 3, July 2022, Pages 387–403 is available online at:https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/ayac003
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Final published version
Licence: CC BY: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - The Aesthetic Theory of Frances Power Cobbe
AU - Stone, Alison
N1 - This is a pre-copy-editing, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in British Journal for the Philosophy of Science following peer review. The definitive publisher-authenticated version Alison Stone, The Aesthetic Theory of Frances Power Cobbe, The British Journal of Aesthetics, Volume 62, Issue 3, July 2022, Pages 387–403 is available online at:https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/ayac003
PY - 2022/7/31
Y1 - 2022/7/31
N2 - This article contributes to recognizing and recovering women’s voices in the history of aesthetics by examining the aesthetic theory put forward in the 1860s by the Anglo-Irish philosopher and feminist Frances Power Cobbe. Cobbe addressed aesthetics and gender, maintaining that there are female geniuses. She addressed art and morality, arguing that art should always aim to express moral truth, and that artworks that express morally good thoughts poorly are artistically better than works that express morally bad thoughts well. She then modified her stance to argue that beauty contains but does not reduce to goodness. Cobbe also developed a comprehensive account of the arts, their relative merits, and the criteria for evaluating them. Her account had problems; nonetheless, it was ambitious, original, and interesting, and Cobbe deserves to be recognized as a woman who made significant interventions in the history of aesthetics.
AB - This article contributes to recognizing and recovering women’s voices in the history of aesthetics by examining the aesthetic theory put forward in the 1860s by the Anglo-Irish philosopher and feminist Frances Power Cobbe. Cobbe addressed aesthetics and gender, maintaining that there are female geniuses. She addressed art and morality, arguing that art should always aim to express moral truth, and that artworks that express morally good thoughts poorly are artistically better than works that express morally bad thoughts well. She then modified her stance to argue that beauty contains but does not reduce to goodness. Cobbe also developed a comprehensive account of the arts, their relative merits, and the criteria for evaluating them. Her account had problems; nonetheless, it was ambitious, original, and interesting, and Cobbe deserves to be recognized as a woman who made significant interventions in the history of aesthetics.
U2 - 10.1093/aesthj/ayac003
DO - 10.1093/aesthj/ayac003
M3 - Journal article
VL - 62
SP - 387
EP - 403
JO - British Journal of Aesthetics
JF - British Journal of Aesthetics
SN - 0007-0904
IS - 3
ER -