CONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgements
1. Functional Beauty in the Aesthetic Tradition
i i Beauty as Fitness in Classical Thought
Beauty and Function in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
The Eighteenth-Century Decline: Burke's Counter-Examples
The Eighteenth-Century Decline: Reason and
Perception 18
The Eighteenth-Century Decline: Kant
and Beauty 'Apart from Concepts' 21
The Autonomy of Art 24
2. Functional Beauty in Contemporary
Aesthetic Theory 31
The Decline of Disinterestedness
and the Rise of Cultural Theories
of Appreciation 32
Art, Nature, and Afunctionality 37
Architecture and Functionalism 42
The Problem of Translation 45
The Problem of Indeterminacy 49
A Role for Functional Beauty 57
3. Indeterminacy and the Concept of Function
Intentionalism and Indeterminacy
Naturalizing Function
Artefact Selection and Proper Function
The Problem of Novel Artefacts
Indeterminacy and Functional Beauty
4.Function and Form
Knowledge of Function
The Phenomenology of Functional Beauty
Is 'Looking Fit' an Aesthetic Quality?
Utility and Beauty
The Aesthetics of Dysfunction
5.Nature and Environment
The Appreciation of Living Nature
The Immorality Objection
Function and the Beauty of Organisms
Function in the Landscape
Looking Dysfunctional and Positive Aesthetics
6. Architecture and the Built Environment 137
The Case for Functional Beauty
in Architecture 138
The Function of a Building: The Problem of
Indeterminacy 143
Functional Beauty: a Bourgeois Aesthetic? 149
Aesthetic Objections: The Problem of Translation 154
The Beauty of Ruins 161
7. Artefacts and Everyday Aesthetics 167
Five Features of Everyday Aesthetic Objects 168
The Deweyean Approach to Everyday Aesthetics 172
The Linguistic Practice Argument i77
Assessing the Linguistic Practice Argument 182
Functional Beauty as an Everyday Aesthetic jgy
8.The Functions of Art I9<5
Functions of Art: An Overview jy7
Intentionalist Theories of Art Function 203
Causal Role Theories of Art Function 209
A Selected Effects Theory of Art Function 216
Functional Beauty and the Appreciation of Art 223
9.Conclusion 228
Bibliography 235
Index 251