The End Of Art Revisited: A Response To Kalle Puolakka

In ‘The End of Art: A Real Problem or Not Really a Problem?’ I raised some questions about Arthur Danto’s famous ‘end of art’ thesis. A largely polemical paper, it was intended as an invitation to further discussion, and Kalle Puolakka has now taken up this invitation in ‘Playing The Game After The End of Art’. I thank him for his many insightful remarks. Critical comments are typically more interesting and helpful than simple praise, and Puolakka’s comments are no exception. I would therefore like to return the favour. I will place Puolakka’s remarks under critical examination and in the process hope to rephrase, refine, and defend some of my original claims. First, however, I will briefly restate my reading of Danto’s ideas on the end of art

The Aesthetics and Ethics of Sexiness

All too often women are considered sexy in accordance with an externally dictated and unduly narrow conception of sexiness – one that excludes large portions of the female population from being considered sexy. In response to this, some feminists have suggested that we should give up on sexiness altogether. Since the agency, subjectivity, and autonomy of a woman being judged sexy is generally ignored, they argue, we have, in effect, an equation of sexiness with objecthood. In a recent essay entitled “Sex Objects and Sexy Subjects” Sheila Lintott and Sherri Irvin object to this strategy because they see sexuality as a crucial element of selfhood – something that one cannot simply ‘give up on’. Instead, they propose to reclaim and redefine sexiness in such a way that makes room for women as sexy subjects desiring and pursuing authentic pleasure. In this short paper, I will investigate the merits and shortcomings of their proposal and present an alternative account

Portraits of Philosophers

This paper presents a close analysis of Steve Pyke’s famous series of portraits of philosophers. By comparing his photographs to other well-known series of portraits and to other portraits of philosophers we will seek a better understanding of the distinctiveness and fittingness of Pyke’s project. With brief nods to Roland Barthes, Jean Baudrillard, G.W.F. Hegel, and Arthur Schopenhauer and an extensive critical investigation of Cynthia Freeland’s ideas on portraiture in general and her reading of Steve Pyke’s portraits in particular, this paper will also aim to make a contribution to the philosophical debate on portraiture

Wat is een afbeelding?

This paper addresses what is arguably ?? one of the most fundamental questions in the debate on depiction, What is a Picture? It offers a critical discussion of traditional theories of pictorial representation, such as the Resemblance Theory, Conventionalism, and the Illusion Theory; it introduces and analyses the crucial notions of ‘seeing as’ and ‘seeing in’, and concludes by presenting some of the most recent accounts of depiction defended by Kendall Walton, Dominic Lopes, Robert Hopkins, and John Hyman

Wat is een afbeelding?

This paper addresses what is arguably ?? one of the most fundamental questions in the debate on depiction, What is a Picture? It offers a critical discussion of traditional theories of pictorial representation, such as the Resemblance Theory, Conventionalism, and the Illusion Theory; it introduces and analyses the crucial notions of ‘seeing as’ and ‘seeing in’, and concludes by presenting some of the most recent accounts of depiction defended by Kendall Walton, Dominic Lopes, Robert Hopkins, and John Hyman

A Joint Model for the Term Structure of Interest Rates and the Macroeconomy

In this paper, we present a stylized continuous time model integrating the macroeconomy and the bond markets. We use this framework to estimate (real) interest rate policy rules using information contained in both macroeconomic variables (i.e. output and inflation) and in the term structure of interest rates. We extend the standard Kalman filter procedure in order to estimate this model efficiently. Application to the U.S. economy shows that this model is able to estimate the macroeconomic dynamics accurately and that the standard feedback rule only in observable factors is not valid within this framework. Moreover, we find that observable macroeconomic variables do not explain much of the term structure. However, (filtered) stochastic central tendencies of these macroeconomic variables do. Finally, both observable and non-observable factors determine the risk premia and hence the excess holding returns of the bonds.essentially affine term structure model, feedback interest rate rule, forecasting

Monetary unification and the price of risk: An unconditional analysis.

In this paper we assess the effects of monetary unification in Europe on the pricing behavior in financial markets and more in particular on excess returns. We use the standard IAPT framework to analyze the role of the exchange rate in separating excess return pricing across European countries. We find that, already in the decade prior to EMU, exchange rate changes do not (unconditionally) correlate strongly with financial market movements across countries. Consequently, elimination of exchange rate variability through monetary unification is not likely to have had major implications for pricing behavior in EMU marketsRisk;

Monetary Unification and the Price of Risk: An Unconditional Analysis

In this paper we assess the effects of monetary unification in Europe on the pricing behavior in financial markets and more in particular on excess returns. We use the standard IAPT framework to analyze the role of the exchange rate in separating excess return pricing accross European countries. We find that, already in the decade prior to EMU, exchange rate changes do not (unconditionally) correlate strongly with financial market movements across countries. Consequently elimination of exchange rate variability through monetary unification is not likely to have had major implications for pricing behavior in EMU markets.multi-country asset pricing model, exchange risk, price of risk conversion

The effect of monetary unification on German bond markets.

This paper uses reprojection to develop a benchmark to assess ECB monetary policy since January 1999, the start of EMU. We first estimate an essentially affine term structure model for the German SWAP yield curve between 1987:04-1998:12. The German monetary policy is then reprojected onto the EMU period (1999:01-2001:08). We find that the German real interest rate in place during the EMU period is significantly lower than it would have been in case the Bundesbank were still in charge of monetary policy. We also show the effect of EMU on the German SWAP\ yield curve. Short- and medium-term bonds seem to have been more affected than long-term bonds.EMU; ECB; Central bank monetary policy rule; Bundesbank; Essentially affine term structure model;