Reversed Essentialism

Treating exceptional cases as marks of an essence is as bad as essentialism. I suggest we understand art as a practice, not as something we could, or should find the eternally necessary and sufficient conditions of

Reanimation and Copyright. Rob Scholte’s Work. Part II.

A viable way to defend the rights of later picture makes to use and change the works of their predecessors is by reference to the artistic merit of the later works. Rob Scholte intentionally infringes on copyright law by making new works, and it is the artistic merit of his work that should give him that liberty.

Ethical Autonomism: The Work of Art as a Moral Agent

Much contemporary art seems morally out of control. Yet, philosophers seem to have trouble finding the right way to morally evaluate works of art. The debate between autonomists and moralists, I argue, has turned into a stalemate due to two mistaken assumptions. Against these assumptions, I argue that the moral nature of a work\u27s contents does not transfer to the work and that, if we are to morally evaluate works we should try to conceive of them as moral agents. Ethical autonomism holds that art\u27s autonomy consists in its demand that art appreciators take up an artistic attitude. A work\u27s agency then is in how it merits their audiences\u27 attitudinal switch. Ethical autonomism allows for the moral assessment of art works without giving up their autonomy, by viewing artistic merit as a moral category and art-relevant moral evaluation as having the form of art criticism

Art and the Vulnerability of Subjectivity.

We may compare art with science, but must not understand it as science. In my view, modern science brought subjectivity into trouble, whereas art itself has the subjective as its main motivating force. For one, narrative arts tell stories, and are acclaimed for conveying the subjective aspect of events. Artistic creativity aims at regulating the appreciative experience. Lastly, to assess a work's artistic merit is to look for the artist's achievement, which involves looking for the way they realised their intentions with their audiences. It is thus that one wants to say that art is concerned with the subjective, and that one wants to distinguish it sharply from how sciences treat their subject matters: aiming for quantification and universalisation, applying objectivist methodologies, and conveying the thought that all knowledge hangs together---and that it be objectivist

Aesthetics as First Philosophy

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Research as Scrutiny. Our most demanding issues are aesthetic issues.

Certain art theorists think of what artists do as artistic research. But research is fact- and theory-driven, whereas when a film is being made what directors do is scrutinise what they see happening before their eyes. This scrutiny is guided by aesthetic judgement, individual style, and subjective intuition. It makes good sense to investigate the research that went on before a work was made, and to look at the theoretical implications of that work. But the most important work to be done is our paying attention to the scrutiny that went on during the work's actual creation. The importance and meaning of art are in the artist's scrutiny

Child development after maternal cancer diagnosis and treatment during pregnancy

Data on the impact of prenatal exposure to maternal malignancy and its treatment on the child’s general health, cognitive, cardiac, behavioral and neurological development are scarce. To address the short- and long-term effects, children exposed to antenatal cancer and cancer treatment are followed in an international, multicenter, longitudinal study by the International Network on Cancer, Infertility and Pregnancy (INCIP). The focus of the research presented is to address the effects of prenatal exposure to maternal malignancy and its treatment, with a major focus on the impact upon neurocognitive development. Results from this research showed that antenatal chemotherapy is possible and safe after the first trimester. When chemotherapy was administered from the second trimester onwards, the risk of birth defects were similar to the expected rates in the general population. To address the long-term effects of antenatal cancer and cancer treatment, children were prospectively examined through a general neurologic and physical examination, neuropsychological examination and electrocardiogram and echocardiographic assessment at regular time points. This thesis evaluated the largest cohort of children aged six prenatally exposed to maternal cancer, the associated stress, diagnostic imaging and treatments. In general the results of the follow-up studies were reassuring. However, subtle differences with regard to verbal intelligence, visuospatial long-term memory, diastolic blood pressure, auditory function and emotion regulation emphasize the need for long-term follow up and psychosocial support in these children