Brief Curriculum Vitae

John Andrew Fisher

EDUCATION

  • University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, Ph.D. 1971

Philosophy Thesis: On Being Guided By A Rule: Some Reflections on a Conceptual Problem in Chomsky's Theory of Syntax

  • University of Minnesota- Twin Cities,  Institute of Technology,  B. Physics 1963

TEACHING POSITIONS
  • University of Colorado-Boulder Department Chair 1996-97,1989-92
  • Professor 1995-
  • Associate Professor 1975-95
  • University of Kent, Canterbury, England Visiting Professor 1975-76
  • University of Colorado-Boulder Assistant Professor 1968-74


CURRENT RESEARCH INTERESTS

Aesthetics and the Philosophy of art, Environmental ethics, Value Theory, Animal Mentality

 

PUBLICATIONS

BOOKS


Reflecting on Art (Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Co./ McGraw-Hill, 1993), 428 pp.


SELECTED ARTICLES

"The Subjectivist Turn in Aesthetics: A Critical Analysis of Kant's Theory of Appreciation" (with J. Maitland), Review of Metaphysics, 27 (1974), pp. 726-51.

Reprinted in Volume IV of Immanuel Kant: Critical Assessments ed. Ruth Chadwick (London: Routledge, 1992)

"Knowledge of Rules," Review of Metaphysics, 28 (1974), pp. 237-60.

"Fallibility and Knowledge of the Future," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, (1975), pp. 44-58.

"Understanding, Linguistic Competence, and Knowledge," Philosophical Forum, XII, No. 1 (Fall 1980), pp. 3-19.

"Aberrant Speakers and Linguistic Philosophy: A Reconsideration of the Dialogue Between Cavell and the Baker," Philosophical Investigations, Vol. 4, No. 4 (1981), pp. 24-44.

"Linguistic Idealism," Metaphilosophy, Vol. 15, No. 1, (January 1984), pp. 26-34.

"Taking Sympathy Seriously: A Defense of Our Moral Psychology Toward Animals," Environmental Ethics, (Fall 1987), pp. 197-215.

Reprinted in The Animal Rights/Environmental Ethics Debate: The Environmental Perspective, ed. Eugene C. Hargrove (Albany: SUNY Press, 1992).

"The Wrong Stuff: Chinese Rooms and the Nature of Understanding," Philosophical Investigations, Vol. 11, No. 4, (October 1988), pp. 279-99.

"The Very Idea of Perfect Realism," The Philosophical Forum, Vol. XXII, No. 1 (Fall 1990), pp. 49-64.

"Discovery, Creation, and Musical Works," The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 49:2 (Spring 1991), pp. 129-136.

"Why Potentiality Does Not Matter: A Reply to Stone," Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 24:2 (June 1994), pp. 261-279.

"Is There a Problem of Indiscernible Counterparts?," The Journal of Philosophy, 92:9 (1995), pp. 467-484.

Reprinted: The Philosopher's Annual XVII: The Ten Best Articles to Appear in Print in 1995 (1996).

"Technology, Appreciation, and the Historical View of Art," (with Jason Potter), The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 55:2 (1997), pp. 169-185.

"What The Hills Are Alive With--In Defense of the Sounds of Nature," The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 56:2 (1998), pp. 167-179.

Reprinted: The Aesthetics of Natural Environments ed. Carlson and Berleant (Peterborough Ontario: Broadview Press, 2004), pp. 232 - 252.

"Rock 'n' Recording: The Ontological Complexity of Rock Music," in Musical Worlds: New Directions in the Philosophy of Music ed. Philip Alperson (University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 1998), pp. 109-123.

"The Value of Natural Sounds," The Journal of Aesthetic Education, 33:3 (1999), pp. 26-42

"Environmental Aesthetics," in the Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics ed. Jerrold Levinson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 667-678.

"On Carroll's Enfranchisement of Mass Art as Art," The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 62:1 (Winter 2004), pp. 57-62.

"Performing Nature," Environmental Philosophy IV: I-II (Fall, Spring 2007), pp. 15-28.

"Is It Worth It? Lintott and Ethically Evaluating Environmental Art," Ethics, Place & Environment, 10:3 (October 2007), pp. 279-286.


BOOK CHAPTERS

"The Myth of Anthropomorphism" in Interpretation and Exploitation in the Study of Animal Behavior, Vol. I, ed. by D. Jamieson & M. Bekoff, pp. 96-116 (Boulder: Westview, 1990)

Reprinted in Readings in Animal Cognition ed. by D. Jamieson & M. Bekoff (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1996)

"Disambiguating Anthropomorphism: An Interdisciplinary Review," Perspectives in Ethology, Vol. 9 eds. P.P.G. Bateson and Peter Klopfer, pp. 49-85 (NYC: Plenum Publishing Co., 1991)

"Aesthetics" in A Companion to Environmental Philosophy ed. Dale Jamieson (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2001), pp. 264-276.

"High Art vs. Low Art," in Routledge Companion to Aesthetics 2nd ed. B. Gaut & D. Lopes (London: Routledge Press, 2005), pp. 527-540.

“Music and Song," in Blackwell Companion to Aesthetics, 2nd ed. Davies, Higgins, Hopkins, Stecker& Cooper (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), pp. 91-95.

“Technology and Art” in Blackwell Companion to Aesthetics, 2nd ed. Davies, Higgins,
Hopkins, Stecker& Cooper (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), pp. 556-560.

“Folk and Popular Music,” in the Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Music.

SELECTED REFEREED PRESENTATIONS

  • "The Wrong Stuff: Two Kinds of Understanding in the Chinese Room," American Philosophical Association, Pacific Division, March, 1985.
  • "Vandalism at the Movies-- Is Colorization a Question of Preservation?" American Society for Aesthetics, Pacific Division, Asilomar, CA., April, 1989
  • "Are Pieces of Music Discovered?" American Society for Aesthetics, Pacific Division, Asilomar, CA., April, 1990
  • "Is There a Problem of Indiscernible Counterparts?" American Society for Aesthetics, Pacific Division, Asilomar CA., March 1991.
  • "The Problem of Discerning Music Cross-Culturally" American Society for Aesthetics, Pacific Division, Asilomar CA., April 1994.
  • "Muzak and Museums, Or The Appreciation of Modern Life: An Unresolved Problem for the Historical View of Art," American Society for Aesthetics, Pacific Division, April 1995.
  • "The Ontological Complexity of Rock Music," American Society for Aesthetics, St, Louis, October 1995.
  • "The Ontology of Recordings: A First Pass," American Society for Aesthetics, Pacific Division, Asilomar, April 1996
  • "Appreciating the Sounds of Nature: Surveying Some Problems," American Society for Aesthetics, Pacific Division, Asilomar, April 1997
  • "Nature Art and Natural Beauty," American Society for Aesthetics, Pacific Division, Asilomar, March 2000.
  • "The Original Brillo Box Too? Noel Carroll on the Enfranchisement of Mass Art as Art," American Society for Aesthetics, Pacific Division, Asilomar, March 2002.
  • "Prolegomena to a theory of entertainment," American Society for Aesthetics, Pacific Division, Asilomar, March 2004.
  • "Artists without Artworks?: Reconfiguring the Ontology of the Performance Arts," American Society for Aesthetics, Pacific Division, Asilomar, April 2005.
  • “The Concept of a Song,” American Society for Aesthetics, Pacific Division, Asilomar, April
    2009

SELECTED INVITED PAPERS

  • "Linguistic Facts and Philosophical Truths" (California State University, Fullerton--17th Annual Philosophy Symposium: Ordinary Language and Recent Philosophical Practice), 1987.
  • "Is Nature Literature/Art Possible?--A Series of Questions," paper delivered to Humanities Center Conference on "Beauty and Its Discontents," University of Colorado, Boulder, 1999.
  • Stan Godlovitch's Musical Performance: A Philosophical Study, American Society for Aesthetics, Asilomar, CA., April 1999.
  • "Art and the Aesthetics of Nature in the West," paper delivered to the WESTAF (Western States Art Federation) Symposium on Cultural Policy in the West, Aspen CO, Sept 23-24, 1999
  • "Comments on 'Artworks and Representational Properties' by Sherry Irvin," American Society for Aesthetics, San Francisco, October 2003.
  • "Performing Nature," Invited session on Performance, American Society for Aesthetics, Pacific Division, Asilomar, March 2006
  • "Species and the Aesthetic Value of Wild Animals," Invited session on the aesthetics of animals at the annual convention of the American Society for Aesthetics, Los Angeles, 2007.
  • "The Elusive Sublime: Comments on Parsons and Brady on the sublime," American
    Philosophical Association, Pacific Division meetings in Los Angeles, March 2008.

Some WORK IN PROGRESS

  • Natural Beauty (co-authored with Ned Hettinger). A survey of environmental aesthetics that will relate it to contemporary aesthetic theory and environmental ethics.

COURSES TAUGHT

Lower Division Courses

Theories of Knowledge / Expository Writing/ Introduction to Logic/ Philosophy and the Sciences/ Philosophy and Religion/ Philosophy and the Arts/ Philosophy of Science/ Introduction to Philosophy

Upper Division Courses

Philosophy of Religion/ Kierkegaard/ Philosophy of Language/ Philosophy of Music (Honors) / Philosophy and Literature/ Philosophy of Time (Honors) / Aesthetic Theory/ Philosophy of Mind/ Metaphysics and Epistemology/ Epistemology / Critical Thinking in Philosophy/ Critical Thinking: Contemporary Topics/ Environmental Aesthetics

Graduate Courses

Philosophy of Language/ Epistemology / Seminar in Epistemology (scepticism)/ Aesthetic Theory