George Thomas Dickie (12 August 1926 – March 24, 2020) was an American philosopher. He was a

Professor Emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

of Philosophy at

University of Illinois at Chicago The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is a Public university, public research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its campus is in the Near West Side, Chicago, Near West Side community area, adjacent to the Chicago Loop. The second campus esta ...

. His specialities included

aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed thr ...

, philosophy of

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

, and Eighteenth Century theories of

taste The gustatory system or sense of taste is the sensory system that is partially responsible for the perception of taste (flavor). Taste is the perception produced or stimulated when a substance in the mouth reacts chemically with taste receptor ...

Education and career

He received a BA from

Florida State University Florida State University (FSU) is a public research university in Tallahassee, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida. Founded in 1851, it is located on the oldest continuous site of higher education in the st ...

in 1949 and a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

from the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

in 1959. He was a

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

in 1978. He served as President of the Illinois Philosophy Association (1990–91) and President of the

American Society for Aesthetics American Society for Aesthetics (ASA) is a philosophical organization founded in 1942 to promote the study of aesthetics. The ASA sponsors national and regional conferences, and publishes the ''Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism'', the '' ...

(1993–94).

Work

He was an influential

philosopher of art Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed th ...

working in the analytical tradition. His

institutional theory of art A theory of art is intended to contrast with a definition of art. Traditionally, ''definitions'' are composed of necessary and sufficient conditions and a single counterexample overthrows such a definition. ''Theorizing'' about art, on the other ...

inspired both supporters who produced variations on the theory as well as detractors. One of his more influential works is ''The Century of Taste'' (1996), an inquiry into several eighteenth-century philosophers' treatments of the subject. The bulk of the work is devoted to championing

David Hume David Hume (; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. was a Scottish Enlightenment philo ...

's treatment of the subject over that of

Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...

. A review of the work can be found in ''

The Philosophical Review ''The Philosophical Review'' is a quarterly journal of philosophy edited by the faculty of the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell University and published by Duke University Press (since September 2006). Overview The journal publishes original ...

'', 107:3 (July, 1998).

Books

* ''Aesthetics: An Introduction'' (Pegasus, 1971) * ''Art and the Aesthetic: An Institutional Analysis'' (Cornell University Press, 1974) * ''The Art Circle'' (Haven Publications, 1984) * ''Evaluating Art'' (Temple University Press, 1988) * ''The Century of Taste'' (Oxford University Press, 1996) * ''Introduction to Aesthetics: An Analytic Approach'' (Oxford University Press, 1997) * ''Art and Value'' (Blackwell, 2001)

References

External links

* 1926 births 2020 deaths 20th-century American essayists 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American philosophers 21st-century American essayists 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American philosophers American art critics American cultural critics American male essayists American male non-fiction writers American philosophy academics Analytic philosophers Florida State University alumni Hume scholars Kant scholars People from Palmetto, Florida Philosophers of art Philosophers of culture Philosophers of history Philosophy writers Trope theorists University of California, Los Angeles alumni University of Illinois Chicago faculty {{US-philosopher-stub