“Unquestionably the most authoritative and up-to-date collection of materials on a very important philosophical topic. Noël Carroll has done a masterful job of assembling a first-class cast of scholars who have been highly prominent in the ongoing debate over the role of theory in aesthetics. They are concerned with the question of how we can circumscribe the enterprise (or objects) of art in an intellectual environment that is generally hostile to real definition. Public policy makers concerned with public art, K–12 art teachers, students of cultural history, art critics, and many others will naturally be interested in this subject.”—Ronald Moore, University of Washington–Seattle

“Carroll is our foremost interpreter of how philosophical aesthetics has developed, and his way of laying out the story is always illuminating.”—Anita Silvers, San Francisco State University