Monroe Beardsley

{{Short description|American philosopher of art}}{{Infobox philosopher|birth_date=December 10, 1915|death_date=September 18, 1985|main_interests=philosophy of art|notable_works="The Intentional Fallacy" and "The Affective Fallacy"}}

Monroe Curtis Beardsley ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|b|ɪər|d|z|l|i}} {{respell|BEERDZ|lee}}; December 10, 1915 – September 18, 1985) was an American philosopher of art.

Biography

Beardsley was born and raised in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and educated at Yale University (B.A. 1936, Ph.D. 1939), where he received the John Addison Porter Prize. He taught at a number of colleges and universities, including Mount Holyoke College and Yale University, but most of his career was spent at Swarthmore College (22 years) and Temple University (16 years).{{Citation|last=Wreen|first=Michael|title=Beardsley's Aesthetics|date=2014|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2014/entries/beardsley-aesthetics/|encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|editor-last=Zalta|editor-first=Edward N.|edition=Winter 2014|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University|access-date=2021-06-30}} His wife and occasional coauthor, Elizabeth Lane Beardsley, was also a philosopher at Temple.

His work in aesthetics is best known for its championing of the instrumentalist theory of art and the concept of aesthetic experience. Beardsley was elected president of the American Society for Aesthetics in 1956. Among literary critics, Beardsley is known for two essays written with W.K. Wimsatt, "The Intentional Fallacy" and "The Affective Fallacy," both key texts of New Criticism. His books include: Practical Logic (1950),Beardsley, Monroe C. Practical Logic. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall, 1950. Print. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1070457692 Aesthetics (1958) (an introductory text),Beardsley, Monroe C. Aesthetics: Problems in Philosophy of Criticism. N.Y: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1958. Print. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/464258865 and Aesthetics: A Short History (1966).Beardsley, Monroe C. Aesthetics from Classical Greece to the Present: A Short History. Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1975. Print. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1124120770 He also edited a well-regarded survey anthology of philosophy, The European Philosophers from Descartes to Nietzsche. Beardsley, Monroe. The European Philosophers from Descartes to Nietzsche. New-York: Random House Inc, 2007. Print. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1119524915 He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1976.{{cite web|title=Book of Members, 1780-2010: Chapter B|url=http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterB.pdf|publisher=American Academy of Arts and Sciences|access-date=May 29, 2011}}

He and his wife were over-all series editors for Prentice-Hall's "Foundations of Philosophy," a series of textbooks on different fields within philosophy, written in most cases by leading scholars in those fields.

References

External links

{{cite SEP |url-id=beardsley-aesthetics |title=Beardsley's Aesthetics |last=Wreen |first=Michael|date=2005-09-13}}
Monroe C. Beardsley, [http://www.ditext.com/anka/beardsley/post.html "Postscript 1980-: Some Old Problems in New Perspectives,"] in Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism, 1st ed., 1958; 2d ed., 1981.
[http://www.anb.org/articles/20/20-91923.html?from=../16/16-01400.html&from_nm=Roethke%2C%20Theodore American National Biography Online: Beardsley, Monroe C.]

Category:1915 births

Category:1985 deaths

Category:20th-century American philosophers

Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Category:American literary critics

Category:Mount Holyoke College faculty

Category:New Criticism

Category:Writers from Bridgeport, Connecticut

Category:American philosophers of art

Category:Swarthmore College faculty

Category:Temple University faculty

Category:Yale University alumni