Prof. Livingston, Paisley Nathan

Emeritus Professor

Academic & Professional Qualifications

  • Ph.D., The Johns Hopkins University, The Humanities Centre (1981)
  • BA, Stanford University, Department of Philosophy (1974)

Areas of Interest

Aesthetics, Philosophy and Literature, Philosophy of Language, Action Theory, Epistemology, History of Western Philosophy

Work Experience

  • Emeritus Professor, Department of Philosophy, Lingnan University, Hong Kong. (2017)
  • Head of Department of Philosophy (Jan 2007-Aug 2008; Aug 2010-Aug 2015 )
  • Academic Dean, Faculty of Arts, Lingnan University, Hong Kong. (Aug 2008-Aug 2010)
  • Chair Professor, Department of Philosophy, Lingnan University, Hong Kong. (Aug 2007-Jul 2017)
  • Professor, Department of Philosophy, Lingnan University, Hong Kong. (2004 – Aug 2007)
  • Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, Lingnan University, Hong Kong. (Aug 2003 – Aug 2004)
  • Visiting Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, The University of Hong Kong (2003 Feb-June)
  • Lektor, Department of Philosophy, Rhetoric, and Education, The University of Copenhagen (2000 – 2004)
  • Lektor, Department of Philosophy, The University of Aarhus, Denmark (1998-2000)
  • Visiting Lecturer, (“Lektorvikar”), Philosophy, Roskilde University, Denmark (1997)
  • Invited Research Fellow, Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University, Japan (1996)
  • Associate Member of Philosophy Department, McGill University (1994-1997)
  • Guest Professor, Humanities Institute, Siegen University, Germany (1992)
  • Promoted to Full Professor at McGill University (1991-1997)
  • Chercheur étranger [full-time research position] Centre de Recherche Épistémologie et Autonomie, I’Ecole Polytechnique Paris (1988-1989)
  • Promoted to Associate Professor with tenure, McGill University (1985)
  • Assistant Professor, The Department of English, and Graduate Program in Communications, McGill University (1981-1985)
  • Lecturer, The Department of English Language and Literature, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (tenure track offer made but declined in 1981) (1980-1981)

Publications – Books

  • —–. (2009). Cinema, Philosophy, Bergman: On Film as Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • —–. (and Carl Plantinga), eds. (2009). The Routledge Companion to Film and Philosophy. London: Routledge.
  • —–. (2005). Art and Intention: A Philosophical Study. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  • —–. (and Berys Gaut), eds. (2003). The Creation of Art: New Essays in Philosophical Aesthetics. New York: Cambridge University Press, editor’s introduction, pp. 1-32.
  • —–. (1992). Models of Desire: René Girard and the Psychology of Mimesis. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
  • —–. (1991). Literature and Rationality: Ideas of Agency in Theory and Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • —–. (1988). Literary Knowledge: Humanistic Inquiry and the Philosophy of Science. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.
  • —–. (1987). ed. Disorder and Order: Proceedings of the Stanford International Symposium. Stanford Literature Studies, 1. Saratoga, Ca.: Anma Libri, 1984. With editor’s introduction, pp. 3-33. Trans. Ordine e disordine. Bologne: DSE.
  • —–. (1982). Ingmar Bergman and the Rituals of Arts. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.

Publications – Articles

  • —–. (2015). ‘Authorship’. Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Literature. Ed. Noël Carroll and John Gibson. London: Routledge, 173-183.
  • —–. (2015). ‘An Introduction to Bolzano’s essay on beauty’. Estetika: The Central European Journal of Aesthetics, LII/VIII (2015), no. 2, 203-228.
  • —–. (2015). (with Kelly Trogdon) ‘Artwork Completion: A Response to Gover’. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. 73:4 (2015), 460-462.
  • —–. (2014). ‘Bolzano on Beauty’, The British Journal of Aesthetics, 54:3 (2014), 269-284.
  • —–. (2014). (with Kelly Trogdon; second author) ‘The Complete Work’. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. Vol. 72:3, 225-233.
  • —–. (2013) ‘Cinema and the Artificial Passions: A Conversation with the Abbé Du Bos’. Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia, 69: 3-4, 419-430.
  • —–. ed. (2013) book symposium on Seeing Fictions in Film: The Epistemology of Movies, by George M. Wilson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), in Projections, 7:1, 129-171.
  • —–. (2013) ‘Du Bos’ Paradox’. The British Journal of Aesthetics, 53:4, 393-406.
  • —–. (2013) ‘The Imagined Seeing Thesis’, Projections, 7:1, 139-146.
  • —–. (2012). On Cinematic Genius: Ontology and Appreciation. Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, 71, pp 85-104.
  • —–. review of Seeing Fictions in Film: The Epistemology of Movies, by George M. Wilson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. In Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. Feb. 2012.
    http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/29409-seeing-fictions-in-film-the-epistemology-of-movies/
  • —–. (2012). ‘New Directions in Aesthetics’. In Continuum Companion to Aesthetics. Ed. Anna Christina Ribeiro. London: Continuum, 255-270.
  • —–. (2011). ‘Beyond Literary Knowledge’. In Why Literary Studies? Raisons d’être of a discipline. Ed. Anders Pettersson and Stein Haugom Olsen. Oslo: Novus, 94-109.
  • —–. (2011). ‘Itérabilité et ontologie de l’art’. In La pensée esthétique de Gérard Genette. Ed. J. Delaplace, P.-H. Frangne, et G. Mouëllic. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 87-97.
  • —–. (2011). ‘History of the Ontology of Art’. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/art-ontology-history
  • —–. (2011). ‘Discussion: On Authorship and Collaboration’. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 69:2: 217-220.
  • —–. (with Andrea Sauchelli) (2011). ‘Philosophical Perspectives on Fictional Characters’. New Literary History, 42:4: 337-360.
  • —–. (2012). ‘Spectatorship and risk’. In Film and Risk. Ed. Mette Hjort. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 73-95.
  • —–. (2011). ‘Literaturtheorie’. In Lexikon Literaturwissenschaft. Hundert Grundbegriffe. Ed. Gerhard Lauer and Christine Ruhrberg. Frankfurt: Reclam, 200-203.
  • —–. (and Carol Archer) (2010). ‘Artistic collaboration and the completion of works of art’. The British Journal of Aesthetics, 50:4, 439-456.
  • —–. (2010). ‘On the Appreciation of Cinematic Adaptations’. Projections, 4:2: 104-27.
  • —–. (2010). ‘Teaching and Learning Guide for: Cinema as Philosophy’. The Philosophy Compass, 5:4: 359-62.
  • —–. (2010). ‘Coherence, Discourse’, ‘Coherence, Logical’, ‘Communicative Intention’, Conversational Implicature’, ‘Cooperative Principle’. In The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language Science. Ed. Patrick Colm Hogan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 172-3, 173, 223-5, 228, 182-3.
  • —–. (2010). ‘Authorial Intention and the Varieties of Intentionalism’. In A Companion to Philosophy and Literature. Ed. Garry Hagberg and Walter Jost. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 401-19.
  • —–. (2009). ‘Narrativity and Knowledge’. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 67: 25-36.
  • —–. (2009). ‘Truth in Fiction’ and ‘C. I. Lewis’. In The Blackwell Companion to Aesthetics. 2nd ed. Ed. Alex Neill, Stephen Davies, and Robert Stecker. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 281-4, 405-8.
  • —–. (2009). ‘Poincaré’s “Delicate Sieve”: On Creativity in the Arts’. In The Idea of Creativity. Ed Michael Krausz, Denis Dutton, and Karen Bardsley. Leiden: Brill, 129-46.
  • —–. (2008). ‘Recent Work on Cinema as Philosophy’, The Philosophy Compass, 3: 1-14.
  • —–. (2008). ‘When a Work is Finished: A Response to Darren Hudson Hick’, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 66: 393-5.
  • —–. (2008). ‘”Solid Objects,” Solid Objections: On Virginia Woolf and Philosophy’. In Art and Ethical Criticism. Ed. Garry L. Hagberg. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 125-43.
  • —–. (2008). ‘Ingmar Bergman’. In The Routledge Companion to Film and Philosophy. Ed. Paisley Livingston and Carl Plantinga. London: Routledge, 560-68.
  • —–. (2008). ‘On Bergman and Philosophy: The Kaila Connection’. In Ingmar Bergman Revisited. Ed. Maaret Koskinen. London: Wallflower Press, 120-39.
  • —–. (2008). ‘Philosophical Perspectives on Literary Value’. In The Quality of Literature: Studies in Literary Evaluation. Ed. Willie van Peer. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 209-21.
  • —–. (2008). ‘Artistic Nesting in The Five Obstructions’. In On The Five Obstructions. Ed. Mette Hjort. London: Wallflower Press, 57-75.
  • —–. (2006). ‘Skepticism, Realism, Fallibilism: On Lem’s Epistemological Themes’. In The Art and Science of Stanislaw Lem. Ed. Peter Swirski. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Press, 117-29.
  • —–. (2006). ‘Utile et dulce: a reply to Noël Carroll’. British Journal of Aesthetics, 46:3: 274-81.
  • —–. (2006). ‘Theses on Cinema as Philosophy’. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 64: 1-8.
  • —–. (2006). ‘Valéry’. Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd edition. Ed. Donald Borchert. Detroit: Macmillan, IX, 634.
  • —–. (2006). ‘Creativity’. Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd edition. Ed. Donald Borchert. Detroit: Macmillan, II, 688-91.
  • —–. (2005). ‘Aesthetic Experience and a Belletristic Definition of Literature’. In From Text to Literature: New Analytic and Pragmatic Approaches. Ed. Stein Haugom Olsen and Anders Pettersson. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 36-51.
  • —–. (2005). ‘L’Ontologie et la valeur artistique’. Philosophiques, 32: 224-9. (Contribution to book symposium on David Davies’ Art as Performance).
  • —–. (2005). ‘Literary Aesthetics and the Aims of Criticism’. In Theory’s Empire. Ed. Will Corrall and Daphne Patai. New York: Columbia University Press, 651-7.
  • —–. (2004). ‘C.I. Lewis and the Outlines of Aesthetic Experience’. British Journal of Aesthetics, 44: 378-92.
  • —–. (2004). ‘Text, verze, dílo: Borges?v Pierre Menard a ontology literatury’. In Text a dílo: p?ípad Menard. Ed. Karel Císa? and Petr Kot’átko. Prague: Philosophia, 81-110.
  • —–. (2003). ‘Nested Art’. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 61: 233-245.
  • —–. (2003). ‘Filosofisk pragmatik efter 1960’. In Vor Tids Filosofi. Ed. Poul Lübcke. Copenhagen: Politikkens, 197-230.
  • —–. (2003). ‘Analytisk Æstetik efter 1960’. In Vor Tids Filosofi. Ed. Poul Lübcke. Copenhagen: Politikkens, 491-518.
  • —–. (2003). ‘Pentimento’. In The Creation of Art. Ed. Paisley Livingston and Berys Gaut. New York: Cambridge University Press, 89-115.
  • —–. (2003). ‘On an Apparent Truism in Aesthetics’. British Journal of Aesthetics, 43, 260-278.
  • —–. (2003). ‘Artistic Reflexivity in The King is Alive and Strass’. In Purity and Provocation: Dogma 95. Ed. Mette Hjort and Scott MacKenzie. London: British Film Institute Press, 102-111.
  • —–. (2003). ‘Intention in Art’, In Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics. Ed. Jerrold Levinson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 275-290.
  • —–. (2003). ‘Literature’. In Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics. Ed. Jerrold Levinson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 536-554.
  • —–. (2002). ‘Rationality and Emotion’. Sats: Nordic Journal of Philosophy, 3: 7-24.
  • —–. (2002). ‘Molière’, ‘Philosophy’, ‘Rationality/Irrationality’, ‘Reality’, and ‘Truth’. In Encyclopedia of Literature and Science. Ed. Pamela Gossin. Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 287-288, 328-335, 370-371, 372-373, 471-472.
  • —–. (2002). ‘Tese og anti-tese om begreppet karakter’, K&K, 30: 125-136.
  • —–. (2001). ‘Paradoxes of Criticism’. Filosofi, 3: 34-40.
  • —–. (2000). ‘II desiderio mimetico in René Girard’, Studi Perugini, 10, pp. 57-69.
  • —–. (2000). ‘Narrative’. Routledge Companion to Aesthetics. Ed. Dom Lopes and Berys Gaut, London: Routledge, 275-84; revised version published in 2nd edition of this volume, 2005, pp. 359-70.
  • —–. (1999). ‘Om fiktion og fiktions-sandhed’. In Kunsten og værket. Ed. Lene Tortzen Bager and Ansa Lønstrup. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 139-56.
  • —–. (1999). ‘Artistic Self-Reflexivity in Strindberg and Bergman’. TijdSchrift voor Skandinavistiek, 20: 35-44.
  • —–. (1999). ‘Identity, inference, and recollection in Come’. P.O.V., 7: 69-74.
  • —–. (1999). ‘Counting Fragments, and Frenhofer’s Paradox’. The British Journal of Aesthetics, 39: 14-23.
  • —–. (1998). ‘Intentionalism in Aesthetics’. New Literary History, 29: 831-46.
  • —–. (1997). ‘Cinematic Authorship’. In Film Theory and Philosophy. Ed. Richard Allen and Murray Smith. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 132-48.
  • —–. (1997). (first author, with Alfred R. Mele). ‘Evaluating Emotional Responses to Fiction’. In Emotion and the Arts. Ed. Anne Mette Hjort and Sue Laver. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 157-76.
  • —–. (1997). ‘La rationalité de l’agent’. In Les Limites de la rationalité. Ed. Jean-Pierre Dupuy and Pierre Livet. Paris: Editions de la Découverte.
  • —–. (1996). ‘Arguing over Intentions’. Revue Internationale de Philosophie, 50: 615-33.
  • —–. (1996). ‘Characterization and Fictional Truth in the Cinema’. In Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies. Ed. David Bordwell and Noël Carroll. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 149-74.
  • —–. (1996). ‘From Work to Work’. Philosophy and Literature, 20: 436-54.
  • —–. (1996). ‘From Virtual Reality to Phantomatics and Back’. EBR,4
  • —–. (1996). ‘Justifying the Canon’. The Search for a New Alphabet: Literary Studies in a Changing World. Ed. Harald Hendrix et al, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 145-50.
  • —–. (1995). ‘The Poetic Fallacy’. In The Emperor Redressed: Critiquing Critical Theory. Ed. Dwight Eddings. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 150-165.
  • —–. (with Adam Muller) (1995). ‘Realism/Anti-Realism: A Debate’. Cultural Critique, 30: 15-32.
  • —–. (1994). ‘What is Mimetic Desire?’ Philosophical Psychology, 7: 291-305.
  • —–. (1993). ‘What’s the Story?’ SubStance, 71/72: 98-112; French version: ‘De la compétence fabulaire’. Théorie, Littérature, Enseignement, No. 11 (1993), 135-44.
  • —–. (1993). ‘From Text to Work’. In After Post-structuralism: Interdisciplinarity and Literary Theory. Ed. Nancy Easterlin and Barbara Riebling. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 91-104.
  • —–. (1993). ‘Le dilemme de Bratman: Problèmes de la rationalitè dynamique’, Philosophiques, 20: 47-67.
  • —–. (1993). ‘Writing Action: Davidson and Literary Theory’. In Literary Theory After Davidson. Ed. Reed Way Dasenbrock. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 257-85.
  • —–. (1992). ‘Texts, Works, and Literature’. Spiel, 11, 197-210.
  • —–. (first author, with Alfred R. Mele). (1992). ‘Intentions and Literature’. Stanford French Review, 16, 173-96.
  • —–. (second author, with Alfred R. Mele). ‘Intentions and Interpretations’, MLN, 107: 931-49.
  • —–. (1992). ‘Why Realism Matters: Literary Knowledge and the Philosophy of Science’. In Realism and Representation, ed., George Levine. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, pp. 139-60.
  • —–. (1992). ‘Literature and Knowledge’. In A Companion to Epistemology. Ed. Jonathan Dancy and Ernest Sosa. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992, 255-58.
  • —–. (1992). ‘Convention and Literary Explanations’. In Rules and Conventions: Literature, Philosophy, Social Theory. Ed. Mette Hjort. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 67-94.
  • —–. (1992). ‘Girard and the Origin Culture’. In Understanding Origins: Contemporary Views on the Origin of Life, Mind, and Society. Ed. Francisco J. Varela and Jean-Pierre Dupuy. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 91-110.
  • —–. (1991). ‘Film and the New Psychology’. Poetics, 20: 1-24.
  • —–. (1991). ‘Decision Theory and the Philosophy of Action’. Cashiers d’épistémologie, No. 9104, 1-33.
  • —–. (1991). ‘A Response to Michael Sprinker’. A.D.E. Bulletin, 100: 55-7.
  • —–. (1991). ‘Le retour au sujet: Subjects, Agents, and Rationality’. Stanford French Review, 15: 207-33.
  • —–. (1990). ‘Literary Studies and the Sciences’. Modern Language Studies, 20: 15-31.
  • —–. (1988). ‘Literary Knowledge and the Philosophy of Science’. Discours social, 1: 189-98.
  • —–. (1986). ‘Girard and Literary Knowledge’. Stanford French Review, 10: 221-35.
  • —–. (1988). ‘Demystification and History in Girard and Durkheim’. In Violence and Truth. Ed. Paul Dumouchel. London: Athlone, 113-33; English version of ‘La Démystification et l’histoire chez Girard et Durkheim’. In Violence et vérité: Colloque de Cerisy autour de René Girard. Ed. Paul Dumouchel. Paris: Grasset, 1982, pp. 191-200.
  • —–. (1983). ‘Disciplining Film: Code and Specificity’. Cinema Canada, 97: 47-57. Modified translation: ‘Discipliner la communication: sémiologie et cinéma’. Communication/Information, 5: 109-32.
  • —–. (1983). ‘La foule au cinéma’. Stanford French Review, 7: 207-20.
  • —–. (1979). ‘Comic Treatment: Molière and the Farce of Medicine’, MLN, 94: 676-87.

Review Essays:

  • —–. (2008). ‘Authorship Redux: On some recent and not-so-recent work in literary theory’. Philosophy and Literature, 32:1: 191-97.
  • —–. (1992). ‘The Wolves and the Manger: Analytic Aesthetics and the Dogmas of Poststructuralism’. Poetics Today, 13: 369-86.