Forbes magazine asked be to write about five of my favorite composers. Some people won’t like what I say about Bach, a composer whose music I adore rather more than his religion. Read it here.

John Carey’s What Good Are the Arts? is a semi-competent attempt to treat the general field of art theory. I’ve done a short review of it here.

I’ve another Spanish version of an essay now available here. It is Crítica y Método. Like Estética y Psicología Evolucionista, it is translated by Eva Zimmerman. Ana Cristina Vélez of the Universidad de Antioquia in Colombia arranged this one too.

Jean Baudrillard has died. We ought not to speak ill of the dead, but I did write this rather a long time back.

The late Richard Rorty’s tone was always modest and thoughtful, even when his ideas were extreme: a review of Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity.

My Washington Post review of Bjørn Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist had all sorts of people upset.

This examination of the concept of tribal or so-called primitive art appeared a few years ago in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Aesthetics.

Back in the early 1990s my local newspaper asked me to review a new book on the South Pacific by the irascible Paul Theroux. Oh good, I thought. I’d met him the previous year when I was doing research in New Guinea. Pleasant enough chap. Little did I know.....

“Aesthetics and Evolutionary Psychology,” written for The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics, is now available here.

Joseph Williams’s guide to good writing is worth study, while Clear and Simple as the Truth, by Mark Turner and Francis-Noël Thompson is the best book on writing style I have ever read.

As for writing badly, well, yes, that can be learned too. Here’s a first lesson.

Richard A. Etlin’s In Defense of Humanism is a spirited attack on poststructuralism from the standpoint of a historian of architecture. Here is a short review.

Charles Rosen’s Piano Notes is more than a wide-ranging account of piano artistry: it is also a meditation of the fate of modernism in music. Here’s my review.

Joseph Carroll is a literary critic who can use Darwin to produce some of the most penetrating insights you’ll find in scholarship. Read about his Literary Darwinism here.

Arnold Krupat’s treatise, Ethnocriticism, on the other hand, is just about the worst book I have ever read as a systematic account of how indigenous arts and literatures should be regarded. Awful.

Miriam Cosic, Arts section editor of The Australian, asked for a piece developing some of the ideas in John Brockman’s Edge answer. What I came up with can be read here.

Richard Rorty views progress in science as a matter of scientists changing their vocabularies. He provides a neat summary of his ideas in Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity.

My review of The Mating Mind, by Geoffrey Miller, is at last available on this site. You can read it here.

The article on “Authenticity in Art” in Jerry Levinson’s Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics is available here. It discusses authenticity in music and in indigenous art, and places autheticity in the context of audience response.

“Forgery and Plagiarism,” an entry for The Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics, has finally made it to this site. You can read it here.

A shot at a definitive analysis of intentionalism in art and criticism was published in 1987. “Why Intentionalism Won’t Go Away” uses an example first tried out in “To Understand It On Its Own Terms.”

“Knowledge Replacement Therapy” discusses differing views of indigenous arts in a wildly uneven anthology.

Of historic interest only are pieces on Radio Moscow and Moscow News which I wrote after a visit to Moscow in the frigid January of 1990. The city was boiling over politically at the time.

The occasion of my trip was to deliver this address to the Russian Institute of Aesthetics.

Umberto Eco’s little volume on interpretation provoked mostly agreement, as did Alain Finkielkraut’s The Defeat of the Mind.

The Book Reviews page now contains this critical account of Christopher Steiner’s African Art in Transit. Steiner is awfully interested in art commerce. I wish he would pay some attention to aesthetic values.

Susan Vogel’s book on Baule art is the inverse of Steiner’s in its refined and sensitive attitude toward a great African art area.

“Debunking Deconstruction” is an analysis of John M. Ellis’s book on that subject. It was written back in 1989, but I don’t think I’d alter any of its ideas.

Here is an exasperated pan of Sally Price’s Primitive Art in Civilized Places, and a look at a postmodern lexicon whose faults are typical of mid-1990s work in literary theory.

Alfred W. Crosby’s history of quantification in culture is in my view a tour de force, and the late Walter Kaufmann’s account of Heidegger and Nazism was spot on.

And Theodor Adorno. He lived in Los Angeles when I was a kid. I never would have laid eyes on him, of course, but at least we used to read the same astrologer.

Madame Bovary’s Ovaries, by David and Nanelle Barash, is described in a jacket blurb as “a provocatively sideways look at our cherished literary heritage.” I’ve reviewed it here.

Is all fiction built on seven basic plots? That’s the thesis of a book by Christopher Booker. My own evaluation of his project is mixed, as I explain here in a review for the Washington Post.

The Department of Cognitive Studies at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris has organized on online seminar entitled, “Fake: Why Does It Matter?” The people conducting this, Gloria Orrigi and Noga Arikha, have chosen to kick off proceedings with a discussion of my article on “Art and Authenticity,” written for Jerrold Levinson’s Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics. You can tune into the action, and maybe add a comment or two, by going to the site here.

The importance of equality before the law is the topic of this column in the Press and the New Zealand Herald.

The Washington Post also ran this review of Jennifer Michael Hecht’s Doubt: A History.

John Brockman’s Edge question this year is, “What is your most dangerous idea?” He has been able to publish answers from 117 thinkers. The whole shebang can be read here. My contribution, “A Grand Narrative,” can be found here.

For a small number of readers who might appreciate it, here is the image I now use as a screen saver. Of course, I never had a screen of mine saved by a screen saver, but that was never the point.

Welcome to this personal website. Students interested in graduate or undergrad study-abroad work here in New Zealand should look at the relevant links starting here. Our Philosophy Department offerings are described starting here. Prospective students in aesthetics and the philosophy of art are welcome to contact me here.

Information about my beginners’ courses, Philosophy 110, Science: Good, Bad, and Bogus and Classical Concepts of Beauty, can be accessed by clicking on the name of the course. My second/third-year course, Philosophy of Art, will not be offered in 2009, as I’ll be on sabbatical in the second half of the year. Thanks very much to all the students who nominated me for Lecturer of the Year in 2008.

Denis Dutton Signature


Recent Highlights

News of my trips in January to the United States and February to Australia to flog The Art Instinct can be found here. There were speeches and signings in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Palo Alto, Houston, Washington, New York, and Sydney. I even appeared with this guy:

A living work of art

Future appearances include the Aspen Ideas Festival in July and the American Society of Aesthetics in October. Also tentatively scheduled is an presentation with John Cleese at the Santa Barbara Art Museum in October.

Claire Fox, Charles Murray, and I spoke last year at a Sydney event sponsored by the Centre for Independent Studies. The topic was elitism, and in different ways the three of us defended it. My piece has just been published in The Australian. You can read it here. (The Stuttgart journal Merkur has now published this talk in German.) A longer review of John Carey’s book, mentioned in the essay, can be found here.

Philip Matthews of the Press talked to Doug Campbell and me for a lovely article on Climate Debate Daily. You can read the Press article here.

Many thanks to the editors of the New York Times for naming my Joyce Hatto essay, “Shoot the Piano Player,” as one of the paper’s “Notable Op-Eds of the Year.” It was only op-ed given that honor for January or February, and so heads the Times’s chronological list.

Thanks to Robert Fulford for this appreciative piece on Arts & Letters Daily in Canada’s National Post.

Mark Singer has written a very fine article on the Joyce Hatto scandal for The New Yorker. I have an advance PDF version of it here.

It is absurd to imagine that Joyce Hatto did not know about her faked recordings....

How has Joyce Hatto’s husband, William Barrington-Coupe, been able to get away with his farrago of nonsense about this fraud? Barrington-Coupe’s account has been accepted by the press and the public at large. As numerous headlines put it, he has “come clean.” He “did it out of love.”

“Coming clean” in his fanciful account means that (1) he only started to mix in other pianists’ tracks to cover the grunting of his diseased and suffering wife. (2) All recordings of her mix her work with other pianists. (3) He did it all for her, to make things more bearable. (4) She didn’t know a thing about it. He wins, you see: he is a hero, and she was a mere victim of his kindness. He lied to her, and to everyone else, but don’t be too harsh, since he did it out of love.

This is pluperfect rubbish. No one has detected any mixing of two pianists on the same track in any of her fakes. All known tracks so far are 100% other pianists, with time compression in some cases (not all), with the effect of making the recording even faster and more brilliant than the originals.

So much for (1) and (2). As for (3) and (4), Joyce Hatto was a lively, bubbly, intelligent person who promoted these recordings to people, and was familiar with them. She was not at the end of her life anywhere near doddery senility, and seemed to have no intellectual impairment. (Listen to her last radio interview here: no sign of being out of touch.)

Think through the possibilities. It is not implausible to imagine a recording engineer who is also a loving husband slipping a false performance of one track or other into a CD where her performance had fallen short. But we are not talking about a track or two, we are faced here with the biggest single body of pianistic output in recording history (Rubinstein’s lifetime production was less that 100 CDs, but included many, many repetitions of the same pieces). So far, not a single post-1970 recording by Joyce Hatto has turned out not to be a fake.

Her catalogue includes around 30 or so concertos. This is probably more recorded concerto repertoire than Rubinstein and Horowitz combined. All of these CDs have the same non-existent conductor and orchestra. Joyce Hatto was aware of these CDs. This is incompatible with Barrington-Coupe’s claim that she did not know what was going on. In fact, it is a palpable absurdity to imagine she did not know. She signed CDs, she boasted of her exploits! Listen to the radio interviews.

Joyce Hatto knew her catalogue, she knew the claims made about her, she knew the reviews and the critics, and she knew how to charm anyone who talked to her.

As for whether Barrington-Coupe loved his wife, it is doubtless true, but it is entirely beside the point. I’m sure Clyde loved Bonnie too.

The media coverage of the Hatto episode is a lesson in how the news cycle turns over with a story. Barrington-Coupe got in with this last bit of nonsense just at the point when editors were likely getting tired of the story. They don’t care; they have other things to worry about. Oh, journalism!

In sum, based on her letters to critics and her radio interviews, it is my considered opinion that Joyce Hatto, in addition of being a lively, chirpy, witty, bright, and positive person, was also a systematic, methodical liar. The only thing she needed was to be married to a convicted fraudster who was also a recording engineer. And guess what?

Because she was so extremely pleasant and because she was an artist, it has been very difficult for people to accept the notion of her guilt. Con artists are often very engaging people with high IQs. Her positive attitude derived, I imagine, in part from thinking she was going to get away with it. She was very likely having the time of her life, at last the star she’d always longed to be. And, perhaps luckily for her, she died before she was caught out.

Anyway, my New York Times op-ed goes through the issues. Four interesting letters to the editor are included. There is an excellent page by Andrys Basten bringing together information about the Hatto scandal. You can find it here.



Joyce Hatto

After a long period of overcast weather, the Christchurch sky at last cleared on January 22, 2007, and we were able to observe Comet McNaught in its true celestial glory. It is the most impressive comet I have ever seen (and I’ve seen a few, since my first, Comet Arend-Roland and then Comet Mrkos, both in 1957). The photo above was made by holding my Fuji digital camera steady on the top of the old Saab for a 15 second exposure. The location was near Darfield and a 70 km/hr Nor’wester was blowing across the Canterbury Plains. Both with naked eye and with 11x80 binoculars the comet was spectacular: a brilliant head and coma with a wonderfully streaky tail. The Fuji shot below hardly does justice to it. (To be sure, there are better photos than this available on the net, but like my snaps of the Acropolis or the Taj Mahal, this one’s a personal memento.)

I attended the White House Press Correspondents’ Association Annual Dinner in 2006 at the Hinckley Hilton. My account, angled toward a New Zealand audience, can be read here.

In 2003, John Brockman’s annual Edge Question asked for a memo to the President on the premise that he had just appointed you as his Science Advisor. I recently came across my contribution; I had lost track of it. You can read it here. I stand by it still.

Philosophy 110 Science: Good, Bad, and Bogus

Thanks to everyone for making up such an engaged class. (Well, most of you, anyway!)

In using Turnitin, ignore anything it says about when your essay is due: it was due on June 2nd. Once you have finished your essay, you submit it to Turnitin by starting here. Remember, you also have to submit a printed version to. The essays should be brought to the fourth floor of the History Building.

Here is an article on the placebo effect from the latest issue of the American magazine, The Skeptic.

The article on homeopathy I was reading from is here. There is another excellent article here.

You essay topic is here. The helpful essay by Popper is here. The excellent British journalist, David Aaronovitch, has written a new book on conspiracy theories. Anyone who buys it off Amazon might have a headstart. The Times published an extract from the book. Here are reviews in the Guardian, the Times of London, the Scotsman, the New Statesman, the Literary Review, and the Financial Times.

Here’s a treat: Andrew Marr’s BBC programme, Start the Week, begins with an interview with David Aaronovitch, talking about his book on conspiracy theories and the people who believe them. Listen to what he says about Princess Diana’s death. It’s very much worth taking notes. Hear it here.

The article on conspiracy theories by Jerry Goodenough is here. Its examples are drawn from conspiracy theories about the Kennedy assassination.

On the question of conspiracy theories about about the 9/11 attacks, one of the best sources is a long article produced by Mechanics Illustrated magazine. It is here. You may prefer to print it out or to read online the print version.

An old friend of mine, David Chandler, is “convinced the 9/11 was an inside job.” Many years ago, Dave and I went on expeditions together into the Mojave Desert, observing various deep-sky objects with his large Newtonian reflector. All I can say is that I knew him as a very gentle, pleasant, and very smart guy. A PDF of his essay is here.

Other articles that I think relevant to a discussion of conspiracy theories are by Brendan O’Neill here and here. Frank Furedi's piece is here. Stephen Marche has a very interesting new piece on conspiracy theories in Esquire. Don’t miss it here.

Here is a new article on the psychology of conspiracy theory belief that has shown up in Science News. You may be able to locate the article by googling the authors and title.

My general account of Cold Reading and the Forer Effect (or Barnum Effect) is here.

Philip Escoffey is an experienced magician and sceptic who sees through the various scam techniques of psychic con artists. His interview with Kathryn Ryan on Radio New Zealand shows genuine insight. I suggest listening with pen in hand, stopping the interview here and there to take notes. The audio is here.

General information about the course is available here. Specific course requirements for Phil 110 this year are here. The University webpage for the course is here.

Philosophy/Classics 141: Classical Concepts of Beauty.

Thanks to everyone. This semester was a pleasure for me. Once you have finished your essay, you can submit it to Turnitin by starting here. Remember, you also have to submit a printed version too. Your essay topic is here.

I am sure you enjoyed to hear from Patrick O’Sullivan of the Classics Department. His PowerPoint slides for the lecture are here.

Finish Aristotle’s Poetics. Best to buy the Penguin translation in the bookshop. You can find a less adequate but usable version that I have cobbled together here.

Specific course requirements are outlined here. The University webpage for the course is here.

“Pugnacious, witty, and entertaining ... The Art Instinct is scintillatingly written and not to be missed – even the end notes are indispensable ,” writes Kirkus Reviews.

“Dutton’s eloquent account sheds light on the role art plays in our lives ... uniformly insightful and penetrating,” says the New York Times.

Denis Dutton “combines a magisterial command of the history of aesthetics back to Plato and Aristotle, a total commitment to clarity and verve in writing, and an up-to-the-minute grasp of almost every trend on the contemporary cultural scene. Result? A philosophy of art for the ages, ” according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Check out all the reviews and other news HERE.

You may have seen this photograph. It used to appear in blow-up form in the Margaret Mead Hall at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. It was also reproduced in an abysmal book called Gone Primitive: Savage Intellects, Modern Lives, by Marianna Torgovnick (panned by me here). Thanks to help from friends at the Museum of Natural History and across Central Park at the Metropolitan Museum, I am able to present the original color version of the photo. For an updated account of the controversy surrounding this image, click here.

This pan of the absurdly overrated Lord of the Rings films has been published in the Press, the New Zealand Herald, the Sunday Los Angeles Times, and the Australian. Here is the complete version from which these different edits derive.

If you travel into the Sepik River area of northern New Guinea, you may encounter firewalking as practiced by the natives. It is an old jungle tradition. Well, maybe not that old.


Back-up files for Phil 140 and Phil 142 readings include Aristotle’s Poetics, David Hume’s Of the Standard of Taste, excerpts from Immanuel Kant’s Third Critique, Friedrich Schiller’s Letters on Aesthetic Education, Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy, Leo Tolstoy’s What is Art?, and Clive Bell’s Art.

When the Shroud of Turin was at last carbon dated in 1988 many observers thought that would put an end to whacky speculation that it was the actual burial cloth of Jesus. Those of us who had spent much time studying the psychology of Shroud belief knew otherwise. A signed confession from the Shroud’s creator would not do make any difference to believers at this point.

A few years before the carbon test, I reviewed two recent books on the subject. The review can be found here.

Human Accomplishment, by Charles Murray, was the subject of a long review in the New Criterion. Murray’s book is a splendid achievement, so full of facts and hypotheses that critics have had a field day poking holes in it. While I poke a few, there is much to admire in this provocative work.



Charles Murray

Time magazine in its issue of 14 June 2004 (U.S. edition) has an article on weblogs that includes a flattering remark or two. I have never viewed Arts & Letters Daily as a weblog, in that it does not present a running commentary. The progenitor of the modern weblog, by the way, is not the personal diary, but the nineteeth-century commonplace book, a scrapbook of newspaper cuttings, favorite poems, and creative prose. ALD is just a daily reading list with attitude.

I’ve been searching for a decent link to Aristotle’s Poetics on the web. All I could find were fairly messy text and zipped versions that lacked the the editorial niceties to guide the eye and the mind through this work. The Perseus Project (W.H. Fyfe’s 1932 version) offers perhaps the best, but it’s broken into many separate pages and is very hard to navigate. So I’ve cobbled together a couple of versions of the 1902 Butcher rendering and applied a modern editorial eye to the result. Here’s what I’ve come up with. Corrections are most welcome (email me here). I know for starters that I’ve missed a few italics in this text.

The April issue of Philosophy and Literature is out with lots of fresh argument and analysis. Click on the image for the current table of contents. The infamous Philosophy and Literature style sheet can be consulted here.

Contact Denis Dutton


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