Andrew Wynn Owen

Research Interests: Aesthetics, Epistemology, Value Theory, Philosophy of Mind

I work in aesthetics and the philosophy of art, especially as they intersect with value theory and epistemology. My research has been guided by a central aim, the aim of making as robust a case as possible in favor of the view that our strongest reasons to engage with art and the aesthetic, through experience, study, critique, and making, come from the epistemic realm. To this end, I pursue various subsidiary objectives, such as finding what it is that grounds the value of aesthetic objects, identifying the features that make artworks good, and providing an account of criticism. My main project is the one that focuses on finding what it is that grounds the value of aesthetic objects: I argue for the view that aesthetic value is grounded in a certain kind of intricacy and that aesthetic value is value on account of the understanding that this intricacy is apt to produce.