This collection of articles from prominent philosophers and practitioners of the arts illuminates the notion of meaning in the arts - in literature, painting, music, and dance. Specific topics include the application of theory in literary criticism, music, and dance; explorations of the relationship between authorial intentions and the viewer's interpretation of meaning; the possibility (or impossibility) of objective meaning; and the role of the consumer as a participant in the work of art.

Peter A. Frenchis the Lincoln Chair in Ethics and the Director of the Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics at Arizona State University. Formerly, he held the Cole Chair In Ethics at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, and served as Exxon Distinguished Research Professor in the Center for the Study of Values at the University of Delaware. He is the author of seventeen books including Cowboy Metaphysics: Ethics and Death in Westerns; Corporate Ethics; Responsibility Matters; Corporations in the Moral Community; The Spectrum of Responsibility; Collective and Corporate Responsibility; Corrigible Corporations and Unruly Laws; Ethics in Government; and The Scope of Morality. His most recent book, The Virtues of Vengeance, was published in April 2001. He has published dozens of articles in the major philosophical and legal journals and reviews, many of which have been anthologized.

Howard K. Wettsteinis Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside. He has taught at the University of Notre Dame and the University of Minnesota-Morris, and has served as visiting professor at the University of Iowa and Stanford University. Wettstein has published articles on the philosophy of language and the philosophy of religion and is the author of The Magic Prism: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language(forthcoming, Oxford University Press), and Has Semantics Rested on a Mistake? And other Essays(1992, Stanford Press).

1. Ode to Meaning: Robert Pinsky (Boston University).

2. Resurrecting the Author - Nicholas Wolterstorff (Yale University).

3. Meaning in the Work of Art: A Hermeneutic Perspective: Charles Guignon (University of South Florida).

4. Words for the Wordless: D.Z. Philips (Claremont Graduate University).

5. Musical Thinking: Jerrold Levinson (University of Maryland).

6. Is Twelve-Tone Music Artistically Defective?: Diana Raffman (Ohio State University).

7. Self-Mutilation, Interpretation, and Controversial Art: Jill Sigman (Artistic Director, jillsigman/thinkdance, New York City).

8. Time in Movies: Gideon Yaffe (University of Southern California).

9. Philosophy Screened: Experiencing The Matrix: Tom Wartenberg (Mount Holyoke College).

10. The Self-Disarmament of God As Evolutionary Pre-Adaption: Jack Miles (Getty Research Institute).

Midwest Studies in Philosophy 1976-2005.

Contributors