View source for Monroe Beardsley

{{Short description|American philosopher of art}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=July 2025}}
{{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&nbsp;– 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).<ref>{{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}}</ref> 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 [[instrumentalism|instrumentalist]] theory of art and the concept of aesthetic experience. Beardsley was elected president of the American Society for Aesthetics in 1956. Among [[Literary criticism|literary critics]], Beardsley is known for two essays written with [[William Kurtz Wimsatt, Jr.|W.K. Wimsatt]], "The [[Intentional Fallacy]]" and "The Affective Fallacy," both key texts of [[New Criticism]].  His books include: ''Practical Logic'' (1950),<ref>Beardsley, Monroe C. Practical Logic. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall, 1950. Print. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1070457692</ref> ''Aesthetics'' (1958) (an introductory text),<ref>Beardsley, Monroe C. Aesthetics: Problems in Philosophy of Criticism. N.Y: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1958. Print. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/464258865</ref> and ''Aesthetics: A Short History'' (1966).<ref>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</ref> He also edited a well-regarded survey anthology of philosophy, ''The European Philosophers from Descartes to Nietzsche''. <ref>Beardsley, Monroe. The European Philosophers from Descartes to Nietzsche. New-York: Random House Inc, 2007. Print. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1119524915</ref> He was elected a Fellow of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] in 1976.<ref name=AAAS>{{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}}</ref>

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.

==See also==
*[[American philosophy]]
*[[List of American philosophers]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==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.]

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Beardsley, Monroe}}
[[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]]
[[Category:Yale University faculty]]
[[Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:Philosophers from Connecticut]]
[[Category:Philosophers from New Jersey]]
[[Category:Philosophers from Massachusetts]]


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