Once Upon a Time, in a Land Called “Heteronomy”

In this review of Noël Carroll's Classics in Western Philosophy of Art (Hackett, 2022), I outline the merits of this text as both an introductory overview to philosophical aesthetics and a valuable companion to its classic texts. I also focus critical attention on the particular narrative it develops in which the history of Western aesthetics is a struggle between “heteronymists,” who see art as integral to social and moral life, and “autonomists,” who see art as an independent sphere of value. In particular, I invite the reader to question Carroll's claim that it is a narrative according to which the latter comes out ahead.