Robbie Kubala

Just wanted to share this wonderful news: The Lebowitz Prize went to aesthetics for the first time in its history. Congratulations to @domlopes.bsky.social and Samantha! I can't wait to see what they do together!

www.pbk.org/2025-lebowit...

Robbie Kubala, Harvey Lederman & Adam Lovett, On the Value of Irreplaceable Objects - PhilPapers Bradford (2023) calls attention to the fact that the strength of our reasons to preserve distinctively valuable objects increases as the number of such objects decreases. Bradford develops an account ...

@rkubala.bsky.social, @adamlovett.bsky.social, and I have a new paper forthcoming in the Journal of Philosophy. It’s called “On the value of irreplaceable objects” – Here’s a thread!

philpapers.org/rec/KUBOTV 1/n

In this episode, Brandon Polite (Knox College | he/him) talks with Robbie Kubala (University of Texas at Austin | he/him) about the aesthetics of crossword puzzles. We begin by briefly discussing why Kubala finds crossword puzzles interesting and worthy of philosophy attention. We then discuss the reasons why some philosophers reject the claim that crossword puzzles merit aesthetic experience, namely: (1) they're too rule-governed, (2) they're only solvable once, (3) they only have one solution, and (4) they're too goal-oriented. From there, we turn to consider Kubala's reasons for believing that crossword puzzles do merit aesthetic experience. The first of them is the most central to his view. Following C. Thi Nguyen's account of the aesthetics of games, Kubala argues that crossword puzzles are striving activities that give rise to two kinds of practical harmony. The first is the harmony of solution, or the felt pleasingness of the fit between a practical obstacle (e.g., a crossword clue) and its solution. The second is the harmony of capacity, or the felt pleasingness of our own agential capacities (e.g., crossword solving abilities) fitting the demands of the world (the difficulty of a clue). There are times, however, when a crossword puzzle outstrips our capacity to solve it. These cases give rise to a negative aesthetic experience of disharmony, which Kubala suggests is similar to experiencing the sublime. After considering the sublime, we apply the harmonies of solution and capacity to Kubala's own experiences as a competitive crossword solver. We next discuss the distinct between British-style cryptic crosswords and American-style non-cryptic crosswords. The latter rely primarily on knowledge of trivia, vocabulary, or cultural references to solve, whereas the former depend on one's abilities to reason through the hints embedded within their clues' wordplay to suss out their solutions. The difficulty of cryptic crosswords lends credence to the position that some advance that they're aesthetically superior to non-cryptic crosswords -- a position that Kubala himself doesn't advance. We then discuss other, although arguably less central, aesthetic aspects of crossword puzzles apart from those pertaining to our agency: namely, their linguistic and visual aspects. Like poems, crossword clues can make us aware of just how evocative language can be -- how just a short phrase can cause our imaginations to run in all sorts of directions. And like Piet Mondrian's paintings, crosswords can reveal the visual appeal of grids. We conclude by considering whether crossword puzzles count as works of art. Reasons for thinking they can be are the individual styles that crossword constructors can develop, the critical discourse that crossword puzzles have spawned, and the existence of crossword connoisseurs. References: Robbie Kubala, "The Aesthetics of Crossword Puzzles," British Journal of Aesthetics (2023) | https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/ayac049 Robbie Kubala, "The Art and Style of Crosswords," The Philosophers Magazine (2023) | https://www.philosophersmag.com/essays/319-the-art-and-style-of-crosswords C. Thi Nguyen, *Games: Agency as Art* (OUP 2020). Chapters: Introductions The Aesthetic Interest in Crossword Puzzles Value Skepticism about Crossword Puzzle Crossword Solving & Aesthetic Striving Crosswords & the Sublime Competitive Crossword Solving Cryptic v. Non-cryptic Crosswords Crosswords, Poetic Language, & Visual Art Are Crossword Puzzles Art? Conclusion SUBSCRIBE TO THIS CHANNEL https://www.youtube.com/c/PhilosophersDiscussingArt?sub_confirmation=1 * Subtitles edited by Athko Ehrnstein Ep 68: The Aesthetics of Crossword Puzzles | A Discussion with Robbie Kubala

Check out my interview with @rkubala.bsky.social on the aesthetics of crossword puzzles!!! Why do crosswords merit aesthetic experience? Can they give rise to the sublime? Are British- better than US-style crosswords? Are crossword puzzles ever art?

Three books about the philosophy of Marcel Proust Many philosophers got pushed into philosophy not because they read some piece of especially impressive philosophical work but because their philosophical c

Thanks @bencenanay.bsky.social for the super nice review of my chapter in "The Proustian Mind": "probably the most successful in that volume with regards to the double duty of helping us appreciate the novel as well as giving us independent philosophical arguments"! academic.oup.com/jaac/advance...

Ben Roth has a lovely review of "The Proustian Mind" in Mind, which generously engages with my chapter on desire satisfaction and meditates more widely on the significance of philosophical fiction today: academic.oup.com/mind/advance...

Linguist Receives Award from NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program AUSTIN, Texas — The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a grant from the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program to Kyle Mahowald, assistant professor of linguistics, for an i...

Incredibly proud of @kmahowald.bsky.social for winning a $1.4 million NSF career award! Can't wait to see what this guy does next! liberalarts.utexas.edu/news/linguis...

JAPA is *relentless* in getting authors to cut them!

Thanks, Nick!

Excited to share a piece defending "Aesthetic Blame," now published online (and open access!) in the Journal of the APA! So many people helped me out with this one, and I have nothing but praise for them! doi.org/10.1017/apa....

More crossword news: my piece on "The Art and Style of Crosswords" is up at The Philosophers' Magazine! #philsky www.philosophersmag.com/essays/319-t...

Mothersill Lecture – Robbie Kubala: "Art and Mystery" - Department of Philosophy

Very excited to be heading to Vancouver this week to give the Mary Mothersill Lecture at UBC! #philsky philosophy.ubc.ca/events/event...

PanelPicker | SXSW Conference & Festivals PanelPicker® is the official SXSW user-generated session proposal platform. Enter ideas and vote to help shape Conference programming for SXSW and SXSW EDU.

In ongoing crossword news, @kmahowald.bsky.social and I proposed a panel with Kameron Austin Collins and Adrienne Raphel at SXSW! If you like puzzles and/or us, you can upvote here: https://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/134394

The Unspoken Language of Crosswords Solvers must develop strong intuitions about what entries are possible and how they can be clued.

Now that you’ve no doubt solved your Sunday crossword puzzle, looking to read about crosswords and linguistics? In The Atlantic, Scott AnderBois, Nick Tomlin, and I talk about what linguistics can tell us about crosswords and vice versa. What's wrong with entries like GREEN PAINT. Too compositional!

UT's press office wrote up a nice piece on and @kmahowald.bsky.social's and my work on crosswords!

https://lifeandletters.la.utexas.edu/2023/07/on-the-beauty-of-crosswords/

Proust's 1908 summer writing list is the energy I need rn:

"I have in hand:
a study on the nobility
a Parisian novel
an essay on Sainte-Beuve and Flaubert
an essay on women
an essay on pederasty (not easy to publish)
a study of stained-glass windows
a study on tombstones
a study on the novel"

heard this was a great place to make friends and boost productivity