Stephanie Ross is professor emerita of philosophy at the University of Missouri--St. Louis. She is the author of What Gardens Mean, also published by the University of Chicago Press.
Leading with a discussion of food and wine criticism, Ross shows how debates about objectivity of taste provide a clue to the role of critics in the appreciation of art. She demonstrates encyclopedic knowledge of the main figures and arguments regarding aesthetic properties and opens up the material with her accessible style and concise summaries of the central topics. --Alan Goldman, author of Life's Values: Pleasure, Happiness, Well-Being, and Meaning At a time when philosophers of art are paying more attention to criticism, Two Thumbs Up offers an excellent contribution. It covers every aspect of the Humean tradition of criticism as well as pertinent debates, such as on the nature of aesthetic properties, supplementing the philosophical discussion with a valuable overview of the literature, all written in language clear to both general readers and philosophical specialists. --Noel Carroll, author of Beyond Aesthetics