Magic, Alief, and Make-Believe

Leddington (2016. "The Experience of Magic." The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 74: 253-64) remains the leading philosophical account of magic, one that has gone relatively unchallenged. In this discussion piece, I have three aims. Namely, to (i) criticize Leddington's attempt to explain the experience of magic in terms of belief-discordant alief; (ii) explore the possibility that much, if not all, of the experience of magic can be explained by mundane belief-discordant perception; and (iii) argue that make-believe is crucial to successful performances of magic in ways Leddington at best overlooks and at worst denies.