Conventionally, the Philistine is assumed to have no value for art and culture, but in this re-evaluation, the authors address the Philistine not as an empirical phenomenon - but as a relational category that operates between art and anti-art and aesthetics and anti-aesthetics.

Dave Beech and John Roberts develop what they call a 'counter-intuitive' notion of the philistine, with insights on cultural division and exclusion.