If aesthetic properties are the properties of an object that are appropriately related to certain experiences of an object, we need to specify what this relation is if we are to identify aesthetic properties in this way. 1990. One is to inform you about my life. What distinguishes the two classes of buildings? If so, the novel prescribes a response to these things, namely, belief, which just falls outside its aesthetic aims. There is an element of nonrational preference or sensibility in these judgments just as there is in taste in food. Artists typically craft, or at least select, the individual item that is the artwork, being guided in either case by intentions toward that item. How does Dickies first definition distinguish these conferrals of candidacy for appreciation from art-making conferrals? Carney, James. We argued earlier that although many of the values implicitly endorsed or presupposed by this poem are ones we might find highly questionable, this does not diminish the aesthetic value of the work. Apparent, Implied, and Postulated Authors. Philosophy and Literature 11:25871. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. (Goldman 1995, 23) Notice that this passage suggests that, in explaining how and why something is beautiful, we appeal to several layers (levels) of explanation. Its plausible that we interpret with a number of different aims, no one of which is the supreme one (see Stecker 2003 for a defense of this thesis). Different models of nature appreciation seem to be built on a preference for certain types of objects of appreciation. These include general-value properties such as beauty and ugliness; formal features such as balance or diversity; expressive properties such as sadness; evocative features such as power or being awe-inspiring; behavioral features such as stillness, fragility, or grace; and second order perceptual features such as being vivid or gaudy. These are certain shape properties of the depictions and their objects or, alternatively, the visual experiences of these shapes. Elements of Philosophy Series. There is another problem with the pretense view, which is not fixable. While aesthetics is the study of value, philosophy of art deals with a much wider array of questions including issues in metaphysics, epistemology, the philosophy of mind, as well value theory. 1990. It is a modest role because it is nothing like the claim of the identity theorists who insist that the meaning of these items is the intentions of their makers. Finally, we would not say the work would be even better if it displayed a set of values we would approve of. Further arguments for such a view are given in Howell (2002b, 119). The complex of buildings at the hilltop location is essential for the achievement, and it is also responsible for the costs. Thus the Nazi swastika is a symbol of the Nazi party that existed in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s, and perhaps subsequent political parties that are modeled on the German. This is so for at least three different reasons. Aesthetically valuable properties would be properties a work must have to be artistically valuable. Let us now turn to this new approach. . However, when it comes to architectural artworks a more plural range of values comes into play. Being beautiful is a general-value aesthetic property, being morally good isnt. Thus, the work is artistically better for achieving its social goal. 1992. Is there one best way to understand this concept? A fairly new hotel. Many works attempt to eliminate aesthetic properties. The basic thought underlying this approach is that there are certain features of the human mind and bodyits evolution, its cognitive or perceptual structurethat shed light on art, our concept of it, its value for us, its ability to represent or express that is independent of context of origin of particular artworks or the changing cultural context in which they are received. Lets summarize the state of the argument so far. We tend not only to treat the ancient myths of other cultures as if they were fiction, but to treat them as fiction. A work that intentionally helps us to explore morally difficult matters is deserving of praise, 252 Chapter Twelve while one that inadvertently hardens us against a reprehensible attitude it endorses is not. Proponents of this conception of artistic value tend to accept it a priori, on the grounds that an understanding of what art is involves knowing that art has a distinctive sort of value as art.2 The nonessentialist conception denies all four claims made by the essentialist. 178 Chapter Eight It is possible to imagine in all these ways. Art has been made as long if not longer as there have been human civilizations. To put it in Kantian terms, it does not distinguish judgments of agreeableness from judgments of beauty. If paintings and sculptures are physical objects, we appear to have too many of them at a given time and place. One way to solve the paradox is to deny that what we feel on these occasions are garden variety emotions (such as pity) despite our inclination to characterize them that way. Whether the distinction between medium and art form apply with regard to the items first mentionedpottery, furniture, carpetsis less clear; we are at the very least in the region of borderline cases. The contextualist paradigm tells us to look to the context of origin to identify crucial features of artworks. In fact, the disjunctive character of recent definitions suggests that there is no one value or function essential to art. Cluster concepts: Occur where there are several distinct conditions which are each sufficient in their own right for an object to satisfy the concept. Classic statement of the expression theory of art. Which of these responses do you think is better? Historical functionalism assumes that these forms and functions evolve over time. Currently, this would involve being subject to specific 116 Chapter Five modes of presentation to a public, to certain sorts of critical appraisal and audience appreciation, and to a historical connectedness to earlier items. But it would be possible Artistic Value 237 for someone to take from Dantos theory of art the view that arts value lies chiefly in the value of the conceptions (attitudes, points of view about some subject matter) it offers. Kants Aesthetic Theory. Officially, Ridley is offering an account of musical expressiveness, but (as the exposition above indicates), he often speaks of accounting for the experience of musical expressiveness. As with some other historical accounts (such as Carneys and Carrolls), Levinsons main idea is that something is a work of art because of a relation it bears to earlier artworks, which are in turn art because of a relation they bear to still earlier works, and so on. However, this does not go far enough. Levinsons proposal appears to be especially designed to apply to those cases of the aesthetic experience of art, like those of painting just mentioned above, that the object-directed sensuous pleasure view is too thin to account for. For example, if a work condemns an institution or a kind of behavior, it asks its audience to respond in a certain way: to feel the condemnation it expresses. Unfortunately, there is a problem in specifying this content. Imagine looking back at the earth from a spaceship and seeing the Americas spread out before ones eyes. Talk of using structures, by the way, shouldnt mislead us into thinking that structures are found whole and ready for use like a preassembled trampoline. This precisely matches Budds idea of the relevant evaluative perspective to assess the artistic value of a work (though he doesnt use the word aesthetic in describing this perspective). However, its very plausible that War and Peace has further aims Interaction: Ethical, Aesthetic, and Artistic Value 259 that go beyond the aesthetic. 113 causal and intentional relations to functions for direct reference to the functions themselves. We may feel that they must be, but we really dont know. If a work can succeed as an artwork with those commitments, the moral flaw makes a positive contribution to the artistic value of the work. Do they complete the seeing-in account by elucidating either the basis for or the nature of seeing-in? PHR-107 Introduction to the Philosophy of Art is a study of the basic problems, issues, and questions with respect to the understanding, appreciation, interpretation, and evaluation of art and beauty. Here is a stab: the weakened experienced-based cognitive insight argument (WECIA). Kieran (2003b) is his most detailed statement of it. Not every valuable property of a work is part of its artistic value or its value as art. Ethicist Arguments Let us begin by looking at one type of argument in favor of e-a interaction that has been popular, but hardly unchallenged, in the recent literature on this subject, which we will call the affective response argument.6 The basic idea behind this type of argument consists of three claims. One might be inclined to think that when someone claims to hear such and such in a passage, she is claiming that the passage sounds like such and such. When one fills in these possible regards, in theory one eliminates the expression as-a-work-of-art, which is the basis of Levinsons defense against the charge of circularity. For this case, I agree and include them in aesthetic experiences. To say that I approve of something is not to evaluate it; rather, it is merely saying something about my own psychological state. Aesthetics of the Environment. 131 that, in part, constitute his view. Their cognitive value is part of their artistic value. 1998. A view or vista is an object that can be seen from a relatively fixed point of view. Thus the exterior of a house may be suggestive of spaciousness within or of the existence of various nooks or special rooms. For one thing, to confine it to the study of the beautiful and sublime would now be regarded by most of us as too constricting. A proponent of the modest strategy might reply that, if it can be established that artworks necessarily typically possess aesthetic value, the spirit, if not the letter, of essentialism has been maintained. Stefanie Buchenau. (2009) with Stephen Davies, Kathleen Higgins, Robert Hopkins, and David Cooper, and Aesthetics Today (2010) with Ted Gracyk. And usage comports very well with the thought that paintings are physical objects. Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link. van Inwagen, Peter. Pages 329 Authors Intentions, Literary Interpretations, and Literary Value. British Journal of Aesthetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. )8 The view to be discussed is based on the reaction of ideal observers rather than nor- Conceptions of the Aesthetic: Aesthetic Properties 75 mal observers. In Blakes Songs of Innocence and Experience, one cannot take the attitude expressed by the utterer of one of these poems quite at face value because it is clear from the overall context that the utterer views the world from a particular perspective (that of 210 Chapter Ten innocence or experience), but it is not clear what these perspectives involve, how accurate a view of the world one gets from them, or even if there is such a thing as an accurate view specifiable independently of these perspectives. Is it also successful as a museum? The main reason is that the same structure and the same art-historical setting are insufficient to guarantee identity of work. But there is both positive and negative aesthetic experience: positively valued experiences of aesthetically good things, negatively valued experiences of aesthetically bad things. Art is a practice, and complex practices typically are valuable in multiple and evolving ways.10 To begin with a different practice, suppose one was trying to understand religious value. It is found in Goldman op. Muckraking fiction is a form of literature that aims to achieve social impact Interaction: Ethical, Aesthetic, and Artistic Value 255 via artistic affect stirring up moral emotions like indignation or presenting a vivid picture of a social problem that readers cannot only understand but also feel. Consider the experiences involved in doing a difficult crossword puzzle. Furthermore, this view implies that there is no one value or valuable property that must be possessed or even intended for an item to be art. What Kind of Object Is a Work of Art? (A corollary to this is that one artwork cannot always be distinguished from another by appeal to exhibited properties.) It is very hard to respond as prescribed by the chapters tone of voice and it is harder to believe one ought to so respond. Rather, Kant insists that aesthetic judgments are disinterested because, he thought, we are indifferent to the existence of what is being contemplated, caring only for the contemplation itself. Preface 1. Thus, the first task is to identify a relevant sense of form or, in other words, to identify which properties give a work form in the chosen sense. Charles, evidently, is not since he loses nothing when he receives similar benefits subliminally. At least this is so if we acknowledge that this sort of fiction is literature (art). The problem is that other equally well backgrounded readers make inferences which are also apt and unforced, but are inferences to quite different emotions. People, including artists, do not infallibly succeed in realizing everything they intend to do. Though each at first appears to represent a different approach (institutional, intentional, functional), the similarities among these views are more striking than the differences. This is certainly a possibility, and where one identifies a prior conception with the object of interpretation, one could not say that this object is being confused with the interpretation. This is so because Kant includes judgments of the agreeable, as well as judgments of taste, under the broad heading of aesthetic judgments (First Introduction, 20:224. The snowfield at sunset is a more complex object of perception imbued with more aspects than snowfield considered as a mere array of colors. That sort of visual experience might be what distinguishes them from other representations. This is one example of an aesthetic experience. Wollheim might be taken to mean that one discerns something standing in front of or behind the surface of which one is visually aware. 5. . Allen Carlson provided very useful feedback on chapter 2. Further, in doing this, the normativity of the property is made an essential feature of the work. Many emphasize the value of the emotional response to a work (Feagin 1996, Robinson 2005, Walton 1990), which might constitute a further kind of artistic value. Guyer, Paul. Now we turn to the fourth and last essentialist claim that there is one value that all (valuable) artworks share in common. Rather, as Weitz put it, most such concepts were open-textured, meaning that the criteria by which we apply the concept do not determine its application in every possible situation. Art and the Aesthetic: An Institutional Analysis. Its better to say that at least some experiences of the agreeable are truly aesthetic experiences. 1956. The modern art novel (from the eighteenth century to the present) is perhaps one type of work where a version of the affective response argument works. 4. we are attempting to discover certain truths about it, which are fixed when the work is created, in virtue features of the context in which the work is created, which features are essential to the very existence of the work. For example, suppose I listen to a piece of music in an initially anxious and despairing state of mind and as a result of appreciatively following the music feel calmer and have more fortitude when I finish listening. (Whether it actually does is another matter.) Artists are people; works are things. One might think that one has represented an imaginary scene if there is no real scene corresponding to the one that is painted or described. One can reply to this argument in a number of ways. In fact it denies this, but nevertheless says that we should appreciate nature as if it were an artwork. 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