Topics Art

Question What is not art?

Accepted:
October 13, 2005

Comments

Lots of things: the orange in front of me, the bus outside my window, George Bush, the number four, Palo Duro Canyon, and so on. I suspect you want to know what makes something not art, and that might seem like it calls for supplying a definition of art. Once we knew what the defintion was, we could presumably determine what didn't fall into the category. For a number of reasons, I suspect that this isn't the best way to go. (For one thing, I don't think philosophy has a great track record at supplying informative and accurate definitions.) Still, it seems that we are pretty good at distinguishing art from non-art, and that should do in most cases.

For interesting attempts to provide a definition of art take a look at any of the essays on the institutional theory of art by George Dickie, or look at Arthur Danto's Transfiguration of the Commonplace. For general discussion of the issues surrounding defining art you might take a look at Noel Carroll's Philosophy of Art: A Contemporary Introduction or Robert Stecker's Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art: An Introduction. There are many, many other interesting discussions of the topic. The classic criticism of attempts to define art can be found in Morris Weitz's essay "The Role of Theory in Aesthetics".

Question What is not art? Accepted:October 13, 2005

Question What is not art?

Accepted:
October 13, 2005