Philosophy and the Arts: Lecture 13:

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Philosophy and the ArtsLecture 13

• Can Art
• Be
• Defined??

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Logic and definitions

• The paper you are to have read for today is The
  Role of Theory in Aesthetics, by Morris Weitz. I
  sometimes say a student can attend meetings of
  the American Society for Aesthetics, and sound
  rather learned, if they have read 5 or 6 central
  essaysthis is one of them.
• The question is can art be defined? But Logic
  students know there are many kinds of
  definitions. Clearly, Weitz has in mind
  definition by genus and difference, and he says
  art cannot be thus defined.

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Whats that, and why not??

• When we define something by genus and difference,
  we place the term to be defined in a larger
  class, and show how it differs from other members
  of that same class. The standard example is A
  triangle is a 3-sided plane figure.
  Limitations?well, remember Clive Bell
• Other limitations??

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Ludwig Wittgenstein

• Wittgenstein (1889-1951) was one of the great
  minds of the 20th century. Most of what Weitz
  says is taken from his Philosophical
  Investigations. He was Austrian, and thus wrote
  in German. It may be a curious way to start, but
  I want to take note of a couple of odd
  mistranslations.

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• This is a book I read as a child. I loved the
  pictures by Peter Hurd.
• Notice the sword at our heros side
• Oh, did you know that President Johnson turned
  down a portrait by Peter Hurd?? Not all Texans
  have good taste.

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A mistake.

• The truth is Excalibur was never broken. But
  Siegfrieds sword was. Interestingly, in the
  books I read as a child, Siegfrieds sword was
  named Balmung. It is only in the operas that it
  is named Nothung. Find this in my Metropolitan
  Opera Guide

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• This is quoted (in Anscombes translation) in the
  Weitz article, and is central to his argument.
  Consider the things we call games,-board games,
  card games, ball games.then Kampfspiele, is
  translated as Olympic games---it should be war
  games. As an old soldier, I can tell you that
  Olympic games are kind of fun, most of the time,
  but war games are usually no fun at all! They are
  simply training for war.

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What do these games have in common??

• Are they all amusing? No. But most are.
• Do they all involve competition among players?
  No. But most do.
• Do all involve winning and losing? No, again, but
  most do.
• Are all games rule-governed? Maybe (not sure),
  but a lot of human activities are rule-governed.

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Is this art??

• William the Conqueror worshipped here. So??
• Does that matter?
• This is, of course, St. Johns Chapel in the
  White Tower section of the Tower of London.
• It certainly awe-inspiringrelevant??

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So.?

• Wittgenstein concludes that there is no single
  feature, or characteristic, that all games have
  in common. Instead, he finds what he calls
  family resemblances among the things so
  called. Games form a family.
• Weitz says the same is true of art and its
  sub-concepts painting, sculpture, novels, etc.
  None of these can be defined, because there is no
  single characteristic all have in common.
• Further, Weitz stresses the notion that these are
  open concepts. What could that mean??

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The Lindisfarne Gospels art??
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• Suppose we are confronted with something new. It
  could be a hula-hoop, or an illuminated
  manuscript. Is that art?? The Kimbell Museum, Ft.
  Worth, once had an exhibit of prayer books,
  Painted Prayers, which were clearly meant,
  originally, as aids to worship, as were the
  Lindisfarne Gospels.
• Weitz says that what we do, in such cases, is
  compare the new object with paradigm cases of art
  works, and then decide whether the new object
  should be considered art.
• It is important to note that this is a decision,
  not a discovery. But Weitz would be quick to
  insist that not just anything, our hula-hoop, for
  example, will count as art.

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Now this is art!!

• Presumably, nobody would deny that the Mona Lisa,
  or Moby Dick, or Casablanca, are works of art.
  What we are saying is this and such-like things
  are works of artand we will always have new
  cases to worry over.

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Philosophers always disagree

• As always, philosophers disagree, and not
  everyone will accept Weitz claim that art
  cannot be defined. Some think he has misused
  Wittgenstein.
• George Dickie wrote that art can be defined,
  but not in the way people have thoughtthus the
  Institutional Theory.
• Jerrold Levinson has done a series of papers,
  arguing that we define art historically, i. e.,
  if something counts as art it somehow continues
  the history of art. Noel Carrolls view seems a
  variation of this, except that he wants to
  identify (not define) art by historical
  narratives-complicated.
• I am convinced (long story) that Berys Gauts
  cluster concept will not work as Wittgenstein
  said, Now youre playing with words.
• And so it goes, world without end.
• But, as Weitz insisted, each new theory is
  worthwhile, even if mistaken, because it calls
  attention to another of the many, many facets of
  what we call art.

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Had we but world enough

• It is typical of the sort of creatures we are
  that the line, Had we but world enough and
  time seems to have been part of a seduction
  attempt..
• But there are all sorts of things for which our
  time just runs out.
• Levinsons work deserves more time than I give
  it.