PHIL 361/599 Philosophy of Art and Beauty (3 units)

Spring 1998 - California State University, Long Beach


Lecture Notes: Week Two

"Art, Philosophy, and the Philosophy of Art," by Arthur Danto

[originally posted Monday, February 2, 1998]

WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY?

Our course objectives include the following:

"Students should learn what philosophy of art (aesthetics) is -- what it mans to think philosophically about art. They will learn how to ask philosophical questions and construct well-formed philosophical arguments about art. [In Unit II] Students will be introduced to several major philosophical theories of art, including representation, expression, formalism, and contemporary approaches."

Our goal in Unit I is to get some sense of what it means to think philosophically about art. There are many ways of thinking about and verbalizing about art -- art history, art appreciation, art criticism, art education, the psychology of art, the sociology of art. Thinking philosophically means "pulling back" from the specific and the individual to think about "big picture" questions. We try to put things into a broad context. We look for universal principles. We pay special attention to good reasoning and argumentation. We focus very closely on key concepts and ideas that are central to further dialogue. There is no simple "litmus test" for what makes a question philosophical -- it is more a matter of degree. The more we look for broad, "meta" questions, the more we are thinking philosophically.

Philosophy is something you do, not just something you read about. To learn how to swim, you have to get into the pool -- you can't learn to swim just by reading a book. The only way to learn how to reason philosophically is to try it -- you can't just read about it. You need to try it yourself. In fact, you all think philosophically already at various times in your daily life -- you just haven't put that "label" on it. In this course, we will be trying to develop that reasoning and to work on ways to improve it -- through our discussion group, your writing assignments, etc.

In philosophy, we de-emphasize "facts" and "information." We are concerned, instead, with our methods of reasoning about an issue. In the readings for Unit I, I'd like us to get an introductory sense of what it means to reason philosophically about art. We are looking at a basic question -- "What is Art?" -- to get some practice in philosophical reasoning and dialogue. There are no "right answers" here. Instead, we are looking at ways of reasoning about that question.

What is "aesthetics"? In this course, we are using "aesthetics" as synonymous with "philosophy of art." This is a neutral term that emphasizes aesthetics as a methodology -- a discipline -- a way of raising issues and problems and of developing methods of reasoning to address those issues and problems. It does not involve agreement with any particular critical theory about what makes art good art.

You have no doubt heard other senses of "aesthetics." Artists sometimes use this term in a negative or perjorative sense: e.g., "that art critic is trying to impose his aesthetic on me" -- meaning that the critic has a set of standards that he is trying to force artists to adopt. In that sense, "aesthetic" means a particular set of standards for what counts as "good art" -- whether "formalism" or "realism" or "expression" or something else.

You also sometimes hear "aesthetic" used as an adjective: "aesthetic perception," aesthetic attitude," "aesthetic experience." This usage distinguishes these experiences from perceptions and attitudes and experiences in other domains of human life. We will see an example of this use in Week Three in the Bullough article. An advantage of this use is that it enables us to explore why it is that we can appreciate nature or ordinary objects "aesthetically" (as opposed to practically" or "cognitively" or some other way). A disadvantage is that it is very slippery to try to pin down just what "aesthetic" means in these contexts.

Thus, we will generally use "aesthetics" to mean "philosophy of art." But good reasoning always begins with clarification of terms, so when you encounter the word "aesthetics" in reading or discussion, ask yourself first: how is this person using the word "aesthetics"?

Let's look briefly at what "philosophy" means in "philosophy of art." Typically, philosophical questions fall into three very broad areas and we will see all types of these questions in considering art:

(1) "Metaphysical" questions: questions about reality and existence: What does it mean to "exist"? What does it mean to be "real"?

*What IS a work of art? is it the canvas? the paint? the physical medium? the sound waves? the ink on paper? is it the idea in the artist's mind that is brought "outside"? is it the idea in the mind of the observer that is stimulated, clarified?

*How is the existence/reality of a work of art different from other things? How is it different from an ordinary physical object? an idea? A dream? a memory? a thought? How is it different from the words we use to talk about the work? How is it different from the words we use to write about the work?

*What is "real"? what does it mean to say something is "real"? are the people in fictional stories "real"? are the people in paintings "real"?

(2) "Epistemological" questions: questions about knowledge and truth. What is knowledge? how do we know things?

*Do we acquire knowledge from art? is a work of art better if we acquire more knowledge about the world? must it be "verbal" knowledge of the sort we get in history or science? Do we bring knowledge to a work of art that changes what we see?

*What do we learn from a work of art? do we learn about emotions, feeling, ideas? do we learn about history, events? do we learn about people and their lives?

*How do we learn from this work of art? do we learn from the colors, shapes, lines, harmonies? do we learn from the representation? The symbolism?

*What knowledge should we acquire to better understand this work? Should we learn more about the artist? should we learn more about the school/group of artists to which this artist belonged? should we learn more about the techniques used in making this work? should we learn more about the culture/country of this artist? should we learn more about the

critics/historians who thought it was a valuable work? why do we need this knowledge? how does it change what we see/hear?

(3) "Value" questions: What is the meaning of the word "good"?

*What value does this work have? personal value? economic value? religious value? inspirational value? educational value? Practical value? moral value? artistic value? how are we using "value" in each of these senses?

*Is it possible for a work to be valuable in one sense but not others? Can a work have great personal value, but low artistic value? Great artistic value but low moral value?

*If you disagree with someone about the value of a work, how would you try to change their mind? would you point to physical properties of the work? what properties? would you compare this work to other works? Would you explain the hardships overcome by the artist in creating the work? would you just say that it is impossible to debate taste?

If you are a beginner in philosophy and these ideas seem a little fuzzy, don't panic. You will come to a better sense of what philosophy is as we proceed to DO philosophy in this course. In a few weeks, take another look at these notes to see if they are starting to make more sense to you.


READING ASSIGNMENT: DANTO

Our reading for the second week (February 2-8) is "Art, Philosophy, and the Philosophy of Art" by Arthur Danto.

[If you have not already done so, please review the materials on the class home page. Click "requirements," then "Course Syllabus: Reading Assignments" and you will see a list of all the reading for the semester, with links to those readings. You might want to "bookmark" that page on your Web browser, so you can locate it more quickly in the future.]

Typically, in a philosophy course, the volume of reading is very small, and it is in our course. But it is not easy reading, and you should plan to work through the material several times. We are not reading these articles for "fact" or "information." We are not reading them because I think they are "true" or "correct." Rather, in philosophy, we read interesting articles to try to understand (a) the claims or theses that are being proposed by the writer -- what position he/she is staking out, (b) the arguments offered in favor of that position, and (c) the arguments against that position. Think of yourself as having a "discussion" or "dialogue" with that writer. Question their reasoning. Think of other arguments pro and con. Philosophy is much more interesting if you "interact" with the reading than merely read passively for information (which can be pretty boring).

Our class week runs from Monday-Sunday. Here are the steps you should follow each week in doing the reading for this course.

(1) Read through the article on-line. I have set up "hyperlinks" to many of the art works and other references in most of the articles, so you can see what the writer is talking about. Take some time to explore the other sites to give you a broader context for the dialogue.

(2) Print out the article for further study, both this week and when you get to the writing assignments for the course. At the end of each article, I have written "discussion questions" for you to use in self-study. I have tried to frame these to give you a guide about what to look for in the article, what to think about, what to focus on.

Especially if you are new to philosophy (and most of you are), this is a guide to what we focus on in philosophy. I am not interested in questions like "What was Warhol's first name?" or "What was Duchamp's most famous work?" or "Who was John Cage?" That is factual information and you can always look that up in a book if you need the answer. I am interested, instead, in looking at the reasoning, the arguments, the dialogue in each article. The study questions should help you get some sense of what this means. As we proceed this semester, what it means to "think philosophically" should start to make little more sense. You won't grasp this overnight and shouldn't expect to. You didn't learn how to swim the first time you jumped into the pool and you won't learn philosophy overnight either.

(3) In my Monday morning "lecture notes," I will suggest a question or two from the list that we focus on in our discussion group. After you've completed (1) and (2), above, try posting a comment or response to those questions. This week I'd like to focus on Question #3: what is it about a work of art that makes it different from an ordinary object? what proposals does Danto give us? what do you think of those proposals? are there alternate ways of making this distinction that you think work better?

You are free to comment on the other questions on the list, if they are of special interest to you. You might choose to frame your own comment or you might choose to respond to a comment by somebody else in the class. This will seem awkward at first, but once you get the hang of it, it should be fun.

THREADING: Our discussion group allows "threading" -- so we might have several "strands" of discussion going on at the same time -- one person responding to another responding to another, etc., etc. If you want to post your own brand new message, click "new msg" to get the message composition screen. If you want to respond to a message someone else has posted, open/read that message and click "reply" so you can post your threaded response. You'll have a choice of posting to the group alone, posting to the group and sending an individual e-mail to the poster, etc. If you goof up on this at first, don't worry. You'll get the hang of it.

EXPIRATION OF MESSAGES: The Collabra is set to delete all messages that are more than two weeks old. Old messages will start to disappear, so there won't be so much clutter.

DISCUSSION GROUP PROBLEMS: One course requirement is reading and participating in the group once a week. If you are still having problems accessing our discussion group, you can post a message to the class by using the "class e-mail" mass mailing list instead (there's a link to it on the class home page). That should be reserved for emergencies, but I don't want you to feel totally left out while you're solving discussion group problems. Send me an individual e-mail to tell me as much as you can about where you're getting stuck on the discussion group - what software (Netscape 3? 4? Internet explorer?), how far you've gotten, what you've tried, etc. -- and I'll troubleshoot with you until we get it worked out.

TIME SPENT ON THIS COURSE: For a typical 3-unit college course, you should spend a total of 9 hours a week on the course: 3 units sitting in a classroom and 6 units in preparation (reading, studying, preparing for tests, writing papers, etc.). You should expect to spend 9 hours each week on this course, too: (a) Reading my Monday-morning e-mail messages about the work for the week, (b) studying the reading assignment, and (c) reading and participating in the class discussion group. Later you'll have some writing assignments too. The nine hours each week can be any nine hours that work for your own schedule--that's one of the advantages of an Internet course. But please don't think you can successfully complete this course just by spending a few minutes a week reading e-mail! You need to spend some time on this course, just as you would for any other. [If you have not already done so, please take some time to work through the class page -- objectives, assignments, expectations -- so you know what the basic structure of the course is.]

BROKEN LINKS: One of the huge advantages of the Internet is the availability of immense resources on World Wide Web pages around the world. I've taken advantage of these resources in adding links to your reading assignments and I think you'll enjoy the reading much more because of those links. Alas, one disadvantage of the Internet is that WWW ages sometimes disappear without warning -- that's a "broken link." Sometimes a site is "off-line" because they are loading new pages or had a power outage or had a software crash. With luck, that site will be back in a few hours. Sometimes sites disappear without warning because the "Webmaster" got tired of maintaining it or moved the site to a different location ("URL"--Web-address) without notice.

I went through the Danto article Sunday night, 2/1 to update some broken links -- if you read it last week, you might want to go back and take another look. But if you find broken links, don't hesitate to let me know so I can look for another link that will meet our goals. This is a built-in frustration with the Internet and you just have to roll with it and expect it.

In the week before we do any particular reading assignment, I'll do a last-minute check for broken links. You are welcome to "read ahead" on the list, but might find broken links -- please let me know, if you do.

MY INTRODUCTION: I did not post an introduction on the discussion group. But if you are interested in knowing a little more about me, I have a "bio" page on-line on the WWW:

http://www.csulb.edu/~jvancamp/bio.html


Continue to Lecture Notes for Week Three

Return to Lecture Notes Table of Contents

Return to Class Home Page: PHIL 361/599 (Spring 1998)

Questions and comments are welcome: jvancamp@csulb.edu

This page written and maintained by Julie Van Camp

Copyright Julie C. Van Camp 1998

Last updated: February 8, 1998