DA "I'm not sure I follow all your thinking on the self-expression issue, but are you sure that our responses to art are entirely acts of what you call self-will? When I listen to Mozart, read Dostoyevsky, or look at a Goya, I don't think my will plays a significant role in my response. Or putting that another way, no amount of will would enable me to say that I enjoy rock music or jazz, like reading Dan Brown or his ilk, or think computer games merit being called art (which I mention because it's a fashionable idea, I notice).  "

Dear Derek,

Thank you for your explanation of Malraux's interesting history in your last posting.  With respect, however, you have not yet supported your rejection of self-expression with an argument.    Whilst you do not believe : "our responses to art are entirely acts of what you call self-will ",  can you please explain how these acts can arise from anything other than our will, which is effectively our-self? 

The problem I have with your claim is that  if our responses do not voluntarily arise from our will, we are either being forced against our will, or our will is being chemically altered by drugs.  Whatever other influences are involved in the creation of art (culture, politics, and so on) they must all be filtered through our will, the result of which is fundamentally a voluntary expression of that will.   Emotion is of course another issue, although one that is closely intertwined with self-will.  Be that as it may, your claim that our actions, artistic or otherwise, do not arise from our will can only be supported by robotic machines.

As a postscript to the above, I would add that I accept that all art, ie not exclusively paintings, is not entirely about self-expression, although self-expression is logically the first and fundamental reason for art's existence, and everything else is an add-on so to speak in terms of our psychology, culture, politics, episteme (where we happen to reside in the scheme of things in terms of the influences that are brought to bear, how we are ordering our knowledge, and the way we are understanding  and making sense of the world around us  ..  ..   ) 

Best wishes
Dilys