Online research in philosophy

Do all works of art have an aesthetic purpose? It aesthetic properties are those possessed by is not particularly controversial that many works works of art or that they are those it is the funcof art have an aesthetic purpose. What will be..

Art and the aesthetic -- Traditional aestheticism -- A new aestheticism -- Aesthetic communication -- The artworld and the practice of art -- The artifactual concept of function -- Art as an aesthetic practice -- Artistic value as aesthetic.

What is the nature of the aesthetic experience? Is it the same for everyone? It is possible to facilitate its occurrence? This book focuses on the psychology of the aesthetic experience and on the perception and understanding of art, suggesting ways to raise levels of visual literacy and enhance artistic enjoyment. The findings will be of importance not only to museum professionals and art educators, but also to psychologists and those interested in the nature of the aesthetic experience.

From Plato to Goodman, many philosophers have addressed problems in aesthetics and the philosophy of art. Nevertheless the central issues here have remained ill-defined. In this book, A. L. Cothey overcomes this difficulty by giving a systematic account of the leading philosophical ideas about art and aesthetics from ancient times to the present day. In The Nature of Art , Cothey concludes that the best-known philosophical theories of art fail to satisfy either the pragmatic or the aesthetic criteria required to explain our experience of art. Introducing topics from areas of philosophy such as semantics, theories of cognition and the ethical nature of pleasure and enjoyment, Cothey develops a new theory explaining aesthetic satisfaction, artistic ability and why aesthetic experiences escape articulation. The Nature of Art will force readers to re-examine their views on art, and prove a significant contribution to the new debate onaesthetics.

Introduction -- Landscape and longing -- Art and human nature -- What is art? -- But they don't have our concept of art -- Art and natural selection -- The uses of fiction -- Art and human self-domestication -- Intention, forgery, dada : three aesthetic problems -- The contingency of aesthetic values -- Greatness in the arts.

Dissanayake is an ethologist. She is interested in human behavioral predispositions that are universal and innate because they have proved to enhance survival, which is defined as reproductive success (1995:36, 2000:21), and, hence, became selected for at the genetic level. Such behaviors must date back at least to the late Pleistocene (20,000 years ago) since it is then that human biological evolution reached its present condition. Subsequent changes involved cultural evolution, a predisposition that is itself based on evolutionary characteristics of the human species (1988:23, 1995:14, 2000:xiv). Dissanayake holds that art behavior, which she characterizes first as patterns or syndromes of creation and response (1988) and later as rhythms and modes of mutuality (2000), displays the hallmarks of a biological adaptation (1988:6, 1995:33–4): it is universal, innate, old (being present from at least 100,000 BCE, depending on what is counted as the first evidence), and is a source of intrinsic pleasure. Indeed, she claims that art is essential to the fullest realization of our human nature. Art is not something added to us but is the way we are, "Homo aestheticus, stained through and through" (1995:xix).