Some objections to Stecker's historical functionalism
British Journal of Aesthetics 40 (4):479-491 (2000)
| Abstract | The claim that the functions of art liable to change over time appears to suggest that any attempt to define art in terms of a limited set of functions will fail. Robert Stecker has offered a functionalist definition which seeks to accommodate this criticism by making the functions which are relevant to an artwork's status those which are 'standard or correctly recognized' for some art form. I argue that Stecker does not offer a clear enough distinction between the 'standard or correctly recognized' and the accidental functions of an art form; that his account of the 'standard or correctly recognized' functions of an art form does not exhaust important artistic functions; and that his proposed definition is neither necessary nor sufficient for an object to count as an artwork. For these reasons I suggest that Stecker's functionalist account of art should be rejected. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,679 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesRobert Stecker (2008). Art, Emotion and Ethics by Gaut, Berys. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 66 (2):199–201.
Robert Stecker (1991). Goldman on Interpreting Art and Literature. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 49 (3):243-246.
Robert Stecker (1994). Art Interpretation. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 52 (2):193-206.
Berys Gaut (2005). The Cluster Account of Art Defended. British Journal of Aesthetics 45 (3):273-288.
Robert Stecker (2001). Defending Historical Functionalism: A Reply to Stock. British Journal of Aesthetics 41 (3):328-332.
Robert Stecker (2011). Work and Object: Explorations in the Metaphysics of Art by Lamarque, Peter. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 69 (4):415-417.
Robert Stecker (1992). Defining “Art”: The Functionalism/Proceduralism Controversy. Southern Journal of Philosophy 30 (4):141-152.
Tom Leddy (1998). Stecker's Functionalism. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 56 (4):398-402.
Robert Stecker (1996). Alien Objections to Historical Definitions of Art. British Journal of Aesthetics 36 (3):305-308.
Robert Stecker (1998). Leddy on Stecker's Functionalism. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 56 (4):402-404.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads6 ( #145,615 of 549,084 )Recent downloads (6 months)0How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
