Being art - a study in ontology
Abstract
I present and defend a two-category ontology of art. The basic idea of it is that
singular artworks are physical objects, whereas multiple artworks are types of
which there can be tokens in the form of performances, copies, or other kinds
of realisations.
I argue that multiple artworks, despite being abstract objects, have a temporal
extension, thus they are created at a certain point of time and can also drop out
of existence again under certain conditions. They can, however, not be
perceived by the senses and cannot enter into causal relations.
The identity of an artwork is determined by its structural properties, but also
by the context in which it was made. The essential contextual properties of an
artwork are those that are relevant to the meaning of the work.
A realisation of a multiple artwork has to comply with the structure of the
work and has to stand in the correct intentional and/or causal-historical relation
to the work. Realisations that diverge too much from the structure of the work,
like translations of literary works, are what I call “derivative artworks”.
I argue against the thesis that all artworks are multiple. I claim that there are
singular artworks, and some of them are even necessarily singular. I show why
certain standard arguments against the idea that all artworks can be realised
multiple times are flawed, and present my own theory about what decides
whether a work is singular or multiple, namely that successful intentions of the
artist determine which category an artwork belongs to.
Concerning singular artworks, I also investigate what the relation between the
work and the matter it is made of is, and how a work can survive a change in
its parts and still remain the same work.
Type
Thesis, PhD Doctor of Philosophy
Rights
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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/
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