Abstract

The aim of this paper is to elucidate confusions that are as frequent in the common language as in philosophical writing. The first part of it examines the concept of “mass art” involved in my heading. After showing that it is art in the descriptive sense of the word, on the second part I proceed to the explanation of how the honorific use of this concept induces confusion between criticism and philosophy of art. Interested in the consequences of these confusions, I advocate that the lack of attention to mass art encourages the exile of evaluation from the philosophy of art and compromises the progress in the understanding of the problem.