Painting, History, and Experience

Philosophical Studies 127 (1):19-35 (2006)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Two themes run through Wollheim’s work: the importance of history to the practice and appreciation of the arts, and the centrality of experience in appreciation. Prima facie, these are in tension. Reconciling them requires two steps. First, we should follow Wollheim in adopting a notion of experience on which features can be experienced even if we must have experience-independent access to the fact that the work exhibits them. Second, we need to state what makes a particular experience appropriate to the work. What does so? An obvious answer is that the experience reflects the work’s nature. Wollheim toyed with a more ambitious line, one linking the appropriate experience to our abilities to discriminate instances of the property appreciated. He allowed that having the right experience might require knowledge of the work, and thus that that experience need not be born of the ability to discriminate the property appreciated. But he seems to have held that the appropriate experience must engender that ability, at least against the background of those actual items that might be confused with instances of the property. I argue that Wollheim’s answer is less appealing than the obvious one.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 102,020

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

IRichard Wollheim.Richard Wollheim - 2003 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 77 (1):131-147.
What makes representational painting truly visual?Robert Hopkins - 2003 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 77 (1):149–167.
Seeing-in as three-fold experience.Regina-Nino Kurg - 2014 - Postgraduate Journal of Aesthetics 11 (1):18-26.
Indiscernible Properties, Discernible Artworks.Maria Jose Alcaraz - 2004 - Postgraduate Journal of Aesthetics 1 (3):136-146.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
154 (#150,243)

6 months
10 (#446,334)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Robert Hopkins
New York University

Citations of this work

Prediction and Art Appreciation.Ancuta Mortu - 2024 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 15 (4):1331-1347.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Languages of Art.Nelson Goodman - 1968 - Indianapolis,: Hackett Publishing Company.
Categories of Art.Kendall L. Walton - 1970 - Philosophical Review 79 (3):334-367.
Languages of Art.Nelson Goodman - 1970 - Philosophy and Rhetoric 3 (1):62-63.
Identity and Discrimination.Timothy Williamson (ed.) - 1990 - Cambridge, Mass., USA: Wiley-Blackwell.

View all 18 references / Add more references