Abstracta, Exemplars, and Choice: Comments on Art and Art-Attempts

Art and Art-Attempts by Christy Mag Uidhir is an excellent book about the philosophy of art.1 It is full of insight. It is brilliantly precise. Indeed, it is a model of analytic precision. This discussion will be concerned with the role of the intention of the artist in art, which is central to the book, and Mag Uidhir’s discussion of abstracta and instantiation. I shall argue that intention should be replaced with choice and that abstracta should be replaced with exemplar representation to improve his account. I conclude that choice in art and focus on exemplars play a special role in aesthetic education.Here is the basic idea of the role of intention of the artist in the book:Taking intention-dependence seriously...