What kind of entity is a work of art?: Philosophy Forums

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What kind of entity is a work of art?
What a work of art is...physical, spiritual, etc

What kind of entity is a work of art?

Rupkaaj
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Posted 02/07/07 - 04:00 PM: Subject: What kind of entity is a work of art?	#1
Hey all, Just wondering if any of you could help me, im writing a paper on what kind of entity is a work of art, is it: Not physical but spiritual/imaginery or, not physical or mental, of is it a universal entity, or is it an aesthetic object? I've also read some stuff about multiple artworks being sets, and the relevance of the type-token distinction in this area. However I can't really find any information, or a lot of criticisms about any of the possible theories, and I don't know where to start. I need to have an essay plan, kind of bullet points of what motivates each point, and criticisms etc, I just need some help, ive never done anything in this area before. Could anyone help me? if so i would be very grateful. Rups xx

.cfb
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Posted 02/09/07 - 05:37 PM:	#2
I think you're attempting to oversimplify what art is; specifically trying to reduce its entire existence to a singular "entity." Art is physical: every piece of artwork rests entirely in the physical. Music consists of waves moving through space, a drawing or painting consists of hard or fluid matter applied to another, larger, physical object. Even conceptual "earth art" consists in the rearrangement of something physical. Art is mental: a conscious viewer must be present to translate the physicality of art into its aesthetic self. This aesthetic self allows for its transcendence as spiritual, or as something which creates a more-than-physical self. You could think of art like time in this respect. What is time: it can be described as movement. Without movement we could have no conception of the space between it. But time is also mental: our consciousness requires this "space between movement" to order events. To us, though, time represents not only movement or mental congruity, it presents something "transcendent" in our consciousness which is completely indescribable as either physical or mental. I would say art is a physical-mental entity which is only translatable into "art" by a viewer. Then again, this probably oversimplifies art also. The question "what kind of entity" seems to imply what kind of existence art occupies. I don't know the exact question you are responding to for your paper, but a better question might be: "how do we interpret the "entity of art" as the viewer?" Edited by .cfb on 02/09/07 - 05:42 PM

Megalopsuchos
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Posted 04/09/07 - 08:06 PM:	#3
I think it is a good question. Richard Wollheim tries to debunk the identification of art as a physical instantiation. I always wonder whether a work of art (entity) is a type or a token. Wollheim presumes that works of art are physical objects, which is the physical object hypothesis. This eliminates some possibilities right away. One may object to this hypothesis by saying one of two things. How can you identify a physical object in time or space, for example, in music or writing? Further, in the case of standard physical art, such as a sculpture, one might say that such identification is wrong. In the case of books, there are, for instance, physical copies of Ulysses. If a copy of the book were to be lost, the art would not be lost. A copy of the work of art is an alternative way of describing it. A critic can admire the story but hate the way it is bound, for instance. The physical object hypothesis may be misapplied, but that does not hurt the hypothesis. There is a connection. One does not supervene on the other, and Wollheim will speak more about this later. There are also cases where the physical object has been lost, but the story lives on. One might defend the physical object thesis by making different classifications, that, for instance, a piece of art contains a class of physical objects. For instance, there are many copies of Ulysses. But there are similar objects to the classification defense as there are to the basic hypothesis. How, exactly, would we make these classifications? All of these objectors to the thesis would nevertheless concede that some arts are embodied by physical objects. This leads us to the second way of objecting to the thesis. On this way of objecting, it could be argued that a work of art is incompatible with its physicality, or that the physical characteristics are not expressive properties of the art. Here we must consider representational versus non representational art. In summary, a strict interpretation of the physical object hypothesis may be false, but it is sometimes useful. Objections, when it is not useful, really only concern recent kinds of art. A distinction between metaphysical and logical is applied to the hypothesis. It is difficult to distinguish between particulars and universals, so he introduces new terms, generic entity and element. The upshot is that there is a difference between type and token identities.

xuanyue
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Posted 04/21/07 - 10:29 AM:	#4
The only limit to art is there is no limit, meaning everything can be art, while nothing can be art. Its a subject subjective to the core.

Megalopsuchos
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Posted 04/22/07 - 09:43 PM:	#5
What are you, Any Warhol? That's a cop-out! * The question is what kind of an entity is art. There are a number of substantive theses that try to answer this question. I would suggest looking at Wollheim, still. I've only taken an undergraduate aesthetics course, so I'm by no means an expert either. Krauss, Wollheim, Levinson, are the only real modern aesthetic philosophers that I've read that tackle this. You could also go ancient with Plato's Ion (or, probably not as good, the little part in Rep.), or Aristotle's Poetics. I'm afraid I cannot think of anything else.

KidSick7
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Posted 07/03/07 - 04:50 PM: Subject: art as commodity	#6
Art has lost, in our culture at least, all of its spiritual value. Value being the key word. In the art world, a well crafted peice of art is seen as a commodity i.e. something to make money with. Now there are works of art from other cultures that are seen as holding religious significance, most likely due to the setting in which they were constructed. The religious paintings of yesteryear are defunct in spiritual value, however, due to the increase of their value as a commodity which is a result of their uniqueness. Many people in our culture value fakeness or reproduction when it comes to art as well. (i.e. prints, posters) (speaking of the herd). eh. If it inspires you, then it has spiritual value to you, but seen from an objective standpoint, it is just something else that you could buy. --> art as commodity.

The_Rational_Animal
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Posted 03/21/08 - 03:58 PM:	#7
Art serves a human mental need by allowing human beings to grasp abstractions as they sit before us. Art offers a perceptual, easily grasped means of communicating and thinking about a wide range of abstractions. Its function is similar to that of language by using concrete words to represent concepts. A concept is a sort of mental shorthand standing for a large number of concretes. It is a representation of reality according to what an artist believes to be ultimately true and important about the nature of reality and humanity. Art permits a human being to think indirectly or implicitly of many more such concretes than can be held explicitly in mind. Usually art stems from an artist's sense of life (largely emotional), and its appeal is similar to the viewer's or listener's sense of life.
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Caldwell
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Posted 03/22/08 - 03:44 AM:	#8
Rupkaaj wrote: is it: Not physical but spiritual/imaginery or, not physical or mental, of is it a universal entity, or is it an aesthetic object? I'm not sure I understand the categories you're given. And I think it's also why you couldn't find any information under these categories. But, since this is an essay, in which no answer is right or wrong, just choose what in your opinion suits the work of art, then expound on it. So, you can say: It's an aesthetic object, under human "artefacts" instead of "natural".
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Posted 03/22/08 - 10:35 AM:	#9
I think it is a relational entity, a reflection of a way of seeing the world. The artist depicts his or her relation towards reality. It is made existent in some way, it keeps (be it words, sculpyure, painting) and shared with others. (A work of art which is so personal no one else can make out anything from it, loses its capacity to be a work of art) Not all works of art keep or are intended to, but than its destruction is part of the artwork, part of the reflection on reality.
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Fergus Currie
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Posted 03/24/08 - 03:16 AM:	#10
May I direct you to Ludwig Witgenstein's 'Philosophical Investigations' which addresses this very question in some detail, trying to pinpoint what is common to all art and how that relates to its definition. There is a very helpful chapter in Warburton's 'Philosophy - The Basics' which outlines the current ideas about art's definition and offers a small but useful bibliography of further reading. If you do eventually find out what kind of entity art is please come back and tell us! FC
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Techeth
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Posted 03/25/08 - 06:15 PM:	#11
I'm with The Rational Animal, art is fundamentally communication, it's the only reason I can think of as to why, the organisation of simple sounds can make a person, dance or cry. Other than that I have little to add except I too would be interested in what you conclude.
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