Philosophy of Art: A Contemporary Introduction

A few years ago, Swedish TV showed a humorous documentary about the Andy Warhol museum in Slovakia (of all places). Apparently, Warhol had sent some of his paintings to his family in the eastern parts of that country. They didn't understand that the paintings were art, gave them to their children, who quickly cut them to pieces, made kites out of them, etc. But would poor Andy's relatives had become any wiser after reading Noël Carroll's book? Probably not. Still, "Philosophy of art" is well worth reading. It's intended for undergraduate philosophy students. The book deals with various attempts to answer the question "what is art". Various theories and definitions are reviewed: the representational theory, neo-representationalism, the expression theory of art, formalism, neo-formalism, the aesthetic definition of art, neo-Wittgensteinianism, the institutional theory of art and the historical theory of art. Finally, the author reveals his own theory, which seems to be a version of the historical theory. So what is art, then? I must admit that the question seems impossible to answer. Perhaps it's meaningless. If so, it's a real pity, since I feel a certain instinctive sympathy for Stuckists and an equally instinctive aversion to readymades, especially dead sheep and unmade beds! (And no, I don't think Stuckist art is particularly beautiful. I have other artistic preferences.) Empirically, it seems that the vernacular category "art" includes very different phenomena: painting, sculpture, music, literature, theatre and dance comes to mind. What can they possibly have in common? Somebody might argue that they are all symbolic, and are based on some kind of narrative. But are they? What does music symbolize, for instance? What about purely decorative art? An object might be purely decorative in one context, say on my balcony, but have a narrative function if placed in an art gallery. We could also imagine some kind of "post-post-modern" art, which you aren't even supposed to interpret. Let's call it "Nirvana art" or "Osho art". Or take another possible definition: the aesthetic one. But some natural objects can also be considered aesthetic (personally, I find a flock of Hooded Crows in a deserted industrial zone to be quite aesthetically pleasing). Yet, nobody (?) considers live crows to be art. Note also that some objects with a kind of "narrative" function nevertheless aren't art: road signs, for instance. The various things lumped together in the category "art" have no family resemblance to each other, and occasionally they resemble other phenomena not considered art. Carroll believes that road signs used as wall decorations aren't art (why not?) or that design isn't art (again: why not?). Somehow, it feels as if we could debate this question forever, without reaching a workable definition. Small wonder those kids turned Andy Warhol's paintings into kites! Here are a couple of more interesting questions, which could perhaps even be ans

This book is primarily concerned with figuring out what makes an object a work of art. The strategy adopted here attempts to find necessary and sufficient conditions which an object must satisfy in order for it to properly be called a work of art. Carroll considers several different traditions which offer answers to this question. Most of the book proceeds by way of finding counterexamples to the proposed definition. While engaging, this book won't be very congenial for philosophers who deny a definitional view of concepts or who deny analyticity. If you are one of these, the project will be doomed to failure at the outset. He does consider family resemblence, but quickly dismisses it. However, you may find value in the later chapters, which consider whether pure fiat confers art-status on an object. Good intro though with plentiful references to works of art.

I read this book for a graduate seminar on the philosophy of art. An interesting facet of literature is how fiction is intentionally used by an author to introduce and argue non-fictional ideas and theories. This case in point is examined by Noël Carroll in his book "Philosophy of Art." Carroll astutely argues that if the "intentional fallacy" argument rests on the premise that "all literature is fictional," then this notion is problematic. Carroll observes that there are plenty of non-fictional passages in fictional books that authors insert to espouse philosophical or scientific theories, and that fiction is sometimes used as a "vehicle" to carry these ideas to the reader that they would ordinarily have a hard time getting out into the public in a "dry" treatise. Good examples of this notion are the novels written by Ayn Rand. Rand intentionally used several of her novels such as, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, both popular works of fiction, to espouse her libertarian philosophical theory of "objectivism." In addition, Carroll understands the interests that readers have, namely the "conversational interests" they have in "communion" with or "communicating" with the author through reading the text. Carroll wisely perceives that readers have a conversational interest in literature; a conversation of wanting to understand what the author is communicating. Thus, Carroll correctly argues, "We want to understand the author, even if that will lead to rejecting his or her point of view." I recommend this work for anyone interested in philosophy, philosophy of art, and textual criticism.

For the past few years, I've been looking for a good introduction to the philosophy of art. Noël Carroll provides this missing book. There are several guides, companions and anthologies. But none of them was able to provide me with a clear and elegant tool to tackle this subject. This lack of a reference manual is specifically acute in my own country, France, as the aesthetics analytic tradition is not part of the basic Philosophy curriculum. Most books in the field are focusing on the philosophy works of Goodman, Danto and Cavell. I do see why an academic would consider these works to be crucial to the understanding of contemporary aesthetics discussions. But my impression is that the mention of these authors only turns off students. Mr. Carroll's books focuses on very basic problems and on one basic question: what is art about? Is it about representation? Or expression? Or form? - This choice of simplicity makes this book the only available introduction to a very exciting field. I do not think the book requires any philosophy background - so it could also be of a great interest for a wider audience. The only thing I miss is a more comprehensive discussion of the question of "intention", as it is the problem that surfaces during most discussions on aesthetics issues. I guess the author had to keep the book short and focused.

This is what I packed to the lake this summer. The suspense of following art thinking from verisimitude to conceptualism. The romance of potent examples from the history of art! The tragedy of the Fall of the aesthetic enterprise. The hope of uncovering the as-yet unsolved mysteries in defining a work of Art. All told with, if not humor, at least honsety.