What is art?

Mathematics -> Music, Engineering -> Fine Arts. Nature. Pleasure. Cause of pleasure. Fine arts. Beauty. Aesthetic. What is pleasure? A nice bath? Critique of Judgement, Immanuel Kant. Mental state <- Beauty -> Pleasure. Patterns and shapes. Remove individuality from beauty -> Form -> Universal judgements.

So, abstraction, no visual relation to worldly things. 1912-1914. Crisis. "Break from beauty". Let's change the definition of art. Modernism. Revolution ala Enlightenment. How is this handled? George Dickey, Arthur Danto, link art to social practice. Historical tradition of making art, link objects like this. Urinal. Marcel Duchamp. Linked his urinal to the art work -> it's a work of art. "Institutional theory". Richard Wollheim. Do we have reasons? Or do we just have a collection of objects. "Married person" analogy. Perhaps refuted institutional theory.

Tracey Emin. Damien Hurst. "I am an artist. Therefore this is a work of art". Silly!

Relative merits of art. Do we need convincing art? How do we compare it?



I have a little over 2000 Saturday afternoons left in my life. What to do with them?

All ideas courtesy of Philosophy Bites by Nigel Warburton.