Aesthetic Properties, Evaluation, and the Ontology of Art

Flashcards covering philosophical theories of aesthetic properties, evaluation of beauty, taste, and the ontology of art across both slide presentations.

Cubism

An artistic movement characterized by reducing three-dimensional objects down to two dimensions.

Futurism

An artistic movement focused on depicting movement within a static painting.

Cubo-Futurism

An art movement that blends the two styles of Cubism and Futurism.

Suprematism

An art movement focused on non-representational art that emphasizes geometric shapes.

Black Square (1915)

A seminal Suprematist painting by Russian artist Kasimir Malevich described by the artist as "the beginning of true essence."

Krasnyi ugolok

The "red corner" or beautiful corner in traditional Russian homes where holy icons were hung, and where Malevich originally displayed Black Square.

Aesthetic Properties

Descriptive terms applied to a work of art—such as elegant, insipid, dull, imposing, or unsettling—that communicate a value judgment and talk about the value of the work.

Formal Properties

Non-evaluative physical features of a work (such as being black or square) that say nothing about the value of the work.

Relativist View of Beauty

The philosophical position asserting that beauty is subjective and dependent on individual observers.

Realist View of Beauty

The philosophical position asserting that beauty is objective and exists independently of individual perceptions.

Golden Ratio

A mathematical proportion historically associated with Pythagoras as an objective basis for beauty.

Plato's Conception of Beauty

The metaphysical view that beauty exists objectively as an eternal, abstract Form.

Aristotle's Conception of Beauty

The view that beauty is fundamentally bound up in size and order.

St. Bonaventure's Account of Beauty

The theological view that beauty arises from proper proportion, which arises from congruity, which emerges from quantifiable equality, originating ultimately from God.

St. Thomas Aquinas's Triad of Beauty

The criteria identifying beauty as consisting of harmony, perfection, and clarity.

Marsilio Ficino's Account of Beauty

A philosophical view following Aquinas's definition of beauty while positing that beauty is an innate idea.

Francis Hutcheson's Definition of Beauty

The aesthetic formula defining beauty as "uniformity amidst variety."

Leon Battista Alberti's Theory of Judgement

The proposition that judgements of beauty depend upon an innate sense in human beings—a natural ability to recognize beauty and a natural tendency to be pleased by it.

Internal Sense (Hutcheson)

A dedicated mental faculty distinct from external physical senses that allows one to perceive beauty; when acute, it is referred to as "taste."

Sentiment (David Hume)

A subjective internal feeling that cannot be wrong because it makes no reference to anything outside the person experiencing it.

Judgement (David Hume)

A "determination of understanding" directed at something outside the judge, which can consequently be correct or mistaken.

Delicacy of Taste

A refined critical capacity identified by Hume where experience enables one to detect subtle qualities in art and reason checks personal biases.

Free Play of the Imagination

Kant's term for the non-conceptual cognitive state in which an observer engages with an aesthetic object for its own sake without having an external goal or concept in mind.

Disinterestedness (Immanuel Kant)

The state of judging an aesthetic object without caring about or responding to its actual existence, practical utility, monetary value, or social function.

Frank Sibley's Metaphysical Claim

The thesis asserting that aesthetic properties depend on and supervene upon non-aesthetic (formal) properties.

Frank Sibley's Epistemological Claim

The thesis that no description of a work in non-aesthetic terms can guarantee or justify an aesthetic attribution without direct perceptual engagement.

Supervenience

A metaphysical relation wherein upper-level properties (such as aesthetic qualities) are completely determined by lower-level properties (such as non-aesthetic physical features).

Suitable Positioning (Phillip Pettit)

The necessary condition of presenting and observing an artwork properly to discern its elusive aesthetic properties.

Contextualism (Arthur Danto)

The thesis that possessing aesthetic properties is determined by the historical and artworld context in which the work is created and experienced, rather than formal properties alone.

Kendall Walton's Category Theory

The view that an artwork's aesthetic properties are correctly perceived only when judged relative to its correct category (such as medium, movement, or genre).

Standard Features (Walton)

Traits that are typical or expected of works belonging to a specific artistic category.

Variable Features (Walton)

Traits that vary across individual works within the same artistic category without determining membership in that category.

Contra-standard Features (Walton)

Features that run counter to or defy the standard expectations of a specific artistic category.

Instrumental Value of Art

The value an artwork possesses as a means to achieve an external end, such as producing pleasure or serving as an economic investment.

Intrinsic Value of Art

The value an artwork possesses in and of itself, valued as an end rather than merely a generic tool.

Alabama Tenant Farmer Wife (1936)

An iconic photograph taken by Walker Evans while documenting the effects of the Great Depression on rural families.

Appropriation Artist

An artist who deliberately incorporates pre-existing works, objects, or images into new creations, exemplified by Sherrie Levine re-photographing Walker Evans's work.

Untitled (AfterSherrieLevine.com/2.jpg)

A 2001 derivative conceptual artwork by Michael Mandiberg consisting of scanned images of Evans's work distributed online alongside certificates of authenticity.

Ontology

A branch of metaphysics concerned with what exists, as well as the features, nature, and relations of things taken to exist.

Identity Conditions

The ontological criteria that determine what makes an entity the same as one thing while remaining distinct from another.

Natural Kinds

Classes of natural objects (such as gold or lead) whose identities and boundaries are determined by their intrinsic physical and chemical properties.

Background Ontological Conception

Amie Thomasson's term for the pre-existing conceptual framework regarding what kind of entity an artwork is, which is required to refer to and evaluate a specific work.

Physical-Object Hypothesis

Richard Wollheim's starting hypothesis that works of art are fundamentally physical objects (such as Michelangelo's David being identical to the block of carved marble).

Autographic Art

Nelson Goodman's classification for art forms (such as painting or sculpture) where even an exact duplicate does not count as genuine because the work cannot be captured by a notational system and depends on a specific history of production.

Allographic Art

Nelson Goodman's classification for art forms (such as literature or musical composition) that allow for complete notation, enabling any exact instance following that notation to count as genuine.

Notational System

A structured set of characters and rules of use (such as language or sheet music) that provides a strict schematic to verify whether an instance is a genuine copy of a work.

Type/Token Distinction

A metaphysical distinction between an abstract entity (the type) and its individual, concrete physical instantiations (the tokens).

Norm-Kinds (Nicholas Wolterstorff)

An ontological view holding that artworks are types defined by an artist's chosen criteria for correctness, allowing flawed performances or typo-ridden copies to remain genuine tokens of varying correctness.

Indicated Types (Jerrold Levinson)

The contextualist ontology proposing that musical and literary works are abstract structures indicated or picked out by a specific artist in a specific historical context, making context integral to the work's identity.

Joseph Margolis's Ontology of Art

The view that artworks come into existence with their first token, cannot exist without tokens, and cease to exist if all physical tokens are destroyed.

Constructivism (Ontology)

The ontological stance that an artwork is brought into existence solely through the audience's act of interpretation; without interpretation, only words, sounds, or materials exist.

Radical Constructivism

The position within constructivism asserting that each distinct interpretation generates an entirely separate, distinct work of art.

Object-of-Interpretation (Michael Krausz)

The concept that a work of art consists of an evolving class of interpretations, meaning that while the text may be complete, the artwork itself is never fully finished.

Mental Works Theory (R. G. Collingwood)

The idealist ontological theory proposing that true art is defined by expression as an internal mental creation, while physical objects in galleries are merely communicational byproducts.

Action Types (Gregory Currie)

The theory that artworks are not concrete physical objects or pure sound structures, but action types defined by an artist's achievement in discovering that structure.

Heuristic Path

Gregory Currie's term for the specific creative and procedural journey of discovery undertaken by an artist to produce an artwork.

Eternal Types (Julian Dodd)

The Platonist view that musical works are eternal abstract types that have always existed and are discovered rather than created by composers.

Christy Mag Uidhir's Ontology of Art

The ontological view that artworks are concrete physical products of intentional creative actions and cannot be multiply instantiated abstract types.