Notes on Stecker, What Is Art? (Chapter 5) - Page-by-Page

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  • Topic: What is art? The book (Robert Stecker, Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art, 2nd ed., ch. 5) surveys attempts to answer “What is art?” by seeking classificatory principles for artworks versus non-artworks, and by exploring whether there can be a real or useful definition (i.e., necessary and sufficient conditions).
  • Distinction between definitions and classifications:
    • Definitions aim for necessary conditions that are jointly sufficient for being an artwork.
    • Classificatory proposals (definitions in a loose sense) are often pursued to group artworks with non-artworks.
  • The chapter will differentiate between several approaches and discuss how they relate to broader questions about art, including the relation between art as a property, a concept, or a word.
  • The chapter uses the term “definitions” as shorthand for proposals aiming to answer what is art, but acknowledges that many promising approaches fail to meet the stricter standard of joint necessity and sufficiency.
  • Why care about what art is? The puzzle of avant-garde art (impressionism to piles of dust, unmade beds) challenges traditional traits of art and expands the category of objects that can be artworks.
  • Found art and other non-traditional forms show that:
    • Some artworks are selected or presented in ways that do not depend solely on the artist’s traditional traits.
    • Some works minimize or remove aesthetic properties, or rely on chance (aleatoric art), or de-emphasize representation.
  • Example: Robert Morris’s Litanies (a metal construction) withdrew all aesthetic qualities via a notarized statement, illustrating how artists sometimes pursue art by stripping away conventional aesthetic traits.
  • The discuter highlights a broad trend in contemporary art: expansion of what counts as art and stripping away of traits historically used to identify art.
  • The chapter previews the methodological debate: the tension between trying to define art by a single essential trait versus acknowledging a broader, more flexible set of criteria.
  • Note: Copyright warning included in the transcript is not part of the substantive discussion.

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  • Historical breadth of art concepts: two issues to consider when thinking about what counts as art across time and cultures.
  • Early root concept: techne (ancient Greek) – skilled activity and its products; used broadly to refer to arts like cooking and crafts, not just visual arts.
  • The eighteenth-century concept of fine art includes five major arts: poetry, painting, sculpture, music, and architecture.
  • Around the same time, decorative art emerges as a related but distinct category.
  • The modern project presumes a broader concept of art that:
    • Does not require all artworks to be representational or to pursue beauty or sublimity.
    • Allows items that serve useful functions to be artworks in a broad sense.
    • Recognizes a more democratic view of the artist (not necessarily a genius isolated from everyday humanity).
    • Distinguishes less sharply between fine and popular/folk art.
  • The classificatory scope spans Western and non-Western artifacts, stretching back to ancient civilizations and plausibly Paleolithic cave paintings.
  • Key question: Is the eighteenth-century concept of fine art flexible enough to cover earlier artifacts and non-Western items, or should we adopt a broader concept that applies across time and cultures?
    • Option 1: Treat eighteenth-century fine art as flexible enough to cover earlier items, but avoid treating it as the definitive final word.
    • Option 2: Embrace a broader, time-transcending concept of art that applies widely to artifacts from the distant past to today.
  • The chapter notes disagreement among theorists who defend broader versions (e.g., Davies 2000; Lopes 2007; Dutton 2000) about whether there is a single overarching concept of art.
  • The author emphasizes that pinning down the current concept of art is a real challenge due to historical breadth and cross-cultural variety.

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  • Historical roots of theories defining art: Plato and Aristotle discuss poetry, painting, music, architecture in terms of representation or mimēsis, not necessarily in terms of modern “art” as a category.
  • Influence of ancient ideas on later definitions:
    • Kant’s influential view: fine art as one of two “aesthetic arts” focused on representation where the immediate pleasure is in the representation, while art as pleasure of reflection arises from contemplating the exercise of imagination and cognitive powers.
    • Kant contrasts “the end of agreeable art” with art that is intrinsically final and connected to communication.
  • Debates in the 19th century shift away from representation as the sole criterion:
    • Romanticism and impressionism emphasize expression and the artist’s experiences.
    • The invention of photography challenges the primacy of representational accuracy in painting.
    • The rise of nonrepresentational music (instrumental) provides a nonrepresentational paradigm.
  • The shift triggers attempts to define art by a single valuable property or function, leading to the rise of three families of theories:
    • Expression theories
    • Formalist theories
    • Aesthetic theories
  • These theories aimed to identify a single property that qualifies something as art; they dominated the middle of the 20th century and continue to be influential, though not as dominant today.
  • The chapter suggests these three families share a common structure: identify a valuable property or function of art and claim it is what makes something art.

Page 4

  • Section: Art as Expression
  • Core contrast: expression vs representation
    • Representation looks outward to depict nature, society, and human forms.
    • Expression looks inward, aiming to convey moods, emotions, or attitudes.
  • Expressive art can be present even when representation is de-emphasized or absent (e.g., much instrumental music; later abstraction in visual art; literature’s stream of consciousness).
  • One focused proposal to define art in terms of expression: Collingwood’s Principles of Art (1938).
    • Core idea: art is primarily an activity—clarifying an emotion by identifying the emotion as precisely as possible.
    • The work of art, for Collingwood, exists primarily in the minds of artist and audience; media enable communication of shared emotion.
  • Problems with Collingwood’s view:
    • Too narrow: it prescribes a specific process; excludes many genuinely valued artworks (e.g., Shakespeare’s plays, which some read as entertainment rather than art under Collingwood’s criteria).
    • Emotion attribution problem: the emotion expressed may not be the artist’s actual emotion; or a work may express emotions not felt by the creator.
  • Contemporary shift: the idea that art expresses emotion has evolved toward the view that art expresses emotion via expressive properties in virtue of perceivable features (e.g., being sad, joyful, anxious).

Page 5

  • Section: Formalism
  • Motivation: if art is no longer primarily about representation, perhaps form itself is what matters.
  • Historical backdrop: high modernism (roughly 1880–1960) elevates emphasis on form in place of content or representational accuracy.
  • Bell and Fry as leading formalists:
    • Clive Bell (1914) popularized “art is what has significant form.”
    • Roger Fry (1956) contributed to formalist thinking.
  • Core idea of formalism: what matters is the form of the work, not its representational content or inner expression.
  • Bell’s approach (significant form): form imbues the possessed object with aesthetic value that yields an aesthetic emotion in the perceiver.
  • Problems with Bell’s view:
    • Difficulty in specifying “form” in a way that covers diverse media (architecture, sculpture, painting, textiles, etc.).
    • For two- and three-dimensional works, form includes more than line and color; in paintings, the form encompasses the arrangement of lines, colors, and the represented space itself.
    • The definition risks circularity: significant form is defined as what produces the aesthetic emotion, and the aesthetic emotion is produced by significant form.
    • The theory risks excluding artworks that lack “significant form” but are widely regarded as art (e.g., Breughel’s busy scenes).
  • Result: formalism, though powerful for certain modernist works, is limited as a universal definition of art.
  • Transition to the alternative: the flexible notion of the aesthetic as a basis for defining art.

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  • Aesthetic approach: defines art via aesthetic experience, properties, or interest.
    • The aesthetic refers to experiences valued for their own sake that result from attention to sensuous features or to imagined worlds.
    • Aesthetic properties are those that confer inherent value via aesthetic experience; aesthetic interest is the interest in such experiences/properties.
  • Aesthetic definitions are a major current approach to defining art ( Beardsley 1983; Lind 1992; and others).
  • Core challenge for aesthetic definitions: K1 and K2 conditions (necessary and sufficient conditions) for being an artwork. Is it necessary that an artwork provide aesthetic experience or be made with the intention to satisfy aesthetic interest?
  • Counterexamples from modern art movements (Dada, conceptual art, performance art) challenge the idea that art must provide aesthetic experience or intend aesthetic satisfaction.
  • Defense strategies for aesthetic definitions:
    • Some defenders (Beardsley 1983) attempt to deny that counterexamples are artworks; this approach becomes less tenable as counterexamples gain acceptance.
    • A more common tactic: acknowledge that even “counterexample” objects (e.g., Duchamp’s ready-mades) possess aesthetic properties at some level, and they express a certain artistic posture or stance.
  • The ready-mades illustrate that art can be about ideas (attitude, critique) as well as aesthetic experience.
  • The key question remains: can aesthetic definitions provide a sufficient condition for being an artwork? Any object has potential for aesthetic interest, so the challenge is to isolate a condition specifically tied to art.

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  • Further discussion of aesthetic definitions and their limitations:
    • Beardsley’s position: an artwork is produced with the intention of satisfying aesthetic interest; this emphasizes intention but excludes some objects that are widely considered artworks.
    • Lind’s view: an artwork is any creative arrangement of media whose principal function is to communicate a significant aesthetic object; this emphasizes the communicative and aesthetic aspects but remains problematic in delimiting scope.
  • The argument for aesthetic definitions remains contested: while aesthetics can ground many artworks, there are counterexamples where art does not clearly rely on aesthetic interest, intention, or explicit communication of a single aesthetic object.
  • The chapter notes that despite the appeal of aesthetic definitions, they do not solve all cases and do not exhaustively cover the domain of art.

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  • Three strategies used by aesthetic defenders to address pervasive aesthetics beyond art:
    1) Redefine art as any artifact with aesthetic interest (e.g., Zangwill 2000). Problem: expands the category too far, making “art” a stipulation about aesthetics of any object, not a distinctive practice.
    2) Require a “significant” aesthetic interest to distinguish art from mere aesthetics, but this can exclude many modern artworks whose value lies in other concerns (conceptual, political, etc.).
    3) Claim that aesthetic experience is uniquely or primarily provided by art. This requires identifying a common experience shared by all artworks, which is difficult or impossible to pin down without reference to art itself.
  • Antiessentialism overview: since the 1950s, the dominant trend has been to reject simple functionalist definitions and to embrace open-textured or cluster/family resemblance approaches to art.
  • Core ideas:
    • Weitz and Ziff argue that art is open-textured; criteria for applying art may shift with new art movements.
    • The “family resemblance” view suggests art is defined by networks of similarities rather than a single essence.
    • Walton (1977) and Davies (1991) propose historical and institutional angles to define art via proto-systems, evolving systems, or functional history.
  • The open-textured, cluster, or family resemblance approaches face the challenge of being informative enough to distinguish artworks from similar items without collapsing into mere stipulation.

Page 9

  • Maurice Mandelbaum’s critique of simple family resemblance: family resemblance is not simply a list of shared features; resemblance must be grounded in non-obvious relations like ancestry or historical ties.
  • Danto and Dickie are central figures in the institutional/historical turn:
    • Danto emphasizes the historical and interpretive dimensions of art; art and non-art can be perceptually indistinguishable (e.g., Warhol’s Brillo Boxes).
    • Art always exists within an art-historical context and requires interpretation; nothing is art without an interpretation; interpretation conveys a point of view about its subject.
    • Carroll (1993) presents a widely cited definition: X is a work of art iff (a) X has a subject; (b) X projects an attitude or point of view about that subject; (c) by means of a rhetorical ellipsis (often metaphorical); (d) which ellipsis requires audience participation to fill in what is missing (interpretation); (e) and both the work and the interpretation require an art-historical context.
  • Dickie’s institutional approach offers two related, but distinct, definitions:
    • First definition (1974): Something is a work of art iff (1) it is an artifact, and (2) a set of aspects of it has had conferred upon it the status of candidate for appreciation by some person or persons acting on behalf of the art world.
    • Second, leanest possible description of the framework:
      1) An artist is a person who participates with understanding in making a work of art.
      2) A work of art is an artifact created to be presented to an art-world public.
      3) A public is a set of persons who can understand the object presented to them.
      4) The art world is the totality of all art-world systems.
      5) An art-world system is a framework for presenting a work to an art-world public.
  • Critique of Dickie:
    • Definitions are circular and incomplete because they point to the art world without clearly marking how it is distinct from other status-conferring systems.
    • The status conferral is often mediated by authors and contexts beyond the art world; questions about circularity remain.
    • Dickie acknowledges circularity but defends it as unavoidable; critics find this unsatisfactory for a full definition.

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  • Continuation on definitions and critique:
    • The discussion emphasizes circularity, informativeness, and completeness as core problems with Dickie’s approach.
    • The chapter notes the broader issue that many artifact creation or presentation systems could confer a similar type of status (e.g., tourism brochures or historical designations), making it difficult to isolate a distinctive “art world” feature.
  • Davies and Levinson are introduced as responses to Dickie’s institutional view:
    • Davies: historical and functional considerations; emphasizes the role of art-world institutions and the authority of those in those roles; earliest art forms are prototypes around which institutions grew.
    • Levinson: historical-intentional approach; art status is tied to intentions regarding regard for earlier works and the artist’s intent, with discussion of intrinsic vs relational intention types.
  • The central tension remains: how to ground art status in a way that surpasses mere circular reference to a social institution while covering the variety of works across time and cultures.

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  • Walton, Davies, Levinson, Carney, Carroll contribute to the historical/institutional tradition:
    • Walton: art world systems develop historically from proto-systems; the origin of proto-systems and their relation to art status remains debated.
    • Davies (1991, 1997, 2000): rejects simple definitions; roots early art in functional considerations but argues that institutional contexts evolve beyond initial aesthetic function; early prototypes were functional, but art institutions eventually outgrew strict aesthetic functions.
    • Levinson (1979, 1989, 1993): redefines art via intention and historical relations; two types of intention relevant to art: intrinsic (intentions about general features found in earlier artworks) and relational (intentions about a specific artwork or tradition).
    • Carney (1991, 1994): offers a “styles”/historical approach; emphasizes how historical styles relate to art categorization.
    • Carroll (1993, 1994): argues for a historical approach to identifying art; emphasizes subject, attitude, and interpretation; links the work to an art-historical context.
  • Levinson’s core claim: first art is the ultimate causal source and intentional reference for later artworks; later works are art in virtue of their relation to earlier works.
  • Duchamp and the forger example serve as test cases for these theories (e.g., a forger may intend a work in ways that align with art-historical intentions but may not create an actual artwork).

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  • The discussion differentiates among several historical approaches:
    • Levinson’s historical-intentional account emphasizes intention and relational ties across a chain of artworks, with a focus on first art as the root of later art.
    • Davies (functional, historicized) emphasizes the evolution of art’s functions; early prototypes may have had aesthetic value central to their function, but as institutions evolved, function may no longer be the sole determinant of art status.
    • A central theme across these views is that art status is grounded in relations—whether to previous artworks (historical lineage) or to the art world system (institutions).
  • Historical functionalism (Stecker's term) attempts to blend historical development with functional criteria: art at time t has a finite set of forms and functions, and a work is an artwork at time t if either:
    • (a) it is in a central art form at t and created to fulfill the art’s function at t, or
    • (b) it is an artifact that achieves excellence in fulfilling such a function.
  • Problems for historical functionalism:
    • Defining central art forms and distinguishing genuine versus accidental or extrinsic functions.
    • Handling cases where objects fulfill art-like functions (e.g., a functional vessel) but are not considered artworks.
    • The pill example: a pill that induces a genuine aesthetic experience would not itself count as artwork; it is an aid to experiencing art, not art itself.

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  • Further elaboration of historical functionalism:
  • What makes something a genuine art function?
    • Three proposed routes:
      1) Art functions are tied to the experience of the work; their value is realized when the object is encountered and engaged with.
      2) Common knowledge about art practices helps identify typical functions (e.g., representation, expression, form discovery).
      3) Historical connections between the purported art function and recognized functions help justify its status as art.
  • Central art forms at a given time determine how items are treated within institutions and public presentations.
  • Duchamp’s ready-mades illustrate a challenge: they may fit a broad functional framework but do not easily fit as part of a central, traditional art form; modern art continually introduces new forms while often maintaining connections to central forms (e.g., papier colle from painting, ready-mades from sculpture, happenings from drama).
  • Proposed emendation: allow arts forms to be recognized through their derivation from central forms, not exclusively by being part of a pre-existing central form.
  • The chapter acknowledges a continuing debate between central-formic and derivative forms and notes that new forms often emerge in the twentieth century.

Page 14

  • Consensus and skepticism are discussed: the contemporary landscape shows surprising common ground across major contemporary theories (institutional, intentional, functional) despite their different starting points.
  • The shared features among contemporary approaches include:
    • A commitment to historical context (art must be understood in relation to its historical development, criticism, and reception).
    • A rejection of simple, single-condition definitions of art (antiessentialism).
    • A tendency toward disjunctive definitions: art is characterized by a set of sufficient conditions that may vary across candidates, rather than one necessary-and-sufficient condition.
  • These approaches converge toward a view that art’s essence cannot be captured by a single essential trait; instead, art is best understood through a network of relations, historical contexts, and evolving functions.
  • The chapter notes a growing consensus about the general shape of art definitions but also acknowledges persistent disagreements and the lack of a single universal essence.
  • The author also emphasizes that skepticism toward any definitive essence should not prevent productive analysis of how the concept of art operates in practice.

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  • Summary of the three major families of contemporary definitions:
    • Relational, institutional, and historical approaches (e.g., Danto, Dickie, Davies, Levinson, Carney, Carroll) share a move away from simple functionalism toward definitions that hinge on historical context, function, and social-linguistic features of the art-world.
    • All emphasize that art must be understood in a way that is historically situated and that there is no single essence of art.
    • They converge on the idea of a disjunctive or institutional/historical framework rather than a straightforward necessary-and-sufficient condition.
  • Skepticism about a single essence remains, but the contemporary consensus is a disjunctive set of criteria that can jointly classify artworks without claiming a single, necessary essence.
  • The chapter notes two excluded positions:
    • Simple functionalist definitions (in terms of one core property) – these fail to cover all artworks and fail to accommodate counterexamples.
    • Extreme skepticism that denies any definition can capture art at all – the author argues for a middle ground that emphasizes descriptive adequacy and flexibility.

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  • Skepticism about a single essence continues, with a discussion of prototype theory and the fragmentation of concepts.
  • Prototype theory concerns whether concepts (like art) are best understood as prototypes plus extensions rather than strict definitions:
    • A prototype is a set of statistically salient features; extensions include non-prototypical members.
    • Critics argue prototypes alone cannot define a concept like art, because they do not capture all members nor provide a fit-for-purpose extension rule.
    • Subtly, even if some aspects of art are prototype-driven, you still need a method to extend beyond prototypes to cover the full domain of artworks.
  • The possibility that art is a fragmented concept is raised by Alan Goldman, who argues that art is relative to circles within the art world (artists, critics, and appreciators) and thus lacks a single uniform concept.
  • The critique of Goldman’s position notes:
    • The claim rests on impressions rather than systematic analysis.
    • Judgments about art status can be evaluative (praising or criticizing a work) rather than strictly classificatory.
  • The overall takeaway: while concept fragmentation is plausible in some domains, the evidence for a complete, universal fragmentation of art concepts is not decisive. There can be multiple adequate conceptions coexisting with a core overlap.

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  • The no-single-concept view (e.g., Goldman) suggests art is relative to communities or circles, rather than a single, shared concept.
  • Several objections to the no-single-concept view:
    • Judgments about whether something is art are often evaluative, not strictly classificatory, and can vary across contexts for reasons other than differences in art concepts.
    • A lack of unanimous agreement among experts does not automatically imply the absence of a workable concept of art.
    • Even if conceptions vary, they can still share a common core of ideas, allowing for coherent cross-context judgments and important generalizations.
  • The author argues that while there may be vagueness in the concept of art, this does not imply deep fragmentation; rather, multiple adequate conceptions may exist, all sharing a core framework.

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  • The overall assessment of the debate:
    • There is a degree of vagueness in the concept of art, but not necessarily deep fragmentation.
    • The existence of multiple adequate conceptions is plausible, but there remains a core set of ideas that can be common across conceptions.
    • The strategy for advancing the project of defining art is to acknowledge vagueness, defend the usefulness of several conceptions, and test them against desiderata for adequacy (e.g., coverage, usefulness, explanatory power, resilience to counterexamples).
  • The author suggests a constructive program: clarify our individual conceptions of art, evaluate them against desiderata for adequacy, and identify common ground that can extend mutual understanding.

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  • Questions for reflection and further reading:
  • Q1: Consider a list of items (painting, poetry, architecture, movies, rap music, furniture, jewelry, food, cigars). Which are art forms? Which contain artworks within their category? Do answers differ, and why?
  • Q2: Which statement is more plausible? (a) Since the eighteenth century, art-making began; (b) Art has existed as long as humanity; can both be true?
  • Q3: After reading, is there a good answer to what is art? Would the answer be a definition?
  • A set of suggested readings follows, including Anderson 2000; Beardsley 1983; Bell 1914; Carney 1991, 1994; Carroll 1993, 1994, 2000; Collingwood 1938; Danto 1964, 1981; Davies 1991, 1997, 2000; Dickie 1974, 1984; Gaut 2000; Levinson 1979, 1989, 1993; Mandelbaum 1965; Stecker 1986, 1997; Walton 1977; Weitz 1956.
  • The section reinforces that definitions of art are open-ended and that a consensus is emerging around disjunctive, historically-informed accounts rather than strict essentialist definitions.

Page 20

  • Further Reading (selected):
  • Anderson, James (2000). Aesthetic Concepts of Art. In Theories of Art Today, ed. Noel Carroll. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 65–92. Argues for aesthetic definitions of art.
  • Beardsley, Monroe (1983). An Aesthetic Definition of Art. In What Is Art, ed. Hugh Curtler. New York: Haven Publications, 15–29.
  • Bell, Clive (1914). Art. London: Chatto and Windus. Classic defense of formalism.
  • Carney, James (1991, 1994). “The Style Theory of Art” and “Defining Art Externally.”
  • Carroll, Noel (1993, 1994, 2000). Essays defending historical and institutional approaches; Theories of Art Today (ed.).
  • Collingwood, R. G. (1938). Principles of Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Classic expression-theory text.
  • Danto, Arthur (1964, 1981). “The Artworld” and The Transfiguration of the Commonplace. Foundational discussions of art’s historical and interpretive aspects.
  • Davies, Stephen (1991, 1997, 2000). Definitions of Art; institutional and functional historicism.
  • Dickie, George (1974, 1984). Art and the Aesthetic; The Art Circle. Institutional analyses of art.
  • Gaut, Berys (2000). “‘Art’ as a Cluster Concept.” In Theories of Art Today.
  • Levinson, Jerrold (1979, 1989, 1993, 1997). Defining Art Historically; first art; intentional relations; historical function ideas.
  • Mandelbaum, Maurice (1965). “Family Resemblances and Generalization Concerning the Arts.”
  • Stecker, Robert (1986, 1997). The End of an Institutional Definition of Art; Artworks: Definition, Meaning, Value.
  • Walton, Kendall (1977). “Review of Art and the Aesthetic.”
  • Weitz, Morris (1956). The Role of Theory in Aesthetics.
  • The readings collectively present a landscape in which contemporary definitions of art emphasize historical context, social institutions, functions, and open-ended criteria, rather than a single, all-encompassing essence.