Philosophy of the Arts (Course Guide)

How Do We Evaluate Art?

Key Terms

• artist's intention, Intentionalism
• beholder arguments ("eye of the beholder")
  • personal subjectivism
  • intuitionism
  • emotivism
  • relativism
  • critical singularism

Key Philosophers

• Monroe Beardsley
• William Kurz Wimsatt

Traditional "Beholder" Theories of Evaluation

Aesthetics is the study of value judgments concerning art and beauty. Aesthetics is the study of value judgments concerning art and beauty. Judgements of aesthetic value rely on our ability to discriminate at a sensory level, but they usually go beyond that. Judgments of beauty are sensory, emotional, and intellectual all at once. Aesthetic claims are a type of value statement. 

In practice, we distinguish between aesthetic judgments - the appreciation of any object, not necessarily an art object - and artistic judgments  - the appreciation or criticism of a work of art. Thus aesthetics  applies to any of the responses we might expect works of art or entertainment to elicit, whether positive or negative.

Consider this aesthetic question of a non-art object - soup.

• Q: Does this soup need more barley? 
  •  Would the addition of make this object which is intentionally created by a human for the purpose of artistic appreciation, something that inspires a greater sense of quality?
  • The answer could be yes or no, but either way the person responding would have a reason for it.
• A: The texture is great, adding more would soak up more liquid and it would be too thick. It would feel funny in your mouth.

Once we can distinguish art from non-art, we need to think about how we judge art.

• What makes one piece of art better than another?
• What makes one thing more beautiful than another? 
• How do we determine what sorts of arguments work and which ones do not?

The temptation is to wave these questions off, to remove them from philosophical discussion by saying that it is all just a matter of taste. It’s subjective, eye of the beholder. Below are a list of beholder theories of evaluation.

• personal subjectivism 
  • claims that the quality of a work of art is a function of each person and determined only by how much that person likes it
• intuitionism
  • claims that the art work an audience is confronted with is merely a medium for the real work - in the mind of the artist (intuition)
  • also associated with expressivism which holds that the work expresses the artist’s vision
• emotivism
  • claims that  moral language or judgments:
    • 1) are neither true or false
    • 2) express our emotions
    • 3) try to influence others to agree with us
• relativism
  • claims that the judgement of beauty is relative to different individuals and/or cultures and that there are no universal criteria of beauty 
• critical singularism
  • claims that language when applied to art serves no evaluational purpose
    • for example, when a critic claims that a work of art is good and gives a reason, the reason isn't enough to evaluate the work as "good," it only functions to call attention to some aspect of the work
      • claims that works of art are unique and it's impossible to say one work is better than another
      • claims that a positive quality cited in one work, may not be valid or may be a defect in another

The Intentional Fallacy 

Wimsatt and Beardsely (1946)

Who determines what a work of art means? Its audience? Art historians or critics? Some people assert that it is the intention of the artist that determines the meaning of the work of art. For literary theorist William Kurtz Wimsatt  and philosopher of art Monroe Beardsley  both Americans, this is a fallacy: the intentional fallacy. Wimsatt and Beardsley point out that people are able to describe, interpret, and evaluate a work of art without any reference to the artist’s intentions and, furthermore, that these intentions are often unknown and unavailable.

There are other reasons not to limit the meaning of a work of art to the artist’s intentions. A work of art takes on a life of its own as it becomes known to the public and incorporated into spaces where it is discussed, compared, analyzed, and catalogued. Additionally, intentions do not always land correctly. An artist might intend to provoke a particular reaction and fail to do so, or the work of art might incite a response that the artist could not possibly anticipate. Audiences’ reactions to the work of art are meaningful and, more importantly, not always a misinterpretation if they differ from the intentions of the artist.

For example, the intentional fallacy proposes that a poem may be produced by an intention but does not make intention a standard for judging it. The only way to gain knowledge of intention not intrinsically evident is to seek external evidence for it via the author's stated intention in letters, etc., which is not reliable. A successful poem differs from a practical message, which is “successful if and only if we correctly infer the intention."  A poem expresses thoughts, but they are the thoughts of a dramatic speaker or “persona,” and not the poet. A poet can improve a poem in revising it, hence in a sense improving on an original intention, which suggests “it follows that his former concrete intention was not his intention” after all.

Intention

How do you criticize the poem "High Windows" with using intention or the various theories of evaluation?