Noël Carroll
Philosophy of Art: A contemporary introduction
(1999)
[2]
Introduction
What is philosophy?
The word "philosophy" has many different meanings. ... Herein, "philosophy" will generally refer to a certain academic discipline.
... there are many different schools of philosophy, ... [which] often have different aims and emphases. The type of philosophy that we will we will be exploring in this book is often called analytic philosophy. ...
... it is sometimes called "Anglo-American" philosophy, ... a somewhat misleading label ... it is not ... the only form of academic philosophy in the English-speaking world. ...
... "What exactly does this school of philosophy analyse?" Simplifying drastically, we might say that
what analytic philosophy analyses
[3]
are concepts.
That is why it is sometimes also called
conceptual analysis.
...
Concepts, of course, are fundamental to human life.
Concepts organize our practices.
The concept of a person, for example, ... The concept of a number ... the concept of knowledge ...
Without such concepts, the activities in question would not exist.
Ok,
so
politics, morality,number,
indeed
knowledge
itself,
these
practices
(a.k.a.
activities)
simply
would not exist
without the requisite
concepts.
How about without the words?
Must we possess the word
in order to possess the concept?
...
A rough and ready way to characterize analytic philosophy is to say that it is concerned with the analysis of
concepts that are key to human practices and activities,
including not only
those of enquiry,
like science, but, as well, of
pragmatic endeavors,
such as governance.
So, both
the
practice
of
enquiry
and its more
pragmatic
cousins
can be counted on
to generate
concepts,
but
not
to generate
analysis
of those concepts.
What if the "practice"
just is
the "analysis"?
: ^ [
Presumably if pre-analytic concepts not only organize our practices but in fact are what allow practices to exist at all, then those concepts cannot be utterly incoherent; if they were then any practice truly dependent on them for its mere existence wouldn't work; presumably it would just collapse, or indeed would not exist (or would not "work") in the first place.
Indeed, there's a case to be made that our practices mostly do not really work, not unless and until (to provisionally go along with the above discussion) their "concepts" have been sufficiently "analysed."
Of course I'm thinking here, as always, of Becker:
" . . . man seems to have been permitted by natural bounty to live largely in a world of playful fantasy . . . "
(The Birth and Death of Meaning, p. 128)
Etc., etc.
That being as it is, to borrow and repurpose an infamous piece of press conference candor from Mike Tomlin: these practices, in all their presumed-and-presumable incoherence, "have not killed us." So perhaps we often just choose the wrong words with which to denote concepts, but we do not (not quite) as often actually lapse into deadly incoherence. Or perhaps this is exactly what we do most of the time, and deaths are the empirical proof of the fact.
In either/any case, this (death(s)!) is the standard I would prefer we adopt in such matters, most particularly in pragmatic endeavors, such as governance, where there is no excuse remaining for neglecting to adopt it.
And, uh . . . Analysis can miscarry too! And it can be inconclusive or, indeed, irresolvable qua analysis. So eventually, if we really believe in an analysis, we have to try it. (Taleb: "skin in the game.")
So . . . practice is the "culminating science" (A. Bloom). Philosophy (this kind at least) really is not. (And perhaps "analysis" really is not what Bloom had in mind with this remark. TBC . . . )
...
... Philosophy generally seems to be the philosophy of something. But what sort of something?
That something is a practice, like law or religion. ...
Philosophy begins when the people involved in the relevant practices become self-conscious—when they begin to wonder about just what it is that they are doing or just what they are really talking about.
That is,
each one of these practices organizes its field of operation in terms of certain concepts,
which are applied according to certain criteria.
In addition,
each of these practices employs certain recurrent modes of reasoning—
certain ways of connecting concepts which modes are appropriate to the point of achieving the goals of the practice in question.
These concepts and modes of reasoning are what make the practice possible—
they are what, so to speak, constitutes the practice.
And it is such concepts and modes of reasoning that analytic philosophy analyses.
[4]
To be more concrete, consider the case of the law. ...
... Is a law just what some duly appointed assembly decides ... ? Or is a law ... such that it must follow from or at least be consistent with deep principles— ... What arguments can be brought forward on behalf of these different options?
Such questions ... are not idle. ... to allege that a draft law—or, for that matter any law—is illegal—i.e., is against the law—brings us to the very brink of paradox. ...
In addressing [such] questions ... analytic philosophers, among other things, attempt to
identify the criteria that we use to categorize things one way rather than another.
Sometimes this is dismissed as merely
playing with words.
However, when one considers
how very much can ride on questions of categorization,
it seems that analytic philosophers are generally less naive than those who disparage them as "mere logic choppers."
I do think that a real question can be raised about the necessity of concepts to practices.
Concepts seem to have more to do with justifying practices, whether before or after the fact, than they have to do with making practices possible. Recall Becker above. Cynical as it is say it quite so baldly, practices have a way of "working" if we decide that we really want (read: need) them to "work." Material reality does not actually test us nearly as often or as severely as it might; otherwise, if the actual, post-analytic+analytic coherence of our concepts is any true indicator, indeed we'd all be dead.
The necessity for explicit conceptual analysis is more than an artifact of self-consciousness: rather, both the need for analysis and the "self-consciousness" itself are artifacts of (1) pluralism, and (2) record-keeping, and of myriad epiphenomena of these two (at least) "practical" factors. This is all the result, in other words, of invidious comparison, which is usually adequate to reveal the empirical shortcomings of a "practice," though it is no "analysis" unto itself, not even by the relaxed practical definition I suggest above.
Becker:
"what man really fears is not so much extinction, but extinction with insignifcance.
(Escape From Evil, p. 4)
We might add by way of making the implicit explicit: Incoherence is insignificance. Certainly this is so for contemporary intellectuals, doubly so after the fact of "analysis," for which all of us must be responsible no matter how we feel about it.
But again: the concept is not the word. Every fully-developed adult possesses the concept of "incoherence" as it is used here. Becker again has the evidence:
"Cultural illusion is a necessary ideology of self-justification, a heroic dimension that is life itself to the symbolic animal. To lose the security of heroic cultural illusion is to die—that is what "deculturation" of primitives means and what it does."
(The Denial of Death, p. 189)
Invidious comparison may actually be the very most effective way of revealing practical flaws: it strikes at the very heart of what Becker (somewhat awkwardly) labels the "heroic cultural illusion" of culture. And of course it requires nothing so involved or elusive as "analysis," nor does it itself amount to an "analysis." And today even this does insufficient justice to how easily the "practice" of invidious comparison comes to us: under present conditions it is very nearly in the air we breathe. (A truly coherent life "practice" and a truly life-giving "cultural illusion" certainly would not allow that to happen!)
In any event: To ask, simply, whether a practice is or is not serving its ostensible purpose necessarily entails no "analysis" per se. To ask this question and to answer it, this is not even philosophy.
" . . . Make the axe handle longer so that we can reach the highest branches. . . . "
" . . . Ugh lied about the length of his axe, so he's probably lying about its sharpness too. . . . "
It doesn't get any easier than that!
Throughout much of the twentieth century, analytic philosophy has increasingly become
a "second order" form of enquiry.
It is
the philosophy of this or that—
the philosophy of physics,
or of economics,
or of art.
Analytic philosophers take as their domain significant forms of human practice, but
unlike the social scientist, the analytic philosopher does not look for recurring patterns of social behavior within said practices.
Instead, the analytic philosopher tries to to clarify the concepts that make activities within the relevant domains possible. Analytic philosophers, in other words, do not attempt to ascertain answers to empirical questions ...
Undoubtedly,
learning how many people obey the law
is crucial for designing social policy. But
discovering what a law is, or attempting to do so,
is an important project too, since if we ignore this question, we will be left wondering whether our practice is intelligible—whether it hangs together, and has any rhyme or reason.
Who wonders about the intelligibility of their own practices? No one, not without some rather severe prompting.
"Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth."
Our "plan" is that our practice is intelligible. We're counting on it. A tap on the shoulder won't dissuade us; we have to get "punched in the mouth" before we really start to wonder.
Why must we "analyse" our own "concepts"? Who threw the punch? Our practices would not collapse without being analysed. That is absurd. We analyze because our "heroic cultural illusions" are now under constant attack from a hundred different directions. In other words, when you live in a pluralistic society (if you do), you simply must analyze your concepts. Nowadays this is mere scheduled maintenance performed on your late-model "cultural illusion."
To whom are our practices truly unintelligible? Certainly not to us ourselves, but perhaps to others who practice differently; and if we, along with these others, are nonetheless mutually integrated into the same elemental (sub-"practical") structures of life, then eventually someone is going to demand that we produce some good reasons for the disjuncture.
Wouldn't you want to hear at least one good reason before signing off on a ritual sacrifice, or even on a certain kind of artwork?
...
[5]
... This is not the only form of philosophy imaginable, but it is a
significant form.
LOL!!
...
... even at this juncture, the idea of clarifying concepts should not be utterly alien to you, since for the last few pages, we have been analysing a concept—namely, the concept of analytic philosophy.
Cute!
...
The analytic philosophy of art
... The purpose of the analytic philosophy of art is to explore
the concepts that make creating and thinking about art possible.
... : the very concept of art itself, ... representation, expression, artistic form, and aesthetics.
Hmm. None of these seem truly necessary for creating art.
They aren't necessary for thinking about art either, but certainly these are concepts that some people who think about art have thought about.
These concepts will be discussed at some length in this book.
; - ]
...
... We have suggested how central the concept of the law is to the practice of jurisprudence. Similarly, the concept of art is fundamental to our artistic practices. Without some sense of
how to classify certain objects and performances
as artworks, the Museum of Modern Art wouldn't know
what to collect,
the National Endowment for the Arts wouldn't know
to whom to give money,
nor would the United States government know
which institutions deserve tax relief
for the preservation
[6]
of our artistic past.
Ok, Boomer!
These latter also are not necessary to the creating of or thinking about art. Try again.
Better yet, these are the canonical examples supporting the larger argument that artists and audiences can quite well do without the sorts of concepts that institutions require. The "practices" of institutions are best evidence yet that institutions themselves have created the concepts.
The mere "practices" of art-making and art-consumption don't even create such concepts, let alone "analyse" them in any way other than the way of practice itself. It's unclear how any practice could depend upon concepts that aren't generated (or not reliably generated) in and by the general run of things.
(Famously, the "practices" of many great artists often enough do not generate very many words to go with any concepts implicated by their practices. If this seems not to be the case anymore, well . . . see my comments to p. 4 above.)
Nor even, without some command of the concept of art, would economists know how to evaluate empirical claims like "Art is a significant component of the financial well-being of New York City."
Perhaps I, in my pre-analytic state vis-a-vis financial well-being, only think I know how to evaluate this particular empirical claim . . . but if this is the sort of "claim" that analysis would underwrite, then I say: hold the analysis, please.
But far more important than the preceding
"official" uses
of the concept of art is the role the concept plays in
our personal, ongning commerce with artworks,
since how we respond to an object—interpretively, appreciatively, emotively, and evaluatively—depends decisively upon
whether or not we categorize it as an artwork.
Suppose we come across a living, breathing couple seated at opposite sides of a wooden table, staring intently at each other. Ordinarily we might pay no attention to them at all, ... But if we categorise the situation as an artwork—as the performance piece Night Crossing by Marina Abramovic and Ulay—our response will be altogether different.
We will
shamelessly scrutinize
the scene carefully,
attempt to
interpret
it,
...
try to
situate
it
in the history of art,
...
We will
contemplate
what it expresses and what feelings it arouses in us,
and may
evaluate
it—
possibly
commending
it for drawing our attention to neglected realms of experience,
...
Or maybe we will
criticize
it
for being boring or hackneyed.
But in any event, it is clear that
once we
categorize
the situation as an artwork, our
response
will differ radically
from the way in which we regard comparable seated couples
in
"real"
life.
...
we do not think of
[surgical procedures]
as alternatives to a night at the opera.
But when such procedures are incorporated in a performance piece
...
, we see it in a different light.
We
note
the interesting color arrangement
of the surgeons uniforms and we
ask
about the meaning
of Orlan's self-elected decision to go under the knife—
react
to the event completely differently
from how we would,
attempt to interpret
the
meaning
of your typical gall bladder operation
is out of place,
attempt to interpret
an artwork
is usually appropriate.
Yet interpretation
here
hinges
on whether or not we
classify
the item in question as an artwork
—
on whether we
correctly apply
the
concept of art
to it.
Thus, clarifying our concept of art is not merely a matter of dry, academic book-keeping.
...
[7]
...
In order to play the game, we need a handle on the concept of art.
And it is the task of the analytic philosophy of art to make sure that that handle is a sturdy one
...
This is slightly perverse.
There was analytic philosophy
In any case,
if you don't need analytic philosophy to
recognize
your typical gall bladder operation
why should you need it in order to
categorize
any other
situation?
Do we
typically
have to analyze
situations
Or do we only have to do this in
art
but not in
life?
...
Analysing concepts
...
How do you go about analysing concepts?
...
...
there is substantial debate about what concepts are and how to analyse them.
However, there is one very standard approach
...
We can call this standard approach the
method of necessary and sufficient conditions.
It proceeds by
breaking concepts down into their necessary and sufficient conditions for application.
Although this method is controversial, we shall presume its practicability for most of this text, if only because
it is a powerful tool for organizing and guiding research,
even if ultimately
it rests on certain questionable assumptions.
The standard approach takes
concepts
to be
categories.
classifying it
as a member of the relevant category.
...
Analysing a concept is a matter of breaking it down into its component parts, where
the component parts
are
its conditions for application.
Think of the concept bachelor.
...
We can break down or analyse the concept of bachelor into two component parts—manhood and unmarriedness.
...
[8]
...
Individually, each of these conditions is necessary for anything to count as a bachelor, and together (conjointly) they are sufficient (just enough) to categorize a candidate as a bachelor.
...
...
you want to know
(1) the feature or features of the kind in question that every proper member of the category possesses;
For example, if you want to know what a bachelor is—
how to apply the concept bachelor—
...
That is, we
had we happened upon an ordinary gall-bladder operation.
The
but the
before there were
performance pieces.
just to know what kind of situations they are?
and
(2) you want to know what feature or features differentiate members of the relevant kind or category from members of other kinds.
then you want to know
what all bachelors have in common
and also
what sets bachelors apart
...
... you want know what feature or features are necessarily possessed by all the proper members of the category, such that absence of the feature in question precludes membership in the category ...
...
"x is a necessary condition for y"
means that
something can be a y
only if
it is an x.
[e.g.]
Someone can be a princess
only if she is a woman.
We cannot, however, say that if y is a woman, then she is a princess. ... Womanhood is not a sufficient condition for princesshood; ... A likely candidate is that y be of royal lineage, ...
[9]
...
...
The locution "if and only if" signals that this analysis is proposing necessary conditions (the "only if" conditions) and sufficient conditions (the "if" conditions) for princesshood. ...
This kind of analysis is often called a
real
or an
essential
definition. ... essential ... because it attempts to get at the essential features of the concept—its necessary and sufficient conditions of application. ... real ... because unlike so many dictionary definitions it does not simply track
how people commonly use the concept,
but allegedly discovers
the real conditions of application
of the concept.
...
... this approach to the way in which we go about applying concepts is controversial ... alternative views will be explored in the last chapter of this book.
Yet until the last chapter, we will be employing this approach to analysing concepts pretty much without worrying about its adequacy. This might strike you as strange and even irresponsible, if the approach is really disputed.
So far my misgivings are about the proposed applications of the approach. Why not stare into the abyss from time to time? Why not be willing to examine one's own "practices"? But you were alive and kicking before you ever thought to do that, or before someone else told you that you had better cop a look or else risk living an "incoherent" life.
But let me make two remarks on behalf of this procedure.
[10]
One objection
to the essential definition approach is that
many of our concepts are applied without resort to necessary and sufficient conditions.
Arguably, many of our concepts do not have necessary and/or suffficient conditions of application. There is no reason to
presume
that the concepts that we explore by means of this method will turn out
to be analysable
in terms of necessary and/or sufficient conditions.
That is a fair observation.
However, since
we won't know know whether a given concept is congenial to this mode of analysis until we've tried it,
we have no grounds for dismissing this approach from the get-go.
Second, even if the method of definition does not turn out to be the best way of understanding how to go about applying concepts, the method still has
immense heuristic value.
By "heuristic value,"
we mean that
the method of definition,
even when it fails,
can
assist us in making discoveries.
The method
alerts us systematically
to
the richness and complexity
of the phenomenon that confronts us.
Yes.
...
... [e.g.] there is a great deal of self expressive behavior in everyday life—like the tantrums of a hungry infant—that are not artworks, ... But ... we not only learn that the self-expression theory is false, but that subsequent theorizing must be
alert to the distinction
between self expression that is art versus that which is not.
The method of definition, then, is
conducive to an awareness of "joints" in the data
that any future attempts at dissection must respect.
...
[11]
Some peculiarities of philosophical research
... if your background is in the empirical sciences. ... you might presume that [analytic philosophy as presented above] is some kind of social science. ...
[But]
Philosophy is not social science.
...
Consider the empirical claim: there is more art in Paris than there is in Spokane. The sociologist assesses this claim by counting ... But ... this ... rests on an assumption—namely that the sociologist
knows how to apply the concept
of art. ... But determining the correct application of our classificatory categories ... is not an empirical question.
... It involves clarifying the classificatory categories that we will use in organizing empirical observations, ... reflecting upon how we apply the concept of art, testing it intellectually against what we believe to be established applications of the concept, ...
... we cannot discover the concept of art by
[12]
polling. ... Because many people have false beliefs shout what is art. ... A social scientist relying on a poll ... would miscount all the artworks in Paris in 1930; ...
The philosopher is not interested in establishing
what most people believe is art,
though this is a worthwhile thing to know, ... the philosopher wants know how to apply the concept of art
correctly or justifiably.
...
...
Another way to suggest the difference ... the philosopher is preoccupied with
what
must
be the case,
whereas the social scientist is more concerned with
what
probably
is the case
Umm . . . BURN??
🔥🔥🔥
The philosopher
tries
to identify
...
a feature of a work that it must
necessarily
possess in order to count as artwork.
A social scientist
is happy
to discover what most people in a given society are
likely
to consider art.
...
...
armchair speculation is not what is encouraged in the empirical sciences;
...
This is why students sometimes find analytic philosophy so exasperating.
...
[13]
...
But,
...
not all such questions can be resolved empirically;
...
...
...
...
The structure of this book
...
[14]
...
...
in each of these chapters it is also noted
...
...
The problem with with commendatory theories of art
Here and henceforth Our Man seems maniacally intent upon avoiding
Weitz's
term,
"honorific",
which is . . . just better than
commendatory
in every imaginable way.
i.e. Honorific definitions are,
"proposed redefinitions in terms of some
chosen
conditions for applying the concept of art, and not true or false reports on the essential properties of art"
(Weitz, p. 146)
Can we just follow the concise Weitz and call them
"honorific definitions"
?
(This isn't . . . an IP issue, is it? Because it would be quite the tragedy-and-farce for an
analytic philosopher
in the vein sketched above to find that they truly
own
their work, and that they may build on the work of others but they definitely do not
own
it.)
(Thanks to the wonders of 1990s technology, I can confirm, here in 2025, that the word
"honorific"
indeed does not appear in the book. Hmm . . . )
[the problem]
is that
[honorific definitions]
, in effect, only count as artworks those that are good—
...
[but]
there is such a thing as bad art—
...
...
By the fifth chapter of the book, we will have encountered so many failed definitions of art that it will be time to ask whether there might be some deep philosophical problem with attempting to analyse the concept of art in terms of sets of necessary and/or sufficient conditions.
...
[15]
...
...
...
In Part III of Chapter 5, historical narration is advanced as the primary way in which we sort artworks from other things.
This is neither a matter of definitions nor of what the Neo-Wittgensteinians call family resemblances. In fact, this solution to the unavoidable philosophical question of the way in which we identify artworks is
a pet idea of the present author.
...
The aims of this book
...
A great many of the theories reviewed in this book are what might be called canonical.
They are theories that anyone who cares for art should know about.
...
...
familiarity with these theories and the criticisms they have attracted is part of the indispensable operating knowledge that one needs in order to follow and join in contemporary
[16]
discussions in the philosophy of art.
...
...
though a great deal of the technique displayed in this book is critical, the aim of the book is to enable you to construct your own approaches
...
There is still a great deal of
room for improvement
in the philosophy of art, and inevitably it is up to your generation
...
Of all of these stated
aims,
I'd say that the book
really
makes good on this one. Anyone with half a brain will come away agreeing that there is ample
room for improvement.
...
Many of the skills that this book exercises involve
ways of showing that theories and viewpoints mistaken.
most of the time.
that
even if the concepts people have used to define all and only art
...
fail to supply necessary and sufficient conditions for all and only art,
these concepts—
...
are still applicable to many works of art,
and,
therefore,
still warrant philosophical analysis
...
Thus, in Part II of each of the first four chapters, analyses of representation, expression, form and the notion of aesthetics are explored.
... [But] it is through criticism that knowledge and understanding are advanced. ... Taking note of what one theory has overlooked or neglected makes you aware of what should not be overlooked or neglected the next time around. ...
...
[17]
...
... Philosophical theories often
evolve dialectically.
Each step forward involves the rejection of parts of previous philosophies and the assimilation of other parts. In either case,
criticism is the engine
that drives philosophical evolution and should not be misconstrued as
mean-spiritedness.
...
Welcome to the dialectic.
Welcome to my criticism, sir.
