Aesthetics Midterm Study Questions, Fall 07
(including Davies questions below)

Telfer, Food as Art

Give examples of aesthetic experiences that might be considered negative (and explain why). Distinguish them from non-aesthetic experiences (and explain why they are non-aesthetic). Give examples of positive aesthetic experience that involve pleasure. Now give examples of positive aesthetic experiences that don't involve pleasure (and explain in what way they are positive).
Do all aesthetic experiences involve pleasure? Why or why not? Are all aesthetic experiences positive? Why or why not?
Using an example, explain the difference between the two sense of a work of art that Telfer discusses (the classifying and evaluative senses).
According to Telfer, what is the difference between an art and a craft? How does she use this criterion to determine when food is art and not craft?
According to Telfer, who is the composer and who is the performance artist when it comes to cooking?
Cooking involves at least two works of art: What are they?
Does Telfer believe the state should subsidize the art of food and provide education so that people can be knowledgeable about this art? Why or why not?
What are Telfer's reasons for thinking the art of food is a minor rather than major art form?
What would Telfer's reaction be the the following claim. Since there are to taste symphonies or taste sonatas, food is way too simple to be a major art form.
On your own view, is food an art form? Why or why not? In answering this question, evaluate at the strongest arguments both for the claim it is and for the claim it is not (look at at least three different considerations on each side of this dispute). Make sure you look at this question from both the classifying and evaluative dimensions.

Holmes Rolston, Evaluating Nature Aesthetically

Explain the distinction between aesthetic experience and aesthetic properties, on Rolston's account.
Does Rolston accept objectivity or subjectivity about aesthetic experience? What about aesthetic properties? Explain what he means by saying aesthetic properties are objective (or not). Do you think aesthetic properties are objective?
On Rolston's view, if humans ceased to exist would aesthetic experience cease to exist? What about aesthetic properties?
What is the thesis of positive aesthetics (for nature)? Distinguish between several different versions of this thesis.
Explain the sense in which Rolston does and does not accept positive aesthetics. Does Rolston think anything in nature is ugly? Does he think nature is perfectly beautiful? Uniformly beautiful?
What role do cognitive considerations play in Rolston's defense or criticism of positive aesthetics?
Do you accept positive aesthetics (for nature)? Why or why not?
Is the thesis of positive aesthetics more plausible for nature than for art? Explain what the Why or why not?
What is the "scenery cult?"

Allen Carlson, Appreciation and the Natural Environment

According to Carlson, properly appreciating both art and nature involves placing aesthetic objects from each in the right categories. Use Carlson's example of appreciating a whale (or woodchuck) to explain this point. Do you agree with it?
What is Carlson's view of the role of science in nature appreciation and how does his conception of proper aesthetic appreciation support this position? Do you agree with Carlson about the role of science in nature appreciation?
Explain in what way Carlson's thinks natural history takes the role that art history plays in the aesthetic appreciation of art for the aesthetic appreciation of nature.
Carlson argues that just as serious art appreciation is informed by art history, so too serious nature appreciation is informed by knowledge of natural history/science. Explain this analogy using examples and assess it from your own perspective.
Is reason an important part of aesthetic appreciation?
Is Carlson's account of serious aesthetic appreciation of nature elitist? Why might someone think it is? How might Carlson respond to this charge?
Is it true that more knowledge we have of nature, the more we are likely to positively aesthetically evaluate it?

Noel Carroll, On Being Moved By Nature

What is Noel Carroll's major objection to Carlson's theory of the aesthetic appreciation of nature? How might Carlson respond to Carroll's objection?
Does Carroll reject the type of aesthetic appreciation of nature that Carlson is advocating? Why or why not?
What is the problem of "aesthetic focus?" How does Carlson address this problem? How does Carroll address it?
Does Carroll think an uninformed emotional arousal is acceptable in both art and nature appreciation? Do you think he is right?
Does Carroll think one can be appropriately emotionally aroused by a natural object about which one has false beliefs? Do you agree with him? Why or why not?
Given Carroll's account of aesthetic appreciation of nature as emotional arousal, explain how he accounts for the presence (or lack) of objectivity in nature appreciation.
How does Carroll respond to someone who might argue that being moved by nature is mere enjoyment of nature and is not the deep level of appreciation of nature that is had by one with scientific knowledge of nature?
How does Carroll respond to the suggestion that being moved by nature is to have a displaced religious emotion that needs to be demystified and psychoanalyzed away?
Discuss the issue of aesthetically appreciating something while having a false belief about it. Is this a problem? (Does it lead to inappropriate or less than fully adequate aesthetic appreciation?) Why or why not? For Carlson? For Carroll?

Serra's Tilted Arc (TA), Lin's Vietnam Veteran's Memorial, and the Horowitz and Kelly articles

Describe the details of the case of Richard Serra's Tilted Arc.
Present the strongest arguments you can both for and against the claim that what happened in the Tilted Arc case was democratic (using both Horowitz's and Kelly's discussion of the case). What is your own view on this specific question. Was removing TA censorship?
Present the strongest arguments you can both for and against the claim that removal of Tilted Arc would destroy it. Make sure you address both Serra's arguments on this issue as well as Kelly's arguments. Do you think removing it destroyed it?
Do you think Tilted Arc should have been removed? Why or why not?
What was Horowitz's response to the claims that Tilted Arc destroyed the beauty of the plaza and blocked the ordinary walking patterns of the users of the plaza?
Describe and discuss the interpretations (possible meanings) of Tilted Arc, considering Serra's, Horowitz's and Kelly's ideas. Make sure you address the political interpretations of the sculpture. Explain how the debate between intentionalism and anti-intentionalism (the author's intention is or is not important for a work's meaning) fits into this discussion. How does your own view of Tilted Arc fit or not fit with these accounts?
Should there be public subsidies for art? Why or why not? Make sure you consider strong reasons on each side of this debate.
Why is public art a more controversial type of publicly supported art that are other types of publicly subsidized art?
Respond to the following criticism of Tilted Arc: It looks like "an abandoned piece of construction material" and since construction waste is an aesthetic blight, so is tilted arc.
According to Horowitz, why did TA become controversial?
Explain why Kelly thinks that Tilted Arc was not public art. Do you agree with him?
Explain Kelly's argument that Tilted Arc was not site specific because it lacked a kind of "reciprocity" that is needed for being site specific.
Describe the case of Maya Lin's Vietnam Veteran's Memorial. Was this piece of public art vastly more controversial than Serra's TA? Why might one think it should have been (and perhaps was)?
Explain what Kelly believes Maya Lin's did with the VVM that Serra did not do in TA case. How does the case of the VVM do a better job than TA in "negotiating the controversies surrounding public art" at least according to Kelly? Do you agree with him? Why?
Evaluate: The TA and VVM cases show that for public art to succeed it must submit to the desires, tastes, and beliefs of the public, rather than educating or challenging them about their taste, desires, and/or beliefs.

Davies, Ch. 1: Evolution and Culture

Describe the biological account of the origin of art (as Davies explains it). What are some reasons/arguments for this account? How is it different from the cultural account?
Explain the genetic story behind the view that art has a biological origin. How might art be adaptive (responsible for reproductive success)?
Describe the cultural account of the origin of art (as Davies explains it). What are some reasons/arguments for this account? How is it different from the biological account?
Which account of the origin of art (biological or cultural) do you think is most persuasive (if either) and why?
Explain the distinction between art and craft. Give clear examples of each and explain how they illustrate the differences between what makes something art and what makes it craft.
Explain the concept of disinterestedness and how it relates to art and art appreciation. Use examples in your explanation.
Explain why someone might think that ancient “art” is not art. What would the cultural view of art say about this?
As forcefully as you can, explain the criticism of art museums that Davies discusses. Do you think there is any merit in these criticisms? What can be said in favor of putting art in museums?
Explain Davies’ worry about the double standard in tourist art.

Davies, Ch. 2: Defining Art

Using examples, explain the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions. Can something be necessary without being sufficient? Can something be sufficient without being necessary?
Explain the difference between the definition and the extension of the term “art.
Give a clear-cut example of something that any definition of art must include under the category of art and then a clear-cut example of something that a definition of art must exclude from that category.
What is anti-essentialism about art? Explain one of Weitz’s reasons for his anti-essentialism.
Must artworks be artifacts (made by humans) or could they be found ready-made in nature? What about a piece of driftwood in a museum?
Describe the “warehouse test/example” and explain how it relates to the issue of defining art. Why does people’s agreement or disagreement about what is art matter to the warehouse test?
Explain the “family-resemblance” view of art’s nature and explain two of the weaknesses/problems with this view that Davies identifies.
Explain “radical stipulativism’s” account of the nature of art. How is this view different from the view that says: “Whatever anyone says is art is art for them” (subjectivism about art)? How is radical stipulativism different from the institutional theory of art?
Explain why Davies thinks radical stipulativism “gets things backwards.”
What is the difference between defining art by its intrinsic as opposed to its relational properties? Give examples. How are aunts and uncles defined by their relational properties?
What account of art is given by “aesthetic functionalism.”
Why does Davies think that aesthetic functionalism can’t account for some of Duchamp’s ready-mades?
Explain the institutional theory of art. Use the golf example to explain this theory. How is it different from aesthetic functionalism?
What is the “historicism’s” account of art. Explain how historicism would view the claim that if something can be art at one time it can be art at other times. Identify and explain one weakness of historicism.
Using examples, explain and evaluate the following: Arthur Danto argues that what can become art and the significance it has depends on when and where it is offered and by whom.

Davies, Ch. 3: Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art

Describe the views of those who embrace what Davies calls “aesthetic theories of art.”
Describe the views of those (“contextualists”) who reject aesthetic theories of art.
What is an aesthetic property? Give 5 examples of different aesthetic properties. Give an example of a positive and then a negative aesthetic property. Using an example, explain what it means to say that aesthetic properties are higher-order properties that are based on lower-level non-aesthetic properties.
What is an artistic property? Give examples of 3 or 4 artistic properties of a work of art and explain why they are artistic and not aesthetic properties.
Explain the difference between aesthetic properties and artistic properties.
Are the artist’s intentions relevant to the artworks aesthetic properties? Why or why not?
What does Davies think about the relative importance of artistic and aesthetic properties to the identity and content of artworks?
Explain the “aesthetic attitude” and relate it to Mark Twain’s experience of the Mississippi after he learned to “read the water.” Do you think that adopting the “aesthetic attitude” is important for aesthetic experience? What does Davies think about the importance of appreciating art with a distanced and disinterested attitude?
Explain how Davies attempts to show that aesthetic theory is internally inconsistent with the example of Bruegel’s Landscape with Fall of Icarus.
Explain how Davies criticizes aesthetic theory using Lin’s Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial. How would the defender of aesthetic theory respond to this criticism. Who do you think is right?
Using three example, explain why Davies thinks aesthetic theory has trouble accounting for perceptually equivalent objects.
Is forgery a problem for aesthetic theory? Why or why not?
What does Davies think about the person who “delights in the gleaming whiteness of Duchamp’s Fountain”?
Are all external, contextual, or relational properties of an artwork relevant to its artistic appreciation? Discuss using examples of such properties that are arguably not relevant to the artistic or aesthetic appreciation of an artwork.
Should the fact that a work was created (e.g., painted) by a female rather than a male effect our appreciation of it? What does Davies think about this? Do you agree with him?
Is Davies a “cognitivist?” Does he think that gut level responses are sufficient for aesthetic appreciation (as does Noel Carroll)? Does Davies think appropriate appreciation of rock music involves a gut level response or though-filled interaction?
Identify and describe the following: Duchamp’s Fountain, LHOOQ, and LHOOQ SHAVED; Picasso’s Guernica; Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ; Artemesia Gentileschi, Judith Slaying Holofernes, ca 1612; Carl Andre’s Equivalent VIII; Andy Warhol’s Brillo Boxes (1964); Chris Burden’s Shoot and Transfixed; Sherrie Levine’s photography.