Preface and Introduction
Robert Stecker, Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art

• Even though this is an introductory book, Stecker takes a position on the issues he discusses
• Presents the controversy "in its current state of play"
• Hopes to advance the debate
• Encourages his readers to take their own position which may well differ with the author's
  
• Aesthetics and the philosophy of art are distinct
• Thus two parts of the book
  
• Aesthetics
• Concept first developed (in 18^th century) as the study of beauty and sublimity
• Now a broader concept
• Study of type of value based on distinctive experience or properties and judgments about objects' ability to deliver the experience or possess the properties
• So for Stecker, "aesthetics" is the study of aesthetic value, experience, properties and judgments
• Deals with
• Features of objects that make them beautiful (sublime)
  • (and other aesthetic predicates--like funny)
• Our reaction to these features
• Properties of human mind make such reactions possible
• What kind of judgment is made when assert that an object is beautiful
• What kind of value are we attributing to objects when judge them as beautiful
  
• Philosophy of art
• Deals with wider set of questions than aesthetics
• Not just questions about value, but also metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, etc.
  
• Art too complex & diverse to be captured by a single category such as "the aesthetic"
• He rejects the "aesthetic conception of art" (=the study of art is the study of aesthetics)
• Artistic value involves lots of different kinds of value (not just aesthetic value)
• Also many different ways to appreciate & understand art as well as many different kinds of art objects
• Stecker believes it false that art is the most significant or primary bearer of aesthetic value
• Stecker also believe the following are false:
• (False) Art is the one kind of thing that is made chiefly with intention to create aesthetic value
• Is this because "artistic value" may have little to do with aesthetic value? And artists have other goals than aesthetic (say moral, political?)
• Consider Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain"
• (False) Concept of aesthetics plays a defining role in understanding nature and value of art
• Its role is important but not defining
  
• Stecker's summary of his main messages
• Part 1 (Aesthetics)
• The aesthetic should be understood in terms of a type of experience
• There is no privileged provider of that (aesthetic) experience
• Particularly, art is not a privileged provider of aes experience
• Aesthetics pervades our experience; virtually every compartment of life contains objects that have aesthetic value
• Clothes, decoration of living spaces, even toasters and automobiles, appearance of faces/bodies, food we eat
• See The Aesthetics of Everyday Life:
  
• Worries about how broadly we should understand "the aesthetic"
• Stecker: Meal at a restaurant can be aesthetic
• Ambience (how decorated, amount of light, seating arrangements)
• Taste (spicy, gingery), texture, smell, sound (crunchiness) of meal
• If aesthetic value is pleasure caused by the way things appear to the senses, then this is an aesthetic experience
• So then so would sexual relations and much else
• Is watching a football game or playing pinball an aesthetic experience?
• Clearly(?) football is not an art, though perhaps their can be aesthetic responses to it
• Some might deny these things are aesthetic, as they are two practical (art not=craft), and fail to satisfy the criteria of "disinterestedness"
  
• Issue of what we are valuing when we aesthetically value
  • Many would say when value aesthetically, when think something is aesthetically good, we value it for its own sake (value it as an end, rather than a means to something else it may bring)
• Aesthetic value is a kind of intrinsic value not instrumental valuing
• E.g.: Listen to music focus on the music (intrinsic valuing); go shopping, focus on what we can do with the potential purchases (instrumental valuing)
• But is it the music we value for its own sake or the experience of listening to it?
  • If the latter, then the music might be seen as being valued instrumentally to the experience.
• Issue of objectivity of aesthetic value judgments
• Aesthetic value judgments are sometimes described as "judgments of taste"
• We are schizophrenic about taste:
• We believe there is such a thing as good and bad taste
• We believe that there is no disputing about judgments of taste (to each his or her own)
• One argument to suggest that aesthetic judgments are not purely subjective as are some judgments of taste (say taste in ice cream)
• We disagree and argue about aesthetic judgments, e.g., good/bad movies, books, music, paintings, and other forms of art
• We don't dispute which tastes better: vanilla or chocolate ice cream
• Shows that we don't think aesthetic judgments are purely subjective like judgments of taste
  
  
• Part 2 (Philosophy of Art)
• Pluralism about value, understanding and appreciation
• Contextualism in the philosophy of art works better than its rivals (essentialism and constructivism) issue after issue
• Essentialism: Artworks have defining essences (sets of properties that all and only artworks have) that make them art and give them value independent from the varying contexts in which the works created
  • For example, the aesthetic idea of art: all and only art is created with the primary aim of making asethetic value (is an essentialist account of art)
• Contextualism: context of a work's origin and creation (its history) is central to what it is, its meaning and value
• Two distinct works might look or sound exactly the same, but be different due to facts about their origin
• Constructivists: Art does not have a fixed essence and context of origin does not pin down the artwork either; what occurs after an artist makes an artifact is at least as important for the creation and meaning of an artwork as the context of origin; art is the product of culture (including critics and interpreters) as much as of individual artists
• Moderate constructivists: artworks change as receive new interpretations and new cultural contexts; these changes not peripheral to a stable fixed core of meaning; the distinction between peripheral and core is rejected; artworks are much more in flux for constructivists than they are for contextualists; interpretative properties are not discovered in the art work but stuck onto them
• Radical constructivists: artworks not merely altered in the process of interpretations but created; three objects of art interpretation, (1) the initial object, (2) the interpretation and (3) the created object due to interpretation