Stecker, Ch 10 Artistic Value

Stecker's analysis of Willem de Kooning's Untitled III (1977)

Experience of looking at this is powerful, not pleasant
Evokes infantile experiences we no longer count as pleasures
Dwelling on these color patches is an aesthetic experience:

Object oriented
Sensuous
Valued for its own sake
Not pleasant
Elusive in aesthetic properties (only two mentioned, powerful and evocative)

It has aesthetic value, i.e., capacity to provide valuable exp to those who understand the painting
Possessing this (aesthetic) value makes it valuable as art

Its aes value is part of its artistic value

Is this capacity to provide valuable exp the only feature that makes it valuable as art?
What if it gives us insight into infantile states of mind, or allows us to simulate infantile pleasures that are no longer pleasurable for us (or engage in primitive exploration of the body)

Does this also give it artistic value? (Stecker, yes)

This insight depends on experience of painting but is distinct from it (we can take it with us after stop experiencing painting)
Some want to limit artistic value to aesthetic value (to the value of the experience of an art object) and Stecker thinks there is more to artistic value than this (and sometimes this experience isn't even important)

ARTISTIC VALUE

Definition of artistic value:
- Artistic value involves those valuable properties artists commonly try to imbue in their works and that critics and appreciations commonly look for or seek out in works
- Sort of valuable properties appropriate to bring forth and weigh up when evaluate something as an artwork
- Value of art as art
For Stecker, artisitic value includes:

Aesthetic value (which is...)
- Aesthetic value of work is its capacity to produce aesthetic experience in those who understand it
- Stecker's minimal view of aesthetic experience involves attending in a discriminating manner to forms, qualities, or meaningful features of things, and attending to these for their own sake
  - This would make it seem like for Stecker, aesthetic value and experience involves more that just sensuous engagement.
  - Thus Stecker can (and does) allow ethical features to interact with aesthetic ones.
The value of the emotional response to a work (is this part of aesthetic value?)
Cognitive value
Ethical value (which can--sometimes--affect aesthetic value)
Art-historical value: value of a work as a contribution to development of art or artforms or genre

Note: Stecker is a pluralist about artistic value (there are lots of different kinds)
Artistic value does not include external values of art
External values of art: Artworks can be valuable in ways that are not part of their artistic value
These "external values" of art include

Monetary value
Fame given to some artists
Value of sculpture as a door stop
Sentimental value of art for a person
- I like this song because I met my wife while it was playing
(Perhaps?) Aesthetic value of anti-aesthetic art is external to the value of art as art (is not part of its artistic value)
- Examples:
  - The gleaming whitness of Duchamp's Fountain
  - The aesthetic values that Sherrie Levine's photos inherits from her subject (the aesthetic values of the original photos)

Essentialist and non-essentialist conception of value of artworks

Essentialist says artistic value is

One: A unitary kind of value (the one thing we value when we value something as art)
- Monism
Two: Unique to art; nothing else provides this value
Three: Shared by all artworks (in all artforms)
Four: This value is intrinsically valuable and renders art intrinsically valuable
We can know a priori (w/o empirical investigation into actual art practices) that art has these features
- We know this based on reflection on the nature of art and the concept of art
(Typically "aesthetic value" is the candidate for this unique, unitary artistic value, which is the value of art as art)

Nonessentialist conception (rejects all the above)
Properties that make art valuable as art (artistic value) may or may not be same across all arts (rejects 3)

Possible some artistic value not found in some artforms

No cognitive value in instrumental music? No conceptions or perspectives or ways of seeing the world opened up by such music?

These properties may be but may not be unique to art (rejects 2)

Items other than art can have these valuable properties

Though when they had them, we would not call them "artistic values"

These properties may be intrinsically or instrumentally valuable (rejects 4)
No reason to suppose that one valuable property or sort of value posses by all artworks as art (rejects 1)

Stecker specific version of nonessentialism

Some artistically valuable properties are found only in some artforms and not others
None of these artistic values are unique to art

Non-artworks can possess the same valuable properties as artworks
- Nature provides aesthetic value
- Philosophy provides cognitive value

Art is always instrumentally valuable (and never intrinsically valuable)

Stecker says that one can only have an aes exp if one intrinsically values it (the experience)
But he does not think that art objects (or other artifacts?) have intrinsic value

No one kind of value that a work has as art

A plurality of different valuable properties contribute to artistic value (pluralism)

Not all art is artistically valuable for the same reasons

Which properties of artworks contribute to artistic values is an empirical question to be determined by examining the aims of artists and expectations of audiences

Can't figure out art's value by reflecting on concept of art

These aims and expectations (and the nature and functions of art) and related artistic values change and evolve over time (Stecker's historical functionalism view)

Artistic value as (identical to) aesthetic value which is identical to the aesthetic experience we get from art 187 (Malcolm Budd's view)

Overview: Stecker argues against Budd and insists that
- Must keep aesthetic, cognitive, and ethical value separate:
  - Even though valuable experience of work can have cogniutive & ethical dimensions, it does not follow that cog/ethical value of a work is part of its aesthetic value (this would blur lines between different evaluative perspectives)
- Art's values are instrumental not intrinsic (Denies art has intrinsic value)
  - Invigoration of one's consciousness (therapeutic value) or refined awareness of human psychology (cognitive value?) or moral insight (ethical value) that artworks provide are instrumental values of art, not intrinsic values
  - Even the aesthetic experience art provides is an instrumental (not intrinsic) value of art, though that experience may be valued for its own sake
Details (ignore them): In part I, Stecker claimed that:
- Aesthetic value of artwork is function of experience of attending to various features of work, an experience valued for its own sake
Budd's view of the artistic value of a work of art (value of work of art as art)=aesthetic value and then builds cognitive and ethical value and other values into aesthetic value

The assumption is that aesthetic value is an experienced value
Budd tries to build into his notion of artistic value=aesthetic value/experience all sorts of things one would think are not aesthetic, not intrinsic to the experience, but benefits/instrumental values it provides.

Includes:
- Ethical: finding oneself in sympathy with work's point of view
- Cognitive: a sense of dawning insight

Stecker objects to Budd

Even though valuable experience of work can have cogniutive & ethical dimensions, it does not follow that cog/ethical value of a work is part of its aesthetic value (this would blur lines between different evaluative perspectives)

Aesthetic value versus instrumental value
- Instrumental value: the actual good and bad effects of a work on those who experience it
Budd tries to incorporate seeming instrumental values as part of the works intrinsic value:

Invigoration of one's consciousness (therapeutic value) or refined awareness of human psychology (cognitive value?) or moral insight (ethical value) are part of the experience of the work rather than a mere benefit of that exp
Good poetry increases the intelligence and strengthen the moral temper

Stecker thinks these are better understood as instrumental values of work

Yes moral insight and refined awareness come to us through art experience and during the experience
But unless one takes something away from the experience and something useful when experience is over-one has not attained moral insight or refined awareness from experience of work
Hence experience is one thing and benefits (moral insight, refined awareness) are another even if they are intricately bound up.

Artworks are often so constituted as to provide certain benefits when property appreciated, but providing that benefit does not show they are intrinsically valuable, but rather that they are instrumentally valuable.
Stecker claims that Budd--by building therapeutic and cognitive value into his conception of aesthetic = artistic value--is no longer really saying that aesthetic value is one unique perspective by which we get the artistic value of artwork (and so Budd is not all that dif from nonessentialists like Stecker)

Aesthetic value as instrumental

Above dist valuable experience of work from other benefits it provides (e.g., insight, increased intelligence one takes away from artworks after one ceases to experience them)

Insight and increased intelligence are instrumental values of the artwork

Is the value experience of the work an intrinsic or instrumental value of the artwork?
- Stecker argues it is instrumental
The experience of art may be intrinsically valued, but the artwork is a means to it and so has instrumental value to this experience.

(End ignored details)

UNIQUE VALUE (Is art and its value replaceable and dispensable or not?)

Essentialists argue that art's value must be unique in order to avoid replaceability

If value artworks offer could be offered by other things

And if these other thinks did a better job of providing this value, art could be replaced by them
Art-at best-would compete against them

Replaceability fear seems well founded: Other things besides art can do what art does

Provide moral insight
Refine awareness of human psychology
Increase intelligence
Induce admirable habits of feeling
Represent the world in fascinating or unusual ways and with truth
Be expressive or evocative of human emotions or religious or political sentiments
Provide escape from everyday life
Provide works in which we can lose ourselves
Be beautiful or give us aesthetic experiences
- Aesthetic value can be found in nature and almost every type of human endeavor
(There are many artworks and perhaps some art forms that can't do many of the above)

Response to replaceability fear:

That art offers unique experience doesn't get irreplaceability, we need to add that exchanging one valuable experience for another involves a real loss
Unique experience provided by a great (or maybe good) artwork is irreplaceable because even though there are other equally good experiences out there, the world would be poorer for the loss of this one
Not true for fishing rods or lesser works of art
These constantly go out of existence and become unavailable w/o a great loss of value in the world

Dispensable fear

Like a toothpaste tube which is no longer valuable when all the toothpaste squeezed out; now dispensable
Read poem, get its significant thoughts, then get rid of poem.
If the source of insight is the artwork, once we have the insight, we have it and the work is no longer needed
But many think of value of art as inexhaustible
- Perhaps an exaggeration, but we can revist them many times and they yield up new value each time
Reasons artworks not dispensable; not to be emptied and discarded like toothpaste tube

Many reasons to return to a work of art

Provide unique experiences and we may want to reencounter an aspect of the work
- Remind ourselves or reencounter the thought
Did we interpret the poem correctly?
- Multiple interpretability: we can encounter something new in work via new interpretation
There are other experiences work could make available
- We might get some new thought from it
- Since works offer multiple pleasures and benefits, good reason to believe that we haven't exhausted them in first encountered

Summary:

Denied that artistic value is a single kind of value like aesthetic value

Artistic value covers a diversity of value types

Denied that artworks are intrinsically valuable/valuable for their own sakes

Artist value consists in a plurality of instrumental values

Denied these values uniquely possessed by artworks

Though he agrees valuable experience offered by artworks may be unique to them

And thinks that there are ways artworks are not (easily) replaceable and dispensable

NO COMMON VALUE TO ALL ART 194 (Neither aesthetic, nor cognitive value is found in all art)

Do all valuable artworks possess aesthetic value?
- And even if they do, is this what gives them their artistic value, their value as art?
Hard to defeat this claim (as all works have properties that can be seen as aesthetic)
One of Stecker's main points in this section
- Levine's photos and Duchamp's ready mades have mainly cognitive value and their aesthetic value is not really relevant to their value as art
Examples of artwork whose value is not its aesthetic value, but cognitive value

Levine re-photographes original photographs
- Originals had aesthetic qualities intrinsic to their value as art
- Levine's work inherits them, at least in sense one can look at her photos and see the same qualities appreciated in the original
- Does the value of her work lie in a new set of aesthetic properties it possesses that is not possessed by its subject?
  - Stecker thinks not
Do works whose artistic value does not lie in their aesthetic value still depend on aesthetic value of other artworks?
- Examples? Levine photos (as he has interpreted them) are workw whose value is not aesthetic, but parasitic on aesthetic value of other works?

Anti-aesthetic art
- Dadaist works of Duchamp
  - These works don't have aesthetic value, but (some argue) whatever value they do have can be understood only in relation to and in contrast with aesthetic value possessed by most works.
Much artistic value that is nonaesthetic often (if not always) depends in some way on aesthetic value
Stecker is skeptical nonaesthetic artistic value always depends on aesthetic value
- Conceptual art that simply tries to present a thought or idea
- Political works that simply have a political message
- Says he wonders if these works have any positive value as art
  - If they don't, then they are not counter examples

Some would argue that all valuable artworks do have aesthetic value intrinsic to them as art, even Stecker's counter examples above.
Stecker argues that these aesthetic properties are external to (extrinsic to) their artistic value (as art).

Ambitious strategy says all valuable artworks do have aesthetic value intrinsic to them, even Stecker's counter examples above.

Distinguish the extrinsic aesthetic value these examples possess
Levine's photos have lots of extrinsic aesthetic value inherited from her subjects
Bottle rack has complex form and mounted bicycle wheel has an elegant one
Both sustain contemplation that could be aesthetically gratifying
Finding this sort of aesthetic value in these ready mades has nothing to do with appreciating them as the artworks they are
One could find same aesthetic value in any similar bottle rack or bicycle wheel (mounted for repair)

Interesting claim is these works have aesthetic properties intrinsic to them as artworks

E.g., Fountain possess daring, wit, cleverness, impudence and irreverence

These are aesthetic properties (some might argue)
And appreciate the works for possessing them is intrinsic to app them as art

Stecker worries if these are aesthetic properties;
- They can sometimes be names of aesthetic properties, but sometimes names of nonaesthetic ones

Impudent behavior, daring strategy, irreverent remark about religions, clever philosophical args

These name aes properties when these terms are applied in context of aes experience
But Fountain sustains little aesthetic exp
- Given Stecker's definition of aes experience--which includes paying attention to the meanings of aesthetic objects--Fountain would seem to possess important aes experience
Not clear ambitious strategy can find aesthetic properties in what is commonly thought of as nonaes art

If the ready-mades have aes value, need to show provide significant aes experience when understood as the artworks they are

With fountain this may be viable
Selecting a urinal and mounting it upside down gives this a shock value not equal by the others
So one is not simply intellectually aware of the irreverent questions Duchamp is asking about contribution of artist, the creative process and the role of craft in making art
One experiences the force of the question through seeing this work
This experience is limited and pretty well exhausted in a single viewing and probably provided as well by photographs as by work itself
So fountain sustains little aes exp
Chief value of fountain lies in its cognitive value of reconceptualiztion it proposes and symbolizes

That the other works have aes value as the works they are is even less plausible.

COGNITIVE VALUE 197

Art's cognitive value

There are intellectual benefits in offering to the imagination vivid and detailed conceptions tied up with and that go beyond the experience of the artwork
Not only may one imaginatively experience an emotion in reading a poem, but one might take away ways of identifying one's own emotions that lead to self-knowledge
One may not only imaginatively experience a visual world represented in a painting, but also come to see the actual world presented there in new ways
Not only may one imaginatively experience a fictional world of human beings with certain values, but one can try out such conceptions in real world

Come to see they are apt or if exaggerate or simplifying, we can see what features or states of mind lead people to accept them

Art broadens our conceptual repertoire that leads to new says of thinking or perceiving and sometimes new knowledge
Engaging with works can make us better thinkers and perceivers

Fiction gets us to imagine psychological states of characters, this enhances our ability to do so with real people
Fiction gets us to imagine and empathize with situations and points of view other than our own (characters in the work), we become better able to do this in real life situations
Viewing pictures requires us to become fine observers, this will also carry over as an ability in real scenes.

Sum: All sorts of cognitive abilities/virtues promoted by experience of art
- Idea that many artworks have cognitive value is plausible

Also plausible that achieving this value is essential part of artist's project when create the work
An important part of what is appreciated by audiences of those works

Thus it is arbitrary to deny that such value is part of works value as art.

Mentions and worries about Martha Nussbaum's view (in Love's Knowledge) that art is capable of giving us knowledge that some conception is true or false in actuality
- Suggest he thinks this is very controversial.
Objections to art's alleged cognitive value
Art can't really give us knowledge since it can't give us evidence that its conceptions are true

Reply: Beside the point if art's cog value lies in providing new ways of thinking/perceiving/or bringing home significance of already familiar ways of thinking
We should expect these to be a mixed bag when assessed for truth, just as are various hypotheses tested in a lab

When conceptions of art are distilled into straightforward statements, they typically turn out to be familiar truths or obvious falsehoods

Reply
Mislocates where value lies
Wrong to place too much emphasis on ultimate truth/falsehood of the conceptions
Also wrong to think they boil down to simple distillations or morals
Part of virtue of art's conceptions lies in their details, which is a rich as the world of the work

Not plausible to think that artistic value is to be identified with work's cognitive value

Not all works have cog value

Even those that do, it is not always their main value

E.g., if instrumental music has cognitive value (as some claim), this could hardly be their chief value

Artistic value is what artists try to put into their works and the thing that audiences seek works to get

Plausible that many works are neither made nor sought out for any cognitive advantages
Many works don't attempt to expand our conceptual repertoire
For many, doing this is not even a possibility
E.g.: A delicate piece of ceramic art may be a wonderful aesthetic object, but offer nothing by way of a new conceptualization of the world

Some argue all artworks possess some cog value

Stecker rejects this

Best argument is that they all have ability to refine our intellectual, perceptual or imaginative powers
Appreciating the ceramic work just mentioned may tend to make one more discriminating perceiver of visual properties
Large literature on cognitive benefits of some music

Though these benefits are unintended and unsought
If and when they actually occur is still unknown

If worry about replaceability, if think of such benefits as chief artistic value would make art replaceable with a vengeance by psychologists and educators
Also why think cog value is the only artistic value?

Aesthetic value is clearly part of artistic value and often the most important part of it

Art as a Practice Rather than a Perspective

A misunderstanding to think that in order to identify artistic value one has to adopt a special perspective

Stecker is combating a well-know position called the "aesthetic attitude" view
Budd on this view: "It has often been thought that there is a particular attitude that is distinctive of aesthetic appreciation: you must adopt this attitude in order for the item's aesthetic properties to be manifest to you, and if you are in this attitude you are in a state of aesthetic contemplation (see Aesthetic attitude). This suppositious attitude has often been thought of as one of disinterested contemplation focused on an item's intrinsic, non-relational, immediately perceptible properties."

Stecker thinks art is a complex practice that is valuable in multiple and evolving ways, as is religion
Religion/art analogy
- What is religious value?

Distinctive about religion is the pursuit of something transcendent supposed to be supremely valuable

Pursuit found outside of religion too: in philosophy, nonreligious art, in some ways of appreciating nature and some perspectives on science
Religion (and its practices) valuable in other ways too: moral outlook, fellowship rituals, understanding of life, death, nature

Are these valuable things religion provides people but not religious values?
No; All are interrelated, and understood in light of the paradigmatically (not exclusively) religious pursuit of transcendent

Art is similar

Mistake to think one type of distinctive artistic value
But it is tempting for art, like religion, to think there is a single distinctive artistic value
Just as with religious value being typically connected with transcendent
So artistic value is typically connected to the understanding of a work via the experience of it.

This seems like a highly cognitive view of art

This does not exclude instrumental values from being artistic value (as long as they come by way of experience, understanding or appreciating artworks)

Does typically exclude value in no way tied to the experience and understanding of work (investment or monetary value) as being artistic

Reason such values external to art

Typical connections can be broken

Perhaps religion that does not pursue the transcendent

Perhaps (very likely there is) art that is not made to be experienced

Some avant-garde art not made to be experienced
- Robert Rauschenberg erased a DeKooing Drawing and exhibited it as his own work: "Erased DeKooning Drawing"
- Duchamp's "LHOOQ shaved"

If art is evolving practice and its valuable properties also evolve, how identify when have art practice rather than some other practice?

We could identify art practice by its origin (and not by its valuable properties)
Cluster of features that are marks of artistic practical at early stage

Tradition artforms: painting, carved/molded forms, music/dance poetry and stories
Items with striking aesthetic, expressive, or rep qualities
Practice is integrated with other important practices of culture (religion, food gathering, political )

Art is a complex and evolving set of practices not least because of the complex and evolving aims of artists and appreciators

Note: Stecker's account of art and art's value allows avant-garde art to be art and have value

An essentialist (and aesthetic) conception of art does not, as this art is often anti-aesthetic

MISCELLANEOUS

Is there one perspective from which we must view art?
- Stecker thinks artistic values are plural and thus we have to adopt a variety of evaluative perspectives to take in this value)
- Other view: there is a uniquely relevant perspective that reveals one value for art as art

Many conceptions of art assume art has some sort of cog value

Collingwood: Art an expression of emotion, but expression is cognitive: it's a process by which become aware of emotion we are feeling in all its particularity
Danto: art is about something and some attitude is expressed toward it; each work of art offers a conception of its subject; art's value lies chiefly in value of the conceptions (attitudes, points of view) it offers

A kind of cog value; not in sense of art being a significant source of new knowledge, but it makes us newly aware of or alive to ways of thinking, imagining and perceiving

Replaceability objection: Could arrive at the conception given to us in works other ways and thus art becomes replaceable

Art can't be completely guarded against replaceability
Given that what we appreciate in the conceptions found in works is closely tied to experience of work and means by which conceptions expressed
Value here is as irreplaceable as work's aesthetic value

Problem for Nonessentialism 200
- How do non-essentialists distinguish artistic from nonartistic value (given how pluralistic they are about artistic value?)

Some valuable properties of art are irrelevant to their value as art
Nonartistic values of art

financial value of sculpture as a door stop
sentimental value of song for a couple

Solution: Valuable feature of work of art is part of work's artistic value only if the work's possession of the value can be grasped by understanding the work

Normally such understanding requires experience the work, but exceptions (nonaesthetic art)

Nonartistic value possessed by artworks can be completely understood how the work posses such value w/o understanding or experience the work

Financial value of artwork can be understood by market forces
Value of sculpture as door stop understood in terms of its physical properties: weight-height
Can say same sort of thing for any nonartistically valuable property of an artwork

Worries that sentimental value of a song,

Though it can be understood partially separate from understanding the song (has sentimental value in part because it was first heard on a significant occasion and the significance has been transferred to a song)
Also requires understanding the song: heard many songs that special day, but this one gained sentimental value because it captured the mood of that day
So understanding why this song has sentimental value requires understanding the song and so sentimental value becomes part of artistic value
Stecker says that when sentimental value is keyed into understanding of the song, then it is part of artistic value; when sentimental value distorts or operates independently of the understanding of the artwork that it separates from artistic value