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KENDALL WALTON Aesthetics—What? Why? and Wherefore? It is a very great honor to address my friends and philosophy of quantum physics are younger. But colleagues as president of the American Society these are clearly subcategories of traditional, well- for Aesthetics, an organization that plays a unique established areas of philosophy—ethics and phi- role in a field that is, at once, a major traditional losophy of science—and they inherit much of their branch of philosophy and also central to disci- identity and sense of purpose from their parents. plines often regarded as remote from philosophy, Aesthetics is not so fortunate. It is related in vari- as well as depending crucially on their contribu- ous important ways to epistemology, metaphysics, tions. philosophy of mind, philosophy of language— I will follow the lead of one of my distinguished indeed it overlaps all of them—but these older predecessors in this office, Peter Kivy, who used relatives are at best aunts and uncles to aesthetics, the occasion of his own presidential address twelve not parents. Aesthetics must figure out for itself years ago to step back and reflect on the state of what exactly it is. the discipline and the nature of aesthetics.1 Two kinds of issues about the field need to be addressed: What is distinctive about this branch i. what is aesthetics? of philosophy, in contrast to others? And what is philosophy? Under the first heading, we will ask Aesthetics is a strange field, in some ways a con- what aesthetics is the philosophy of , what domain fused one. Yet, among the issues it is charged with it is charged with investigating. The second issue treating are some of the most fascinating and pro- concerns what kind of investigation of that domain found ones that philosophy has to offer. aesthetics is to undertake, what it is to investigate I take aesthetics to be largely a branch of phi- things philosophically. losophy, although with absolutely crucial links to other disciplines. Philosophy as I understand it is i. In his Presidential Address for the central divi- not the private preserve of professional philoso- sion of the American Philosophical Association, phers. Art historians, music theorists, and liter- Allan Gibbard referred to the question of how to ary scholars frequently engage in philosophy, as live as the “grand basic question” of ethics.2 He do psychologists, cognitive scientists, and linguists. may have had in mind something like this: Most And many informal reflections outside of aca- of ethics, most of what now and over the ages is demic contexts are philosophical in character. thought of as belonging to that discipline, has some As an institutionally recognized branch of phi- more or less direct connection with how we are to losophy, aesthetics is very young. At a mere two- live our lives. Ethical philosophers do much more and-a-half centuries, in a family whose elders are than attempt to answer this question. They aim to more like twenty-five, it does not qualify for a explain and clarify it, they argue about whether it midlife identity crisis. Its confusion is that of an can be answered, and whether answers are “objec- adolescent trying to find itself, wondering what to tive” or “subjective,” and they examine how peo- do when it grows up, and, indeed, whether there ple do in fact go about trying to answer it. But it is is a place for it in the adult world. Aesthetics is fair to say that ethics is loosely organized around not the baby of the clan; business ethics and the the question of how to live. This question fixes the The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 65:2 Spring 2007 148 The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism identity of the field, marks its rough outlines, and marked out within the Aesthetics World. Danto, gives it a structure. A philosopher can get her or in his words, “regard[s] the matter of furnishing his bearings from anywhere within ethics by ascer- answers to ...questions [such as what difference taining in which direction this question lies. it makes that Brillo boxes, etc. should be artworks Specifying the subject matter of ethics by iden- and not mere real things] the central issue in the tifying its GBQ has the advantage of locating its philosophy of art.”4 But this question does not play center, as well as its rough boundaries. In fact, once a role in the field as a whole comparable to that of we specify the center, we might prefer thinking of “How shall we live?” in ethics. it as not having boundaries at all. We can regard “What is art?” is a troubled and seriously con- various particular philosophical issues simply as tested question, as we all know. Troubled ques- more or less in the province of ethics, as they re- tions are music to philosophers’ ears, grist for their late more or less directly to the GBQ. mills. The “What is art?” industry certainly is hum- Epistemology, another ancient branch of phi- ming along. But the question is problematic in losophy, is similarly organized around the ques- ways that make it ill-suited to define the identity of tion of what we know or what we can know. The a major field of philosophy. It is not at all clear that grand basic question of metaphysics is something these words—“What is art?”—express anything like: What is there? Notice that all three of these like a single question, to which competing answers GBQs are ordinary, everyday questions, ones that are given, or whether philosophers proposing an- are likely to bother any reflective person with- swers are even engaged in the same debate. Intro- out prompting from professional or self-styled ductory textbooks and encyclopedia articles com- philosophers. Even a person who is not reflective monly recount a rather bizarre historical sequence enough ever to ask, “How, in general, should one of proposed answers (usually understanding the live one’s life?” will certainly ask specifications of question to be asking for a definition of the word this question, “What shall I do now?” Ethics, epis- ‘art,’ although it does not have to be understood temology, and metaphysics grow naturally out of this way). The story goes something like this—with everyday concerns, out of the “human condition.” variations, of course: The Greeks defined ‘art’ in What is the grand basic question of aesthetics? terms of mimesis (representation, imitation), it is As a purported species of “value theory” along- said. Then followed formalist definitions, and def- side ethics, one might expect aesthetics to be or- initions in terms of expression, and of communi- ganized around a normative question correspond- cation; after that came claims that what makes art ing to How to live—perhaps: What to like. This art is its institutional status or its historical role, question has indeed exercised some aestheticians. or its place in a symbol system with certain syn- The “Standard of Taste” that David Hume was af- tactic and semantic properties, or an interpretive ter can be understood as a way of deciding what theory.5 we are to like. As Hume put it, such a standard The sheer variety of proposed definitions would afford a decision “confirming one senti- should give us pause. One cannot help wonder- ment, and condemning another.”3 Some version ing whether there is any sense in which they are of this question—what to like—might come fairly attempts to capture the same concept or clarify close to qualifying as the GBQ of institutionalized the same cultural practices, or address the same aesthetics in its very early days. But it certainly issue. The historical progression, as commonly re- does not now. Although aestheticians continue to counted, is hardly a dialectical one with each at- discuss it and issues concerning aesthetic or artis- tempt taking what might be right about previous tic value, a glance at the pages of The Journal of ones and improving on them, or else explaining Aesthetics and Art Criticism reveals how much else and accounting for why the previous ones might they have on their minds, how much of what they have seemed right and how they missed out. This is think about has no particular connection to these not like the progression of definitions of “knowl- matters. It would be a serious distortion, now, to edge,” for instance. Each attempt to define ‘art’ characterize aesthetics as a species of value theory. starts anew, and comes up with something not just Ethics is at most a half-sibling of aesthetics. different from previous definitions but seemingly If pushed to name a GBQ for their field, some unrelated to them. (I am oversimplifying here.) aestheticians will cite “What is art?” This may Whatever the explanation for the curiously jagged be the GBQ of the territory Arthur Danto has shape of this history, “What is Art?” will scarcely Walton Aesthetics—What? Why? and Wherefore? 149 serve as a stable center for a discipline. We should in the way that ethics does if it were centered on expect a field recognizing this as its GBQ to be the question, “What is Art?” rather confused. The inescapable conclusion is that aesthetics In any case, glancing again at recent issues of simply does not have a grand basic question. No The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism,itis question or cluster of related questions organizes clear that this does not function as the GBQ of aes- our field in the way that “How to live” orga- thetics as it is currently practiced.

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