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1 and —18th and 19th Centuries

DAVID HUME (1711-1776), the eminent Scottish , is best known as an empiricist and a skeptic. In regard to art, Hume is less concerned with finding a definition of art than with exploring the question of whether there are objective standards for assessing the goodness of works of art. Hume presents us with an antinomy—a pair of ideas, each with a claim on but seemingly mutually irreconcilable. On the one hand, most people believe it is possible to make critical judgments about the of works of art. When we think about comparing a great , say the Mona Lisa, with a work that is merely pleasing, say a Norman Rockwell illustration, there is general agreement that the da Vinci is objectively better than the Rockwell. Consideration of such cases—Hume's examples are comparisons of the writers Ogilby and Milton, as well as Bunyan and Addison—forces one to acknowledge objective standards for critical judgments about art. The pole of Hume's antinomy results from a consideration of what grounds such judgments. He asserts it can be nothing but , that is, whether a work of art actually affects the "sentiments," to use his terminology. Relying on the idea of a "natural equality of taste"—that one's tastes are simply one's own and not subject to correction by others—Hume reasons that a critical judgment can be nothing more than the expression of an idiosyncratic reaction to a work. It follows, then, that there can be no objective standards of judgment, a view that contradicts the earlier conclusion that there must be such. To resolve this dilemma, Hume asserts that, as a matter of brute empirical fact, our is so constituted that certain features of works of art just hap-pen to please all human . Our susceptibility to certain qualities ensures that there be universal agreement that some works of art are more beautiful than others, and therefore objectively better. Despite his efforts to ground aesthetic judgments about the of works of art in a uniform human nature, Hume acknowledges that there will inevitably be some aesthetic disagreement. But how can he account for them? Here, Hume is forced to invoke factors either in the psychological makeup of individuals, or in shared cultural preferences, that interfere with a person's otherwise natural ability to appreciate the of a meritorious work of art. Only those with "strong sense, united to delicate sentiment, improved by practice, perfected by comparison, and cleared of all " are capable of discerning those qualities in the work that make it truly good. Thus, unable to locate in artworks themselves, Hume judges that only certain people are so well qualified that their responses really count.

IMMANUEL KANT The (1724–1804) out in his —the third of his famous three Critiques—has been enormously influential. Indeed, general acceptance of the term as applied to the philosophy of art stems from Kant's discussion of art under what he takes to be the wider rubric of aesthetic judgment. Many of the more specific themes of Kant's philosophy of art—art's autonomy from specific interest, form as the object of aesthetic judgment, genius as the faculty of artistic creation—continue to be widely discussed as well. Kant's theory of art is quite complex, for it attempts to solve a variety of puzzles. Foremost among these is Hume's antinomy: In what sense can judgments of , which appear to 2 be about our subjective feelings, be considered objective or factual? Because Kant bases his theory of art on his understanding of aesthetic judgment, which he takes to apply to nature in the first instance, one must begin there. An aesthetic judgment concerning nature—that this sunset is beautiful, for example—is a peculiar sort of judgment for Kant. (He uses the term "judgment" to refer to all acts of mental cognition. Thus, whenever we are thinking, we are making judgments.) To conclude that something is beautiful does not in any way enhance our understanding of it, as does a mere empirical judgment—for example, that the setting sun has reddened the clouds; instead, we seem to be saying something about how our of it affects us. When I call the sunset beautiful, I refer to feelings the sunset produces in me, even though I ex-press this in a judgment that attributes an apparently objective propertybeauty—to it. The question for Kant, as for Hume, is how a judgment about our feelings can have objective validity—for, when I say that the sunset is beautiful, I seem to be saying more than that it appeals to me, claiming also in effect that the sunset's beauty is there for all to see. Kant's solution to this problem improves on Hume's. Recall that the latter based the objectivity of judgments of taste on the presumed empirical truth that certain qualities of objects tend to produce in all human beings. Kant sees this will not justify our that attributions of beauty to objects have normative force: When I say something is beautiful, I not only believe you will agree, but I think that, in some sense, you should. Kant justifies the objective validity of aesthetic judgments by claiming that the feeling of pleasure conceptualized in such judgments is of a very specific sort. Unlike the feeling of pleasure produced by consuming an ice cream cone, the feeling of pleasure incident on the perception of a beautiful object does not arise from the satisfaction of a particular interest or desire. Rather, it is a disinterested pleasure derived from the mere contemplation of the object that induces it. The source of this pleasure, according to Kant, is in those features of the object uniquely suited to my perception. In Kantian terms, the form of a beautiful object causes the imagination (the mental faculty that allows me to apprehend any object) and the understanding (the faculty of conceptualization) to coincide in a special sort of : It is as if the object were produced in order for it to be perceived by me. This free play of the faculties produces a pleasurable feeling of the sort that gives rise to the judgment that the object is beautiful. For this reason, we see beautiful objects as purposive, but without their fulfilling any actual purpose. This account solves the problem of the objective validity of aesthetic judgments by claiming that the pleasure produced by beautiful things is such that any equipped with the perceptual and cognitive faculties human beings possess would this pleasure. The attribution of beauty to an object is objectively valid in that it posits a subjective state that all human beings are capable of experiencing. Unlike Hume's solution, the universality of our susceptibility to aesthetic pleasure does not depend on an empirical generalization that admits of many exceptions; rather, it depends only on the most general structure of the human mind. Nonetheless, aesthetic judgments do not meet the rigorous standards for empirical Kant sets forth in his Critique of Pure Reason. Many details of Kant's theory of natural beauty deserve further discussion. For example, the distinction between the beautiful and the is important for his understanding of our aesthetic response to nature. But we need to remember that this account functions only as the first step in his theory of art. In moving to a consideration of art proper, Kant distinguishes it from various other branches of human activity—stressing, as he goes, that "art" always refers to 3 human activity freely undertaken—but the relevant term he uses to characterize what we now call "art" is . Fine art is a species of aesthetic art that attempts to produce pleasure through the form of its objects. So Kant defines "art" by reference to his theory of aesthetic judgment: Art objects are those created to produce aesthetic pleasure by of their form. In the following selection from the Critique of Judgment, Kant develops a number of different aspects of his theory of fine art. First, he argues that fine art must seem to us like a natural product. This is an important claim, for it grounds a naturalistic standard for judging works of art. Thus, according to Kant, noticing that a work of fine art was consciously produced to give us plea-sure detracts from the work's ability to produce that pleasure. Only art objects that both reveal and yet conceal their nature as artifacts will produce in us a genuine aesthetic response. This aspect of Kant's philosophy exhibits an interesting tension with his claim that art can express ideas, a claim that Schopenhauer will develop more fully in the next chapter. What Kant calls "ideas" are concepts that cannot be fully encountered in experience. Although there are perfectly valid examples of empirical concepts, such as "chair," within our experience, ideas such as beauty can never, according to Kant, be adequately instanced in the course of our daily lives. It is only art, with its ability to go beyond the quotidian, that provides us with sensory analogues of ideas. Kant also develops a theory of genius to account for the production of art. The problem addressed by this account stems from the fact that, according to Kant, fine art has no rules: If it did, it would be knowledge. But if there are no rules, how can it be made? The genius simply has a natural ability to create objects that produce aesthetic pleasure in us. This account of genius was very influential in the 19th century, during the romantic movement especially. Kant supplements his account of aesthetic judgment in his explanation of how we judge works of art. Defining an object's as the harmony between its sensory features and its purpose, he claims that, in assessing art objects, we judge their perfection, not just their beauty. This allows him to hold, as had , that we can judge as beautiful in art things we would find repellent in nature, such as war or disease. (Interestingly, for Kant the only emotion that cannot be redeemed in art is !) There are certainly elements of Kant's theory of art that seem problematic today, such as his endorsement of as the appropriate artistic or his emphasis on form as the only aesthetically relevant feature of artworks. Nonetheless, his theory remains both insightful and influential. In the selections that follow, Kant's name is repeatedly invoked as a source of important insights.

G. W. F. HEGEL If Schopenhauer's view of art depends on his general , this is even more true for G. W. F. Hegel (1770-1831), for whom it is one of the forms of absolute spirit, one way in which Geist or spirit reveals itself as the essence of the world. Hegel the universe is a self- perpetuating, dynamic whole--spirit—whose articulation follows a rational plan that is revealed in art, , and philosophy, the three aspects of absolute spirit. What distinguishes art is that it remains tied to sensible form, that is, to the perceptible, particular work; religion and, even more so, philosophy have as their aim the articulation of truth in purely universal, that is to say, general terms. It is for this reason that art is the Ideal, for Hegel, a term that indicates the ineradicable presence of individuality and not the thorough-going universality of the Concept— 4 his term for the fullest grasp of . Our selection from Hegel's Aesthetics—another compilation from student transcriptions and the master's own lecture notes—begins with a general description of the nature of art. Hegel's philosophic is to start with an abstract description of a certain idea or concept and then to show in more detail to what that idea or concept really amounts. Here, his first, very general claim is that art, as the Ideal, must be a totality. As in all aspects of Hegel's philosophy, this view is developed through the use of a number of philosophic concepts whose meaning is often hard to grasp. A totality, in Hegel's specific sense, is a particular type of whole, namely one in which each part reflects the nature of the whole. By analogy, in an organic whole such as the human body, the function of each part (for example, seeing for the eye) can only be comprehended with reference to the totality. In claiming that an art object is a totality, Hegel is asserting that each of its elements must reflect the con-tent of the entire work, thereby conveying a sense of profound integration. Hegel goes on to explore some of the implications of this view, asserting that "inner" and "outer" must be harmonized in a work of art. What this means becomes clearer when we realize that Hegel uses this claim to criticize those conceptions of art, back to , that characterize it as imitative and its truth as mere correctness or accuracy of . He rejects so formal a conception of art—for him, art must have a content that is true. Once we recall that Hegel thinks art functions to reveal metaphysical truth, we can understand why he rejects formalism in favor of a more substantive conception of art's truth. This claim gains more precision in Hegel's discussion of portraiture. There, he rejects the idea that a portrait should slavishly resemble its sitter's appearance; instead, it needs to display the subject's inner character through its depiction of external appearance. To do this requires that the painter idealize the sitter, ignoring many idiosyncrasies of appearance the better to reveal essential character. Hegel's examples of successful portraiture are the Madonnas of Raphael. In the second section of our selection from his Aesthetics, Hegel differentiates three distinct species of art. This typology is characteristic of his general philosophy for, although it is developed as a set of logical distinctions within the concept of art itself, it simultaneously constitutes a sequence of historical types recapitulating art's toward its own essence. The first type of art is symbolic, by which Hegel means art that has not yet embodied that harmony of form and content that he has just posited as its truth, for its content is too abstract. What he has in mind here are works from ancient Egypt—for example, the Sphinx—or India, and he criticizes these works for depicting only an eternal and unchanging realm and thereby failing to represent the dynamic nature of reality. is the art form that, for Hegel, remains locked in this perspective. Hegel next discusses classical art, the art of ancient Greece, for him an advance over the symbolic, containing a higher degree of individuality. Although for Hegel typifies classic art, his of Greek art here are the , especially those of Sophocles. Two features of such works mark them as an advance in the development of art. The first is that the characters, although they remain types, have become individualized. The second is that their stories reveal tensions inherent in the greater drama that is human history. Although for Hegel these works are paradigms of art, in that their unity of form and content can never be equaled, they are not the complete realization of the concept of art. Only romantic art fully realizes Hegel's conception of art as the Ideal, for it embodies a more complete conception of subjectivity than do the two earlier forms. As such, it is able to present, 5 through its images, a sensory version of the metaphysical truth that all reality is spirit developing toward self-consciousness through human history. Shakespeare's plays, with their more self- conscious and reflective characters, such as Hamlet, are examples of this form of art. Because of its presentation of inwardness—characters who think self-consciously about themselves and their situation—this type of art cannot be realized in three dimensions, but only in painting, music, and literature. Hegel's teleological conception of art as historical process, developing into its true nature as the beautiful Ideal, also gives rise to his famous thesis of the death of art. Although there is a great deal of scholarly disagreement over what exactly this amounts to, it is clear that Hegel thinks that, in his day, art has fulfilled its mission and should be replaced by philosophy. In our own day and against all expectation, gives Hegel's improbable thesis new life in his contention that contemporary art has become philosophy).