Aesthetics and Art
Lecture 2
PHIL 2618/3681
Professor David Macarthur
“Aesthetics” in C18 Germany
• Baumgarten (1739): “Aesthetics… is the
science of sensitive cognition”.
• We might say it concerns interesting
perceptible properties.
• “Sensitive cognition” sounds like an
oxymoron!
• How could something sensory be a form of
cognition (knowledge, understanding, truth)?
Beauty and the Sublime
• C18: great interest in the beautiful and the
sublime in nature; and in art & architecture.
• Q: What about other aesthetic terms e.g.
dainty, graceful, ugly, unbalanced…
• Central idea: the freedom of the imagination
as represented by the artistic genius.
Lecture 1 - Summary
• Plato: “art” (craft) = an imitation of nature (often
human nature) or its “appearances”.
• Art concerns a non-cognitive (not-knowing)
emotional experience.
• Plato recognizes that there are many ideas of
‘imitation’: imitating a look, or a sound;
impersonating human character or action, etc.
• Plato also speaks of ‘imitating’ the Forms by way
of imperfect instantiation. Note Forms, being
abstract, have no appearances.
Aristotle’s “Yes, but…” Qualifications of
Plato
• Art is imitative not of actual nature but of
possible nature (what it might become as
opposed to what it is). Art concerns the plausible.
• Art is not theoretical knowledge but involves
practical knowledge about character, how to act
and live well.
• Art is emotive but not dangerously so. Tragedy,
which arouses pity and fear, can also dissipate
these emotions through catharsis.
Platonic Insights
• Art as a from of inspired craftsmanship is an
artefact: something made by human intentional
activity for some purpose.
• Q: What is the purpose of art?
• It may have some representational content which
falls short of knowledge.
• Q: if art is not knowledge how can it seem to be
knowledge?
• Art has great (perhaps dangerous) emotive power
which leads Plato into questions of censorship.
Plato’s Banishment of Poetry from the
Just City
• Background: In ancient Greek life, epic and dramatic
poetry (which involved a chorus, actors and dancers)
was used for educational purposes.
• Poetic presentations of heroic deeds of men and Gods
provided morally authoritative exemplars of noble
characters and action.
• Plato only banishes poetry from the “just city” – not
painting or music or sculpture.
• This cannot be a matter of its imitative nature or its
emotional impact since all of these arts are imitative
and emotional.
• Why is poetry, in particular, singled out?
Plato on Emotion in Art
• Art has a powerful destablizing effects on us:
(1) It appeals to the non-rational part of us
and so is dangerous and must be controlled;
(2) Its content is not constrained by the state
or the political will. It is, according to the
Platonic myth, divinely inspired; that is, it is free
or autonomous in what it is about and the
means used.
Emotion & Politics
• Art, through its emotive power, can suggest
alternative ways to be, alternative things to
value – again something dangerous from the
point of view of dictators and authoritarian
politics.
• Recall how “degenerate” art was banished and
artists imprisioned by Hitler, Mao and the
Khmer Rouge.
Emotion: Two Visions
• For Plato emotion is an affective non-cognitive state that
has ungovernable action tendencies. E.g. fear, anger,
elation, love.
• For Aristotle emotion is affective and (partially) cognitive. It
can be sensitive, to some extent, to reason.
• Is emotion a non-rational disruptive force in our lives as
Plato, Hume, Freud (etc.) think or is it a quasi-rational state
that can be reasoned with and that is a form of cognition as
Aristotle, neo-Kantians (etc.) think?
• How is one to argue for a vision of human nature? One’s
basic way of seeing things is an unargued starting point in
discussion.
R.G. Collingwood
§ 1889–1943
§ Maverick Oxford philosopher
§ A trained archeologist and historian.
§ Both of his parents were artists.
Art vs Craft
• Since C18 we distinguish “art proper” (fine
art) from craft (the useful arts, mere craft).
• Craft involves distinctions between
– Means and end
– Planning and execution
– Raw materials and finished product
– Form and matter
• Art need not involve any of these, and
certainly not all of them.
Pseudo-Art
• “Representation… is always means to an end… the re-evocation of certain
emotions.”
• So representation is a craft with a predetermined end in view.
• Collingwood distinguishes two forms of representational “pseudo-art”:
1. “Magic art” arouses specific emotions by way of representation for spiritual or
practical ends. e.g. cave painting.
2. “Entertainment art” arouses specific emotions by way of representation for
amusement.
• Because magic art and entertainment art are directed at a certain goal both are
forms of craft (not art) according to Collingwood. They are means to some pre-
determined spiritual or practical end by way of representation – a device of
craftwork.

Art Proper
• True art expresses the artist’s emotion through
a process of self-discovery.
• Pseudo-art arouses the audience’s emotion as
a predetermined end.
• The emotion expressed by an artwork is that
of the artist.
• Note the important link Collingwood sees
between art and self-knowledge.
What is Emotion?
1. Emotions are often thought to have “objects” e.g. the loved person,
the feared dog. Are these intentional objects? Or perhaps only
causal triggers?
2. Emotions may involve, or are related to, certain views about the
world e.g. pride typically involves a belief that one has done
something worthy, creditable.
3. Emotions are action tendencies: if one is afraid of the dog then one
will avoid it.
4. Emotions involve seeing-as: in anger I see another as offensive.
6. Distinguish complex emotions (e.g. pride, shame, pity) from simple
emotions (e.g. anger, joy).
Emotions are or include complex psychological states that it makes
sense to think we could be unclear or confused about (in contrast
to mere feelings like pain).
Art = Expression of Emotion
• Art is the expression of emotion.
• But what does Collingwood mean by
“expression” here?
• Not mere expression. Not just betraying or
exhibiting emotion. E.g. showing signs of
anger is not an artwork.
• Nor does it mean arousing emotion in an
audience.
Representation and Expression
• One can employ Collingwood’s theory to
representational art so long as one relaxes
Collingwood’s own view of representation as having a
predetermined goal.
• Representational art can be understood in terms of the
expression of emotion.
• This inclusiveness is a strength of the expressive theory
of art.
• So it is possible to read Plato as an expressivist about
poetry at least. That is, poetic ‘imitations’ of nature can
be thought of as expressing certain emotions since on
Plato’s own grounds poetry is not a genuine craft.
Stages in the Artistic Process
• At first the artist is merely conscious of having
some inchoate emotion, which is oppressive.
• Then they express the emotion in some physical
art medium, e.g., words, marble, sounds, paint.
• Through artistic expression the emotion becomes
conscious and determinate by being articulated,
symbolized etc. In this form one is no longer
oppressed by it.
• Cp. Freudian psychoanalysis.
Collingwood vs Tolstoy
• The physically realized expression leads oneself
and the audience to understand how one feels.
But it is not required that one feels exactly the
same emotion oneself.
• Contrast this with Tolstoy’s “infection theory” of
art.
• In Tolstoy’s view (in What is Art?) an artist
“infects” other people, through their art, with
the precise feeling that the artist experienced
themselves in reality or imagination.
Description & Two Kinds of Expression
• Distinguish mere (non-deliberative) expressions
of anger (“Ouch!”) describing anger “I’m really
angry!” and conscious or deliberative expression.
• Note these are not exclusive categories: one can
express anger by describing it!
• Collingwood is interested in the difference
between the general description of emotion and
a particular form of deliberative expression of it.
Embodiment
• Expression is essentially embodied or mediated.
• The emotion does not exist apart from its
embodiment. It is not something that exists, say,
in the head.
• Works of art exist in the publically accessible
media of their various embodiments.
• To explore one’s emotions is to explore the
artistic medium through which they are
expressed.
Art is Deliberative
• On Collingwood’s view the activity of art is a
conscious, intentional, directed activity of
expression by way of some art-specific
medium to some audience.
• If the requisite deliberative activity does not
transpire, then there is no art.
A Common Humanity
• Collingwood’s master idea: whenever a person
has articulated their feeling (based on some
apprehension of the world) sufficiently to make it
accessible to others, then they have produced a
work of art.
• This idea relies on the idea of a common
humanity i.e. a sharable understanding of human
responsiveness to the world, including the modes
of expressivity employed by artworks.
Art & Self-Knowledge
• The artist’s self-discovery represents a
possible self-discovery on the part of the
audience with respect to their own (actual or
potential) feelings.
• The artist’s process of self-knowledge is tested
by its communicability to others; emotional
clarity is a matter of one’s objectified
expression being understandable to others.
Art & Modern Skepticism
• Idea: An artwork is analogous to another mind.
• Suggestion: Art is a realm in which the issue of
our comprehensibility to one another is explored.
• Our responsiveness to art emblematizes our
comprehensibility to one another; our lack of
responsiveness to art emblematizes our lack of
comprehensibility.
• Modern art often strikes its audience as
incomprehensible.
The Importance of Art
• The importance of this depends upon a threat to
the very idea of our being comprehensible to one
another in modern philosophy.
• This is what philosophy calls skepticism about
other minds.
• Art both engages with the skeptical stance of
incomprehensibility and the non-skeptical stance
of comprehensibility.
• The importance of art, then, concerns the
importance of overcoming skepticism of other
minds, our common need for love and fellowship.
Art & Intimacy
• Agreement in our responses to art is a source of
intimacy which contrasts with factual agreements
about objective matters e.g. about the weather
or the price of petrol.
• It is not based on compelling evidence, nor is it
guaranteed.
• Art can be a source of intimacy between
strangers: the instant rapport you feel with
someone who shares your love of film, novel,
dance, opera, etc. or particular examples of these
or the artists who made them.

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