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PHILOSOPHY 105 (STOLZE)

PHILOSOPHY 105 (STOLZE). Notes on Stephen Davies, The Philosophy of Art , chapter 8.

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PHILOSOPHY 105 (STOLZE)

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  1. PHILOSOPHY 105 (STOLZE) Notes on Stephen Davies, The Philosophy of Art, chapter 8

  2. “One way we evaluate humanly designed items is in terms of how well they perform their functions. A good X is an X that successfully does what X’s are supposed to do….As humanly made objects, artworks can be evaluated in functional terms. A good artwork will be one that does the job for which we make such things. What job is that?” (p. 202) Primary and secondary functions of artworks Evaluation and Functionality

  3. “Is the value of art regulated by rules? Are there any practical principles that can be guaranteed to produce a good artwork if the artist follows them successfully? Many philosophers, dating back to the eighteenth century and earlier, have thought not.” (p. 204) Rules, Universality, and Objectivity in Artistic Evaluation

  4. “Typically, we are interested in determining the value things have not exclusively in order to record that knowledge but also to direct preferences and guide actions, either our own or those of others” (p. 208). The Purpose and Form of Artistic Evaluation

  5. What is Rewarding about the Experience of Art? • Art is a Source of Pleasure = an intrinsic value • Art is Educative = an extrinsic value • Objection 1: fictional worlds cannot teach us anything • Objection 2: abstract works have no representational content and so cannot comment on the actual world • Objection 3: we can learn about the world from art but this is possible only when we adopt an inappropriate attitude to the work • Messages = “like the product of any action, works of art can be symptomatic of the attitudes and values of their creator and of other of the circumstances of creation. Sometimes these are referred to as messages conveyed through, rather than in, art” (p. 218).

  6. Should “true art” project moral values and contribute to the betterment of society? Should an artwork’s immorality undermine its claims to artistic merit? Art and Morality

  7. Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will vs. Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator Morality in Documentaries and Fictions

  8. Eduardo Kac’s Transgenic Bunny, Alba

  9. Gunther von Hagens’ Body Worlds

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