Art is a practice fundamental to human life. From famous pieces exhibited in museum and the works of the literary canon, to pop cultural items like TV shows, video games and digital media, to mundane objects like the clothes we wear and the furniture we decorate our homes with, we are surrounded by artefacts that are the product of artistic or artistic-adjacent practices. We seek art for many reasons: to pursue beauty or other values, to create meaning or make sense of the human experience, to affirm ourselves as individuals or in relation to others as social agents.
Traditionally, philosophers have sought to address the Big Questions about art. What makes something a work of art? What is the relationship between art and aesthetic, moral, or cognitive value? What is the function of art? What is the role of the author in determining meaning? Nowadays, it is also common for philosophers of art to think about more applications to aesthetics to more immediate issues such as the relevance of art to social and political life, the emergence of new technologies and modes of being, or the aesthetics of everyday objects. In this course, we will be engaging with selected readings from the perspective of each of these approaches.
Rather than providing an overall survey or diving into a specific subfield of the philosophy of art, the aim of this course is to approach the philosophy of art through the perspective of the variety of uses it can be put to, from theorizing about the canonical questions to incorporating aesthetic thinking into practical life. While we will become acquainted with a variety of traditional approaches, we will also engage with them from the perspective of recent writings, reflecting the current state of academic research in the philosophy of art.
The language of instruction is English.
- Opettaja
Laura Nicoara