Transcript NOTES ON DAVIES, chapter 3

PHILOSOPHY 105 (STOLZE)
Notes on Stephen Davies,
The Philosophy of Art,
chapter 8
Evaluation and Functionality
• “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
Rules, Universality, and Objectivity
in Artistic Evaluation
“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)
The Purpose and Form of Artistic Evaluation
“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).
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).
Art and Morality
• Should “true art” project moral values and contribute to the betterment
of society?
• Should an artwork’s immorality undermine its claims to artistic merit?
Morality in Documentaries and Fictions
Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will vs. Charlie Chaplin’s The Great
Dictator
Eduardo Kac’s Transgenic Bunny, Alba
Gunther von Hagens’ Body Worlds