Against the sociology of art

Philosophy of the Social Sciences

Volumn 32, Issue 2, 2002, Pages 206-218

  Zangwill, Nick ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW   (United Kingdom)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0038893509     PISSN: 00483931     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/004931032002004     Document Type: Article

References (39)

1. If we hold such a view, we can be shy of committing ourselves to a particular theory of aesthetic properties. We can bracket off that issue as a separate topic. The point is to see how far we can get in understanding art by giving an account that draws on aesthetic properties - whatever their nature. Such a theory can be constructed with the true nature of aesthetic properties as a variable. For one such account, see Monroe Beardsley, "The Aesthetic Definition of Art," in What Is Art? edited by Hugh Curtler (New York: Haven, 1983); for another, see Nick Zangwill, "The Creative Theory of Art," American Philosophical Quarterly, 32(1995):315-32; and Nick Zangwill, "Aesthetic Functionalism," in Aesthetic Concepts: Sibley and After, edited by Emily Brady and Jerrold Levinson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
2. If we hold such a view, we can be shy of committing ourselves to a particular theory of aesthetic properties. We can bracket off that issue as a separate topic. The point is to see how far we can get in understanding art by giving an account that draws on aesthetic properties - whatever their nature. Such a theory can be constructed with the true nature of aesthetic properties as a variable. For one such account, see Monroe Beardsley, "The Aesthetic Definition of Art," in What Is Art? edited by Hugh Curtler (New York: Haven, 1983); for another, see Nick Zangwill, "The Creative Theory of Art," American Philosophical Quarterly, 32(1995):315-32; and Nick Zangwill, "Aesthetic Functionalism," in Aesthetic Concepts: Sibley and After, edited by Emily Brady and Jerrold Levinson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
3. If we hold such a view, we can be shy of committing ourselves to a particular theory of aesthetic properties. We can bracket off that issue as a separate topic. The point is to see how far we can get in understanding art by giving an account that draws on aesthetic properties - whatever their nature. Such a theory can be constructed with the true nature of aesthetic properties as a variable. For one such account, see Monroe Beardsley, "The Aesthetic Definition of Art," in What Is Art? edited by Hugh Curtler (New York: Haven, 1983); for another, see Nick Zangwill, "The Creative Theory of Art," American Philosophical Quarterly, 32(1995):315-32; and Nick Zangwill, "Aesthetic Functionalism," in Aesthetic Concepts: Sibley and After, edited by Emily Brady and Jerrold Levinson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
4. Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984); Terry Eagleton, The Ideology of the Aesthetic (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984).
5. Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984); Terry Eagleton, The Ideology of the Aesthetic (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984).
6. See Nick Zangwill, "Against the Sociology of Taste," Cultural Values Journal 5(2001), reprinted in Nick Zangwill, Metaphysics of Beauty (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), chap. 12.
7. See Nick Zangwill, "Against the Sociology of Taste," Cultural Values Journal 5(2001), reprinted in Nick Zangwill, Metaphysics of Beauty (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), chap. 12.
8. Griselda Pollock, Vision and Difference (London: Routledge, 1988), 27.
9. Janet Wolff, The Social Production of Art (New York: Methuen, 1984), esp. 7, conclusion.
10. Howard Becker, Art Worlds (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982).
11. Ibid., ix-x.
12. Nick Zangwill, "Groundrules in the Philosophy of Art," Philosophy 70(1995):533-544.
13. Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972).
14. See Serge Guilbaut, How New York Stole the Idea of the Avant Garde (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983). See also David Wise, "Spook Art," ArtNews, September 2000; and Frances Stonar, The Cultural Cold War (New York: New Press, 2000).
15. See Serge Guilbaut, How New York Stole the Idea of the Avant Garde (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983). See also David Wise, "Spook Art," ArtNews, September 2000; and Frances Stonar, The Cultural Cold War (New York: New Press, 2000).
16. See Serge Guilbaut, How New York Stole the Idea of the Avant Garde (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983). See also David Wise, "Spook Art," ArtNews, September 2000; and Frances Stonar, The Cultural Cold War (New York: New Press, 2000).
17. Kant, Critique of Judgement, translated by James Creed Meredith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1928), 65-66.
18. Note that there is absolutely no reason to think that an aesthetic theory of art is committed to some doctrine of the "autonomy" of art. That is setting up a straw man: a work of art can have aesthetic values that depend on the meaning of the work, and aesthetic values need not be the only values of a work. Moreover, an aesthetic theory need not privilege high or fine art forms. Nor need it be committed to extreme formalism about aesthetic properties. Kant, for example, was committed to none of this.
19. One very interesting art historian who respects social facts but does not reject aesthetic value is Michael Baxandall. See, for example, his Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972) and Patterns of Intention (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985). Contrast Janet Wolff's book, The Social Production of Art, which contains little or no empirical evidence. She merely cites the authority of other sociological writers. See also her Aesthetics and the Sociology of Art (London: Allen & Unwin, 1983), for the same flaws.
20. One very interesting art historian who respects social facts but does not reject aesthetic value is Michael Baxandall. See, for example, his Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972) and Patterns of Intention (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985). Contrast Janet Wolff's book, The Social Production of Art, which contains little or no empirical evidence. She merely cites the authority of other sociological writers. See also her Aesthetics and the Sociology of Art (London: Allen & Unwin, 1983), for the same flaws.
21. One very interesting art historian who respects social facts but does not reject aesthetic value is Michael Baxandall. See, for example, his Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972) and Patterns of Intention (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985). Contrast Janet Wolff's book, The Social Production of Art, which contains little or no empirical evidence. She merely cites the authority of other sociological writers. See also her Aesthetics and the Sociology of Art (London: Allen & Unwin, 1983), for the same flaws.
22. One very interesting art historian who respects social facts but does not reject aesthetic value is Michael Baxandall. See, for example, his Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972) and Patterns of Intention (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985). Contrast Janet Wolff's book, The Social Production of Art, which contains little or no empirical evidence. She merely cites the authority of other sociological writers. See also her Aesthetics and the Sociology of Art (London: Allen & Unwin, 1983), for the same flaws.
23. See Richard Peterson, "Cultural Standing through the Production Perspective," in The Sociology of Culture, edited by Diana Crane (London: Routledge, 1994), 175.
24. It is an irony that one part of cultural production that might plausibly be submitted for sociological explanation is the twentieth-century theoretical rejection of the aesthetic by sociologists of art. Sociologists are remarkably shy of applying their techniques to their own views!
25. The so-called "new" art history was keen to unearth ideological properties of works of art (and also of writings about them). See The New Art History, edited by A. L. Rees and Frances Borzello (London: Camden, 1986). But in fact the "old" art history was never the naive stereotype that it was made out to be. Earnst Gombrich is as canny as any on this score.
26. See Clement Greenberg: Collected Essays and Criticism, 4 vols., edited by John O'Brian (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986). See also Clement Greenberg's writings in Modernism and Modernity, edited by Benjamin Buchloch, Serge Guilbaut, and David Solkin (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: Nova Scotia Press, 1981): "To Cope with Decadence," his contributions to the discussion on T. J. Clark's paper (pp. 188-93), and his contributions to the general panel discussion (pp. 265-77). See also Clement Greenberg, Homemade Esthetics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
27. See Clement Greenberg: Collected Essays and Criticism, 4 vols., edited by John O'Brian (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986). See also Clement Greenberg's writings in Modernism and Modernity, edited by Benjamin Buchloch, Serge Guilbaut, and David Solkin (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: Nova Scotia Press, 1981): "To Cope with Decadence," his contributions to the discussion on T. J. Clark's paper (pp. 188-93), and his contributions to the general panel discussion (pp. 265-77). See also Clement Greenberg, Homemade Esthetics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
28. See Clement Greenberg: Collected Essays and Criticism, 4 vols., edited by John O'Brian (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986). See also Clement Greenberg's writings in Modernism and Modernity, edited by Benjamin Buchloch, Serge Guilbaut, and David Solkin (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: Nova Scotia Press, 1981): "To Cope with Decadence," his contributions to the discussion on T. J. Clark's paper (pp. 188-93), and his contributions to the general panel discussion (pp. 265-77). See also Clement Greenberg, Homemade Esthetics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
29. See Clement Greenberg: Collected Essays and Criticism, 4 vols., edited by John O'Brian (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986). See also Clement Greenberg's writings in Modernism and Modernity, edited by Benjamin Buchloch, Serge Guilbaut, and David Solkin (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: Nova Scotia Press, 1981): "To Cope with Decadence," his contributions to the discussion on T. J. Clark's paper (pp. 188-93), and his contributions to the general panel discussion (pp. 265-77). See also Clement Greenberg, Homemade Esthetics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
30. See "Modernist Painting," in Clement Greenberg: Collected Essays and Criticism, vol. 4.
31. See Baxandall's Painting and Experience, where he describes an economic system in which works of art were exchanged differently from the way works of art have been bought and sold as commodities for most of the twentieth century.
32. The CIA funded exhibitions in Paris in 1952 and in Vienna in 1959. See Wise, "Spook Art," 163.
33. Plato says that "beauty is what is pleasant through hearing and sight" (Hippias Major, 298a.). Aquinus says, "Those things we call beautiful are those that please when they are seen" (Suma Theologiae, I.5.4.ad.I). Moreover, the idea that some things "delight the eyes" can be found in Genesis (II.9, III.6) and in Homer (Odyssey, book IV, line 51).
34. See Nick Zangill, "UnKantian Notions of Disinterest," British Journal of Aesthetics, 32 (1992): 149-52; and Nick Zangill, "Kant on Pleasure in the Agreeable," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 53 (1995): 167-76.
35. See Nick Zangill, "UnKantian Notions of Disinterest," British Journal of Aesthetics, 32 (1992): 149-52; and Nick Zangill, "Kant on Pleasure in the Agreeable," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 53 (1995): 167-76.
36. See Jerry Levinson, "Pleasure and the Value of the Arts," in Pleasure, Value and the Arts (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995).
37. Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), 112.
38. See Nick Zangwill, "Art and Audience," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 1999.
39. Kant notes that although art making involves the productive imagination, it also involves taste or judgement. See Kant, Critique of Judgement, sec. 50.