A note on art and historical concepts

British Journal of Aesthetics

Volumn 40, Issue 1, 2000, Pages 186-190

  Currie, Gregory ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 61149480053     PISSN: 00070904     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/bjaesthetics/40.1.186     Document Type: Note

References (18)

1. For the view that art is an historical concept, see Jerrold Levinson, 'Defining Art Historically', British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 19 (1979), pp. 232-250,
2. and 'Refining Art Historically', Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 47 (1989), pp. 21-33,
3. reprinted in his Music, Art and Metaphysics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell U.P., 1990).
4. See also Noël Carroll, 'Art, Practice and Narrative', The Monist, vol. 71 (1988), pp. 140-156;
5. and James Carney, 'The Style Theory of Art', Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 72 (1991), pp. 272-289.
6. All these authors claim more than that art is an historical concept; they have specific theories about the ways in which art is an historical concept. For criticisms of these specific proposals, see, for example, Crispin Sartwell, 'A Counterexample to Levinson's Historical Theory of Art', Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 48 (1990), pp. 157-15;
7. Graham Oppy, 'On Defining Art Historically', British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 32 (1992), pp. 153-161;
8. and Gregory Currie, 'Aliens, Too', Analysis, vol. 53 (1993), pp. 116-118. But I was careful to say that art might, in some sense, be an historical concept. Thus the present essay.
9. Thus Levinson emphasizes that 'the meaning of 'art at t' is to be given in terms of the extension [that is, the actual extension] of 'art prior to t' (Music, Art and Metaphysics, p. 15, emphasis in the original).
10. See my The Nature of Fiction (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1990), ch. 3.
11. See also Robert Stalnaker, 'Assertion', in P. Cole (ed.), Syntax and Semantics, vol. 9 (New York: Academic Press, 1979);
12. Martin Davies and Lloyd Humerstone, 'Two Notions of Necessity', Philosophical Studies, vol. 38 (1980), pp. 1-30;
13. David Chalmers, The Conscious Mind (New York: Oxford U.P., 1996), pp. 56-65;
14. and Frank Jackson, From Metaphysics to Ethics (Oxford: Oxford U.P., 1998), esp. chs 2 and 3. I am especially indebted to Jackson's discussion.
15. See also Krister Segerberg, 'Two-dimensional Modal Logic', Journal of Philosophical Logic, vol. 2 (1973), pp. 77-96.
16. On natural kinds, see Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980),
17. and Hilary Putnam, 'The Meaning of Meaning', in Mind, Language and Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1975).
18. Levinson says that, while he recognizes 'a certain indexical element' in art, he does not think that art is a natural kind (Music, Art and Metaphysics, p. 38, n. 3).