Asethetics is the philosophy of art.
The first important question is: What is art? An ordinary kitchen table is presumably not a work of art, but Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is. Philosophers call this the problems of the ontology of art- What it is about an object that makes it art?
One possible answer is that art is beautiful. But not all beautiful things are art. Sunsets, lanscapes, and certain people are beautiful but are not works of art. Anouther possible answer is that art represents something or conveys a message. However, the footage from a security camrea represents something- namely, the people it records- but that footage is not art. Likewise, sentences of English convey a message, but that does not mean that all sentences of English are artworks, though some may be.
Anouther important question in philosophical aesthetics is: What are we saying when we evaluate art? If we say of some painting "This is beautiful," or "This is good art," are we just saying that we like the painting or that it pleases us? If so, one observer may say a painting is beautiful, while anouther says it is ugly without disagreeing. All the first statement means is that the painting pleased the first observer, while all the second statement means is that it did not please the second observer. Neither statement alleges any general truth about the painting. The difficult with this approach is that appears to leave no room for arguing, or reasoning, about the value of art. It also leaves no room for the concept of taste, the idea that some people are better able to than others to determine what is good art and why.
Other questions in aesthetics include: What is a genre? What makes something a novel rather than a long poem? Aestheticians also consider: What is the purpose of art? What is valuable about art, and why should we care about it?
the Intellectual Devotional
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David S. Kidder & Noah D. Oppenheim
