In a message dated 5/1/08 1:09:46 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> No
> matter how you approach a division of objects into a taxonomy, there will be
> borderline cases that arise.
>
My question here will be hard for me to articulate, because my notion is so
unfamiliar serviceable words to convey it aren't easy to come by.
I'll try this: Then why do you believe there is a "thing" you'd call a
"kind"?
We'd rarely if ever use the word 'cat-ness', but if we did, it would be to
convey a collection of physical and perhaps "social" characteristics, and it
would probably do a serviceable job. But some of us would be hesitant to claim
it
was citing an entity, an "essence", a "kind", a quasi-Platonic "quality",
"catness".
Aristotle claimed these characteristics -- "properties" -- are "what make a
thing what it "IS"." No -- they're simply the observable characteristics that,
in assemblage, make us CALL the individual animal "a cat".
Wittgenstein's favorite word to convey what's at issue here was 'game'. In
effect he thought it was ridiculous to believe that an activity either IS or IS
NOT a "game". Some people accept a certain bunch of characteristics as
sufficient for them to call a given activity "a game". Others may demand other
characteristics. (I call words like 'game' and 'catness" and 'art' "cluster
words", but I won't try to wedge an extended description of that notion here.)
Your position sems to be like unto Malraux's and Derek's: things in the
center "between the poles" ARE "art", but as we get further from that center it
becomes harder to tell if they "ARE art or not." But by them, everything either
is or is not "art", though we mortals may have difficulty discerning which it
is in individual cases, which implies that if an object is close enough, pop,
it IS "art".
You've now conveyed ("the actual content of any a.e. is irrelevant to whether
something is or is not art.") that you also believe in some sort of absolute
status as "art". So, again, why do you believe there exists a "kind", that
"is" "art"?
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