I wrote: > > Given all this, the best we can ever hope for in a search to justify > the use > of the word 'art' (as an activity, or collection, etc) would be to allow > the > usage of a new term, "me-art". An analogy would be a "me-meaning" -- as > when > people might say, "Let me tell you what 'the good life' means to me." "You > may > think me peculiar, but, for me, there are many moments in the movie EVITA > that > I'd call art -- well, okay, art for me, any way. Definitely me-art." > Michael responds: > > I disagree with this. It sounds like you are making "art" synonymous with > "aesthetic experience," which then makes any discussion of the AE of a WoA > a > tautology or a circular argument: If the work does not produce an AE, it > is > not a WoA; if the work has no A, then it will not produce an AE. > There's a crucial distinction here: It's between saying, "I'd call that art," and "I say that IS art." Whether we are talking about an activity, a work, collection, talent, or "quality", etcetera, I would never seriously say, "That IS art," in the sense of imputing to it some mind-independent ontic status.
But I might say, "In this conversation I will use the word 'art' to label all and only those works that give me what I think of as an aesthetic experience." In other words, this specification about when I use the word 'art' is solely to help the readers follow what's on my mind if he wants to. E.g. I am NOT saying, "There exists a category of individual works that give Cheerskep what he calls an 'a.e.'; all and only the works in that category constitute the collection of works that ARE, ACTUALLY, in the absolute mind-independent category of WORKS OF ART." I personally don't believe there is any activity, work, collection/category, gift/talent, or property/quality that "IS" "art" ( or "artfulness" etc.) The use of the word 'art' has metastisized so wildly, so uncontrolledly, because though the human mind was clever enough to devise language, it has not been nearly clever enough to make its use foolproof. For some purposes, language is still in a primitive stage comparable to riflery soon after its invention, when the projectiles were spherical metal balls There are certainly works, in every genre I know of, that occasion in me an a.e., and I'd love to be able to say why that happens -- in specific terms, not "it happens because they are art!", which tells me nothing. But this forum has consistently not cottoned to "the cause(s) of aesthetic experiences" as a topic.
