My dissertation explores the nature of artifacts – things like chairs, tables, and pinball machines – and addresses the question of whether there is anything essential to being an artifact and a member of a particular artifact kind. My dissertation offers new arguments against both the anti-essentialist and current essentialist proposals. Roughly put, the view is that artifacts are successful products of an intention to make something with certain features constitutive of an artifact kind. The constitutive features are often functional (...) features, but may include structural, material, aesthetic, and other features. I further explore the ways in which artifacts are mind-dependent and I argue that this dependence is disjunctive. Not only do they depend on the intentions of their makers, but they also can depend on social groups or public norms and thus artifacts have an importantly social dimension and I argue that this disjunctive account applies not to artifact kinds but to individual artifacts depending on their context of creation. (shrink)

Making an adequate aesthetic judgment about an object or an aesthetic property requires first-hand experience of that object or property. Many have suggested that this principle is a valid epistemic norm in the epistemology of the aesthetic. However, some recent philosophers have argued that certain works of conceptual art and other counterexamples disprove the principle in question, even suitably modified. In this paper, I argue that these philosophers are mistaken and that, when properly qualified, the acquaintance principle (in some of (...) its versions) is not threatened by their examples and arguments. (shrink)

When is an artwork complete? Most hold that the correct answer to this question is psychological in nature. A work is said to be complete just in case the artist regards it as complete or is appropriately disposed to act as if he or she did. Even though this view seems strongly supported by metaphysical, epistemological, and normative considerations, this article argues that such psychologism about completeness is mistaken, fundamentally, because it cannot make sense of the artist's own perspective on (...) his or her work. For the artist, the question is not about his or her own psychology, but about the character of the work and the context in which he or she works. A nonpsychological account of completeness, on which completeness is a question of whether the work satisfies the conditions implicit in the artist's plan, avoids this problem and is equally or better able to explain the metaphysical, epistemic, and normative phenomena which appeared to support psychologism. (shrink)

We discuss how analysis of contemporary artworks has shaped philosophical theories about the concept of art, the ontology of art, and artistic media. The rapid expansion, during the contemporary period, of the kinds of things that can count as artworks has prompted a shift toward procedural definitions, which focus on how artworks are selected, and away from definitions that focus exclusively on artworks’ features or effects. Some contemporary artworks challenge the traditional art–ontological dichotomy between physical particulars and repeatable entities whose (...) occurrences are physical particulars. And nontraditional techniques and materials employed in contemporary art violate the boundaries of conventional media, prompting a rethinking of what artistic medium might be. (shrink)

Repeatable artworks like musical works have presented theorists in the ontology of art with a puzzle. They seem in some respects like eternal, immutable objects and in others like created, historical objects. Creationists have embraced the latter appearances and attempted to compel Platonists to follow them. I examine in detail each argument in a cumulative case for Creationism, showing how the Platonist can respond. The conclusion is that the debate between Platonists and Creationists is a stalemate. In order for progress (...) to be made in the first-order debate, second-order progress on the metaontology of art needs to come first. (shrink)

Repeatable artworks like musical works have presented theorists in the ontology of art with a puzzle. They seem in some respects like eternal, immutable objects and in others like created, historical objects. Creationists have embraced the latter appearances and attempted to compel Platonists to follow them. I examine in detail each argument in a cumulative case for Creationism, showing how the Platonist can respond. The conclusion is that the debate between Platonists and Creationists is a stalemate. In order for progress (...) to be made in the first-order debate, second-order progress on the metaontology of art needs to come first. (shrink)

First critical survey devoted to the history of philosophical contributions to this topic. Brings to light neglected contributions prior to the second half of the 20th century including works in Danish, German, and French. Provides a division of issues and clarifies key ambiguities related to modality.

The ontology of visual artworks might be thought comparable to the ontology of other sorts of artifacts: a work of painting seems to be materially constituted by a particular canvas with paint on it, just as a spoon is constituted by a particular piece of metal. But recent developments have complicated the situation, requiring a new account of the ontology of contemporary art. These developments also shed light on the ontology of works from earlier historical eras. This article discusses Artworks (...) as Events, Artworks as Abstract Entities, and Artworks and Norms. (shrink)

I introduce and explicate a new functionalist account of art, namely that something is an artwork iff the fulfillment of its function by a subject requires that the subject aesthetically engage it. This is the Aesthetic Engagement Theory of art. I show how the Aesthetic Engagement Theory outperforms salient rival theories in terms of extensional adequacy, non-arbitrariness, and ability to account for the distinctive value of art. I also give an account of what it is to aesthetically engage a work (...) that relies on our agential capacity to treat an object as having non-instrumental value, even while the ultimate purpose for our engaging the object is to get something from it. (shrink)

Este artigo aborda as principais teorias sobre a natureza metafísica das obras de arte, cobrindo as propostas eliminativistas, monistas e pluralistas. Entre estas últimas, é dado destaque ao trabalho sobre a ontologia das artes performativas, e em particular, da música. Termina-se com uma referência à recente viragem da discussão para o campo da meta-ontologia e a polémica sobre a plausibilidade do revisionismo ontológico no caso de artefactos ou objectos sociais.