# data[].attributes.body
The imitation theory of art is originated from ancient Greek. In his famous dialogue the Republic Plato proposed the idea of an idealized society through Socrates’ conversation. I shall elucidate the concept of imitation theory of art by first listing several characteristics of such idealized Republic. First of all, in the Republic there is a giant structure of social hierarchy which allocates everyone to a satisfactory position so that every parts of the society can be fulfilled responsibly by the most suitable people. To describe such system in detail, it is a structure of three ranks: Reason, Passion and Imagination. Plato hates artists; we can see that through basic evidence that he allocate artists at the imagination part, which is somewhere inferior to both passion and reason. If there any reason why Plato do that? We shall see, and I shall refute Plato’s idea point by point.

Plato proposed that art is the imitation with desires and imagination of our everyday things, and which, the everyday things are themselves imitations of something exists eternally with unchanging properties. Those eternal things are called “forms”, forms are the conceptual and abstract idea underlying all things around us, which, is exactly what the reality means based on Platonic idealism. Therefore, art is something imitating the imitations of realities; namely the imitation of the imitation of forms, which, during the process of creating art the artist instill his/her own imagination and preferences.

Therefore, it is easy to see the reason why Plato put artists as one of the most inferior people in the state. Artists are the one who are further from truth. This actually implies the low hierarchy of art in Plato’s system: since truth --- reality of forms are something with sacred divinity, and as art is the secondary imitation of such forms, art is far away from truth. In addition, since it is proposed in Republic that the creation of art entails emotions, imaginations and preferences of the artists, it also means that it drives people away from reason (the ability of getting rid of emotions and know the truth) to passion or imagination. This is very important because in this way the artists make no differences from slaves, who are in case both the owner of their own desires, not reasoning. Thus, Plato believes art is something detrimental to the society due to the analysis above claiming that it is against human reasoning capacity and truth.

However, whether the form actually exists is a mystery. Because form necessarily involve a problem called: the third man argument. If a form has properties listed by Plato, then there will be contradictions because there may involve infinite amount of forms in one concept (这个我有点讲不清楚，但是是对理念论的一个批判). In addition, despite logical problem, it is also impossible for us to find such eternal and unchanging properties. As Wittgenstein proposed family resemblance, what we call forms are actually considered to be the prototypical languages with direct and singular denotation. However, such language is almost impossible to find because in this way it is actually negating the variety and feasibility of language games. In a way, if we want such form type language we are forcing ourselves to believe that every property can be defined and classified in any object. However the family resemblance showed the difficulty in defining and classifying those properties. In addition, under the context of verificationist philosophers, Plato’s ideal is impossible to find, for it is abstract and metaphysical, which is something unspeakable and have to be passed over in silence.

In addition, I believe this is also related to anthropocentric tendency in ancient Greek philosophy. In essentialist’s argument reasoning is something exclusively capable for human, and in this way reasoning is actually the most divine and good thing for us to do. I believe Plato derive such three-fold hierarchy in an anthropocentric way, or even logos-centric way. Reasoning is important, however, it is not in any way superior or inferior to other aspect of human personality. We actually cannot in Plato’s way argue that reasoning is superior, for we cannot still determine truth by the ideal of reason. David Hume can explain this:) The reasoning, especially what we called logic, could be a mere illusion of constant conjunction. For Hume found that all logically related things have the relationship in time, for example I hit the ball and the ball moves accordingly after certain time period. Reasoning could be mere illusions like this. Anthropocentric tendency in ancient Greek philosophy might be related to their anthropomorphic religion system. However, this tendency is actually biased, and it is the reason why Plato can construct such system of hierarchy based on reasoning’s dominance.

# data[].attributes.body
finally finished, sry for writing on the paper, may i am still living in the time when people loved to write letters... anyway, this is my review, which contains all of the topics we have learned. It is amazing that all of the approaches are somehow interrelated in contradictory or complementary ways.

I think I may make mistakes, or my analysis and evaluations can be further improved. i will be appreciate if u point out those flaws, thank u ~

# data[].attributes.headline
 Analysis and evaluation for emotion theory BY FANG YUAN

# data[].attributes.subject
 Analysis and evaluation for emotion theory BY FANG YUAN

# data[].attributes.body
Tolstoy elucidates that people feel something as art when they share the emotional feeling with the artists. He stresses the significance of emotion in art and attach sincerity, individuality, and clearness as the criteria for evaluating the emotion in the artwork.

First and foremost, the artists have to give vent to their feelings through their artwork. It means that the artists are supposed to push out their inner feelings out of the mind and incorporate them into the artwork. However, the emotion has to be sincere, individual, and clear. According to Tolstoy, among these three elements, sincerity is of the utmost importance. Sincerity refers to the degree that the artists value their work—whether they attach special importance to the work and how they treat their work and how they demand themselves to accomplish the work. If the artists transmit their authentic sentiments which they do perceive and have a desire to share with others, their emotions will be sincere and genuine so that their work can be defined as art. On the contrary, if the artists produce the work not for their own satisfaction and enjoyment but for patronizing others or disobeying their inner wishes, their work is deprived of genuineness and can no longer be considered as art. Only if the artists are sincere, which means they express what they want, they can pass on their individuality and clearness. The more sincere the artists are, the more depths and idiosyncrasy will be conveyed. Similarly, the emotion will be articulate if the sincerity is sufficient as the artists are so anxious and eager to communicate their mind. As long as sincerity, individuality, and clearness are reached, the artwork can be infectious to the audience as if the audience themselves feel the artist’s emotion.

Audience here are the receivers of the artists’ emotions. They stand in the shoes of the artists, experiencing the emotion which moves the one who expressed it and most importantly, they construct a empathy. Empathy refers to interpretation, comprehension, and understanding towards others. It can not be replaced by sympathy because sympathy includes condescending, which is a difference between status. However, empathy here represents that the audience is at the same position of the artists, impressed and echoed by the artists’ emotions. Having echo means that the audience are compelled by the artists to feel their emotion as if the emotion is theirs but not someone else’s. Thus this resonance creates the mutual interaction between the audience and artists. The further implication underlying this evocation process, suggested by Tolstoy, is that it will unite the brotherhood among human. Noticing that audience is able to be empathetic to the artists’ emotions, they will also develop similar empathy when confronting other issues in their daily life. As long as they are aware of others’ sentiments, they gradually learn to consider others’ situation and comprehend others’ actions, thus eliminating misunderstanding and conflicts. So harmony among human will appear because people are joined together in the same feelings, creating a universal brotherhood, where progress and wellbeing of the society proceeds.

But one limitation of Tolstoy’s emotion theory is that he neglected the audience’s cultivation, meaning that the audience has to be qualified firstly and then they are capable of appreciating the artwork and perceiving artists’ emotion. To give an illustration, they have to be aware of some basic concepts in face of a musical piece, such as orchestration and tempo, and then they  are able to listen to the piece and figure out what the piece is trying to convey. Nevertheless, if there is no previous artistic training in the audience’s past, it’s difficult for them to be emotional invoked by the artwork as they lack the fundamental abilities to assess a particular artwork. And undoubtedly, it’s unlikely for the audience to feel the emotions of the artists.

# data[].attributes.headline
On Morris Weitz, “The Role of Theory in Aesthetics”

# data[].attributes.subject
On Morris Weitz, “The Role of Theory in Aesthetics”

# data[].attributes.body
By Johnson

In his essay “The Role of Theory in Aesthetics”, Morris Weitz argues from a linguistic approach that there are no definitions for the concept of art. His argument can be divided into two parts. In the first part, Weitz argues that the previous attempts to define art are bad arguments. In the second part, Weitz provides a linguistic analysis to show why art is such an open concept and thus, it rejects definitions.

In his first part of the argument, Weitz enumerates four theories of art which try to give art a definition. The first theory is the Formalism, represented by Clive Bell. Formalists claim that the essence of art is a set of significant forms, which are some specific combinations of elements of the art work that generate specific reactions of the audience. Weitz believes that the formalists’ argument is circular, because as Formalism defines art’s significance based on the audiences’ significant reactions to it. Thus, the theory presupposes the significance of certain responses to certain art forms. Weitz criticizes that Formalism does not answer the problem of art completely, for they must clarify the nature of the significance of significant forms. On the other hand, Weitz challenges the Bell’s disposal of the representational features of art. It implies that Weitz believes art always carries certain meanings behind their artistic forms. The audiences are moved by the art sometimes not by the lines themselves. But they are reacting to different meanings (emotions, ideas, or even stories etc.) interpreted from the artistic forms.

The second theory Weitz wants to disprove is Benedetto Croce’s intuitionism. Croce claims that art consists of some pre-reflective intuitions we have when we are appreciating an art work. However, Weitz challenges that art work has an essential property of being public, which means that art work must have the potential to be shared and appreciated by other people. For Croce’s intuitionism, because it is pre-reflective, we cannot bring our artistic experience to the public without any reflection and moderation on it. Croce’s intuitionism may thus reject the linguistic function of art. In addition, from a linguistic point of view Weitz rebuts that such pre-reflective ideas may not even exist. For whenever an idea is formed, we always presuppose that the idea can be communicated in a meaningful way. Otherwise, it is only private and does not even qualify as a proper idea.

The third theory Weitz rejects is the Organicism. Organicism claims that art is anything organically composed of various elements. Weitz denies that anything except for art can also be categorized as an organic compound of various elements, and thus Organicism fails to even distinguish art from non-art.

Finally, Weitz counterargues Parker’s Voluntarism by applying a defect of all four theories exemplified. He points out that all four theories of art choose certain conditions of art and use them as a definition of art without giving any necessary and sufficient reasons to justify their choice. For instance, Parker claims that art must satisfy our imaginations. But one may wonder why the satisfaction we receive from art has to be imaginative. Some people really start to weep after hearing a sad song sang by the artist. The tears are real, so how can the affections art have be limited by the level of imagination only?

From here we may infer that in Weitz’s viewpoint, a true definition of art must be based on some evidence justifiable with sense. Many reasons he provides to deny all the four listed theories are emphasizing the lack of logical support. Therefore, we may conclude that Weitz would prefer a positivistic, evidence-based theory of art instead of any metaphysical construct of a preferred definition of art. Now, in his second part of the argument, Weitz starts to explain why the concept of art rejects definition. His central argument is since art is both descriptive and evaluative, the concept of art is open and thus, no meaningful definition can be given. In his central argument, Weitz has two tasks at hands to prove himself. One, he must prove that because art has evaluative properties, the concept of art is open. Two, he must explain why an open concept rejects definition at all.

First, let’s focus on the evaluative properties of art. Weitz correctly points out that when people are referring something to an art work, they are making an evaluative judgement already. By saying that a work is artistic, we are implying that the work means something very special to us, and we choose some of its properties as the reason to identify that special reason. Because we can compare the definitions of art through history and among different cultures, we must agree that they are so different from each other. Therefore, we must conclude that art is not defined by nature, but chosen to be by the people who find special reasons to treat the work of art differently from the work of non-art. Otherwise, a cross-cultural and historic analysis of art should give at least a similar set of properties of the many definitions of art, which we seem unable to give. And thus, as for the people are the agents who are defining the special reasons for choosing a work of art, in this process human intentions necessarily involves in the definition of art. Therefore, we must conclude that the definition of art must be associated with human evaluation.

For now, for Weitz’s argument to be true, we must further prove that the concept of art is open because of its evaluative properties. In Weitz’s own words, “A concept is open if its conditions of application are emendable and corrigible”. We want to ask then, what is corrigible? One interpretation is that a concept can change its definition according to the change in circumstances. Another interpretation is held by Weitz himself, which claims that whenever the extent to use the concept is left to our power to choose, the concept is open. The first interpretation implies that if a concept is corrigible to external conditions, the concept is open. The second interpretation implies that if a concept is corrigible to the specific users of it, then the concept is open.

There are two ways of viewing the two interpretations and the implication on the definition of art. The first way is to assume that users are external to art. Then, the two interpretations are one and the openness of the concept of art only means to be dependent on or to subject to external influence in some ways. Thus, we ask the question if this means art does not have possible definitions. Clearly, something is dependent on something else by correlation does not necessarily mean there is no definitions for it. Only, we must say that the definition is conditional, or should the definition of this concept include certain category of conditions so that the definition is held true and complete. Going back to the example of art, if art is an open concept in this way, Weitz only has the right to say that art is not independent so we must interpret it under context or circumstances. But this doesn’t mean that art does not have a definition. Maybe art has multiple definitions, depending on the conditions given. But still, we can define art in just a more complicated way. If we take those defining conditions into the consideration, we will still be able to enumerate a set of sufficient conditions for art. As for the necessary conditions which define art altogether, I doubt if they don’t exist just because the defining conditions may vary. In Weitz’s own words, art is necessarily involved with human intentions. That has already become a necessary condition for the concept of art. Weitz sets up some contradictory example which tries to show that art can sometimes be not an artifact. But by saying that art is necessarily an artifact, we are presuming that an artifact is something which involves human intentions in both its process of being created and being treated. Either of the processes involves human intentions will constitute the artifactuality of some works. Therefore, if we take an open concept to be any concepts that are open to correlate, we cannot deduce that this concept rejects definition.

Now, what if we take the idea of an open concept to be something which can change only in accordance to itself? This means that we cannot find any correlations between the change of the concept with any change in its external conditions. Now we cannot specify any reasons for the change, therefore we cannot manage to define the concept by conditioning it. However, to assert that this concept rejects definition we need to further show that the pattern of its variations is not only closed to external conditions, but also closed to external measures. This means that not only the concept is passively independent of environmental factors, but also actively independent of our observations, or, random. This idea corresponds to my second way of viewing the two interpretations, which take the users of art not as an external element of the concept of art but inherent to art. Now, if we are speaking about Weitz’s critique on art, the audiences are taken as a part of art’s constitution and it should serve as the changing factors which are independent from other environmental factors. But clearly it is wrong to assume that the users of the concept of art is necessarily independent from the environmental influences. Still we can find conditions and logics behind the users’ variations, and since they are not choosing art randomly, we can still define the pattern of the dynamics of art.

As the review of the Weitz’s argument has shown, as long as we consider the process of interpreting art not as something disordered, there is no necessity for us to reject the definitions of art. An open concept can still be defined, only under some necessary conventions and a set of sufficient conditions to specify the various ways to define it. Weitz’s attempt to analyze art not as some entities is still valuable. For the dynamism of the concept of art can be conveniently identified and explained by how we use such a concept in language, the linguistic approach is worth of further investigations.

# data[].attributes.headline
Analysis and evaluation on institution theory BY FANG YUAN

# data[].attributes.subject
Analysis and evaluation on institution theory BY FANG YUAN

# data[].attributes.body
“to see something as art requires something the eye cannot descry, an atmosphere of artistic theory, a knowledge of history if art, an art world—the institutional nature of art”

Institution theory is one of the parade that trying to define what is art. It means that people can immediately recognize what is art and what is nonart by their first look, first touch, or first listening to the artwork. In other words, people have a set of basic notion to know whether an object is a work of art, which is underlying in their intuitive senses. So why could people naturally utter whether a work is art and what is the thing that structures and guides people’s thinking about the art and its contents?

Actually it is the art world which includes a specific framework that formulates our conception towards art. The framework refers to established practices that have been created by people in the past, such as a particular set of elements that fit in a style. For example, a musical piece should consist of harmonic melodies, a reasonable orchestration, and a consistent tempo. These practices were invented by the broadly recognized people, those who became the pioneers and the models or paradigm for the descendants to learn from and to follow. However, this underlying system that was created by the great men, those groundbreakers, refers to the elements within the artwork itself; it’s this system that construct people’s cognition of the artwork. In Dikie’s words, those established practices gradually become the non exhibited properties of an artwork, meaning that there’s no need for people to deliberate on the question that whether this or that is an artwork; instead, people can instinctively and unconsciously point out whether it’s an art work, according to the underlying system and the established notions in the art world.

In addition to the elements that an artwork is widely considered to possess in terms of the art worlds’s past rules, the framework also signifies the context that the artwork exists in. The context implies the environment, the atmosphere that artworks are settled in, including the place where artworks are exhibited, the artists who created them, and also the appreciators. So the art world requires an essential core, and in Dikie’s words, the essential core comprises of presenters and goers; presenters are artists who create the artworks while goers are those who are appreciators with certain expectations and knowledge about what they will experience and an cultivation of how the should behave in face of the experience. Both presenters and goers have to be within the institutional setting of the art world, and both are the indispensable parts of an art world. Artists, the presenters, firstly create the work and then treat the artwork as a candidate for appreciation. Afterwards, a medium which connects the artist’s work with the goers, the appreciators, must be required, such as a gallery, a theatre, a concert hall. Those are places where the artists act as agents to confer the status of the work towards the audience. Artists display their work within the exhibition, where their work can be granted certain certificates and titles. By doing so, the work is filled with the artist’s intentionality to make the work to be an artwork. That’s to say, only if the work is revealed in an appropriate place where it’s regarded by the public as a particular domain for the artworks and the visitors there have adequate training of appreciation, the work can be deemed as artwork and eliminated its mediocrities.

Therefore, although it seems that there must be a pretty rigorous and close system or art world for a piece of work to be an artwork, as a matter of fact, the art world is supposed to be open and accept diverse creations simultaneously. There’s no reason to constrain people by confining them in a specific kind of aesthetic consciousness or perceptions. Instead, people should be allowed to have their individual perception of an artwork, experiencing its qualities that one finds it applaudable and worthy. “Perception” here is so idiosyncratic, meaning that different people have entirely distinctive perspectives. In face of an artwork, some may think it’s valuable while some think it’s junk. However, no matter how a piece of artwork is judged, there’s no reason to reject it or deny it because every work of art have minimal potential value or worthiness and the capacity to wait for those who appreciated it.

Above describe the open quality of an art world in the stance of the appreciators. Meanwhile, creators, the artists, are supposed to be unlimited. Artists should emancipate themselves from the framework set by their ancestors and the social context, by releasing their ability and talent on the artwork, even if they are radical. As long as artists deem there is no limit can be placed, they feel infinite, thus liberating all their adventuresomeness into their artworks. Therefore artworks will incorporate elasticity, where creativity is accommodated and exuberant artworks can be developed.

But the emancipation of artists’s imagination and potential will confront a dilemma when their aesthetic taste is not compatible with the appreciator and the trend of the society. When the artwork has nobody to comprehend and when it’s abandoned and casted away by the general public, it’s so discouraging for the artists to continue to follow his mind because the artists’s efforts are not acknowledged by others. An outstanding artwork may disappear only due to the lack of recognition, So appreciators’ recognition and criticisms are so significant that the future of the art world are determined by them—what kind of work should be displayed and what should not.

Otherwise, if people consider the art world as a community that is restrained by certain practices and people and atmospheres, the art world will face stagnation and cease evolving. Unlike legal systems, where procedures and authority are explicitly defined and incorporated into the law, art world isn't so formal. It allows for the freedom of the appreciators and the freedom of the artists, for the formality will destroy the freshness and exuberance of the art world—every one is under strict rules and no creative work exists. Loose guidelines rather than rigid specifications are more appropriate for an art world, allowing for the new ideas coming into the art world and revolutions of the art world. Thus, art world can be continuously evolving and transforming, embracing all kind of change.

However, is it reasonable to define art by applying to art world? Considering art and the art world is relational and discussing art must require people to discuss the art world, defining art by the art world is a circular argument. Noticing that both art and art world share similar characters, using one to explain the other is not sufficient.

# data[].attributes.body
By Alvin

The idea of significant form is attained to art as to show how and why art can be or should be symbolic. To assert art is symbolic, it becomes clear that art needs not be a maid for beauty, nor be a mirror to the phenomenal world. It has to be admitted that even the mirrorlike nature of the art has a long history of how this mimicking function is changing and transforming. Moreover, even the ways to evaluate the art of imitation are varying across the time and cultures, for political, moral, religious, aesthetic purposes.

We might say in the symbolic conception of art, it is no longer a measure of good or bad on how technically advanced art can be mimicking its objects, unless this mimicking technique, if really without rivalry, is to be so interpreted as to carry out meanings beyond being just similar to the objects. For example, the development of hyperrealism in oil painting is both a return to the imitative function of the painting, and is at the meantime an innovation to assert symbolic rigor to the practice of imitation itself. For the camp of hyperrealism, the artists are against the criticism that what they do is just a “forgery of photos”, or “magnifying our sensation of the world onto the canvas”. They rejects being called “copiers”, for copying is too a plain and abstract exercise that does not correspond to their committed painterly realism. They act as rather supporters to the new discourse to imitation theory, that we should not draw attention to the techniques of imitation but ask what we mean by imitation and what new aesthetics is needed to legitimate imitation. This hyperrealist effort to renovate the history of imitation is obviously preoccupied with the need to justify the expressiveness of imitation.

For art theore, the idea of significant form is useful to primordially divide art from non-art. Both art and craft have form that may be aesthetically and technically analyzable, however, the question of what assumes the form in the art and correspondingly in the craft may suggest different answers.

A packing box, when it is used for packing stuffs, the shape, size, and material of which may matter to the stuffs it is to contain, probably, the cover pattern of the box is also important to its packed content as well. The form of this packing box is basically satisfying its usefulness, the measure of its usefulness is dependent on how readily available of this box is to its user and how equipmentally reliable it is,  "equipmentality" so to speak. Therefore, the form of this packing box is immediately sensed as the ability to pack its packable items, and the box is worn out or deformed, its equipmental ability shall vanish immediately. Form of this box as craft is intuitively subordinated to its uses, it is not unusual to our experience that we could not be so attentively observing or even analyzing the form of a packing box except to care whether it's still usable or not. In addition to the box's usefulness, we might be at some moment stop our gaze unto the box to "see" it a self-contained object, and its form may come back to our attention for the first time, as if "rediscovered" and "revealed". Its shape may become a stimulus to our imagination, the box may thus become an object that is at that moment separate from its functional usefulness but enter into our mind as object of thought. The physicality of the box is therefore unveiled in our consciousness as direct object of attention, and its assumed form might be symbolically inspiring in the eye of the looker.

What if this packing box, without any alteration, is relocated on a hall of a worldly renowned gallery, cataloged as an piece of artwork featuring a modern art exhibition. We call such a piece a ready-made object. The box retains its original form, and equally legitimate to claim that the box is as usual useful for packing stuffs. Rather than to say the box has an owner, we might stress the box has an author instead. Let's suppose that this box is registered as an authentic work of art, the arthood of this piece is without dispute. Do we, however, need to take a new look towards this piece from a different vantage point as that of seeing and encountering of the box at home? Probably we do. Judging the value of this box-in-the-gallery could require a richer and more rigorous "spectrum" of interpretations and with more diverse interpretative devices and theories. The physicality and formality of this box-in-the-gallery is reasonably to be liberated from its original spatial sphere, and in return acquire a temporal identity that sustains its objecthood in a symbolic sphere. This box-in-the-gallery is an object, an equipment that even its "objecthood" and "equipmentality" becomes objectified as independent source of interpretative possibility.

The ready-made artwork is materially and formalistically congruent with the object from which it derives, while symbolically, it is believed to be "semantically and syntatically dense", in Goodman's word. We may see the ready-made artwork is topologically a kind of artifacts that turns up as symbolic extension from its original given object. In modern art, artifact becomes more ambiguous both in terms of its conceptual signification and its compositions. The success to admit the ready-made object to a species of artifacts is certainly a success of modern symbolism. Modern works of art is increasingly accepted as independent unit of signifying and symbolizing, of asserting its own diverse purposes to seek for recognition. The abstract art maintains the priority of formal construct to both unveil and conceal the authorial intention of the work: unveiling in a way is to be seen as disclosing the pure aesthetics of forms, as intentionally to expose the utter exteriority of the artwork to mass culture, while concealing however is more technical, the abstract form by its own is like a carefully built mental maze to deny easy access, in the meanwhile, the form can be very interpretatively receptive and accommodating to public reviews. This seemingly contradicting intention of abstract art is a living proof to the gravity of meanings to "naturalize" art making: the culture of modern art is the condition to shape and reshape a evolving "natural" look of art.

Clive Bell's proposal of "significant form" is precisely echoing this effort of shaping a symbolic look of art. Although Bell is the heir to Collingwood's expressivity of art, he does not content with identifying the function and value of art as unleashing articulated emotion for recognition and communication, nor does he consider adequate to see the object of art consummating in the channeling of emotions.  Just that art is not merely an instrument of mimicking the nature, it is also equally unfair to treat art as an another instrument to represent the emotion, no matter how aesthetically magnificent the emotion is shown to be. Bell is clear on the point that even aesthetic emotion is still external to the intention of art making, it is better to see the expression of emotion as to fulfill the emphatic function of art, but before this sentimental communication, art needs to have asserted its own kingdom, its "territorial consciousness". This leads Bell to the argument that art has its inherent value on the production and reproduction of so called "significant form". This idea of significant form is for Bell immanent to the generic entity of art and classificatorily able to mark a border to divide art from non-art. There are two necessary directions to make sense of the significance of the art form: one is technical significance, and the other is symbolic significance, if these two part of significance do not coincide with each other, the latter one shall prevail.

The burden of Bell's reasoning thus falls on the description and justification of the significant form. The technical significance is to indicate the cognized complexity and sophistication of the art work, usually, it is often credited to the skill, the strategy, and the procedure of the making, and the assessment of the technical significance is pragmatically criteria-oriented. A piece of artwork with technical superiority comparatively complies with more higher standards of widely used quality-control criteria in the given art domain, and reversely, work with poor technicality is usually low in the application of criteria. For sure, there could not be a perpetual list of criteria universal to art work, the evolution of the criteria, both for its compositions and its scope, and its applicability and efficiency, sheds light to the history of art. The technical criteria are changing norms that assess the level of suitability of given art work to its designated domain. The purpose of technical significance is to give meaning to what we may call "raw art and mature art".

the other one, the symbolic significance, is central to Bell's theory of art, and also illuminating to later development of art formalism. Susanne Langer holds it clear that the very division of human to aninal is underlied by human's use of symbol while animal is restrained by feeling. Language is an obvious example of this division, as human competently relies on language to transfer and express ideas and feeling with semantic and pragmatic awareness. The rules of use of language, or what we call the grammar, are the pass to discursive communication between human being. For Langer, language is possessed publically as union of symbol to warrant the continuing existence and to enhance the flourishing of human various kinds of community, language is the key to cultural and psychological admission to the membership of community. Art, however, is also symbolically constructed, but different from language, art is non-discursive, art does not warrant success of communication between the author and the spectator. Moreover, art asserts new meanings to old symbols or to create new symbols that are semantically and pragmatically liberating. Artists are relating their intentions to the symbols of art with no fixed patterns of rules. This implies art is valued presupposedly for aesthetic purpose. The form of art is thus the potential for semiotic production and reproduction.

The significant form, for Langer, informs the semiotic practice of art as an ideal pattern of normalizing. To claim the ideality of the significant form is because it entails the pursuit of translating "revolutionary ideas" to symbolic build-up of actual pieces of artwork, being ideal is a conscious disjunction of aesthetic cognition and judgment on the side of the artists from the mass art. Because of that, being ideal in the domain of modern art could be associated with the effort of making bizzare, odd, and confused pieces of artwork, ideality is likely becoming needful of keeping distant from and critical of the commonal worldly experiences and understanding. it is the very core of so called revolutionary art ideology to give norms to value and practice of modern art.

For Langer, "revolution" is a constant need to assure art of no symbolic equivalence in the semiotic field, to ensure modern art is not aligned with the vulgarity and impoverishment of the aesthetics of mass culture.  The emphasis on the symbolic significance of the significant form reveals the anxiety and the aspiration of modern artists in the identity-formation, the revolutionary mentality is best evident along with the surge of utopia art, the rise of conceptual art. Semiotically, modern art is waging battles and riots on all the fronts of signifier production and reproduction, challenging the semiotic disclosure and functions of existing signs, logos, words, etc. The breakdown of the union of old signifier and signified is precisely the victory of revolutionary art. They see the activity of signifiers is most powerfully revealed in its ability to self-generating, to claim for the re-establishment and the reconstruction of new semiotic order. The symbolic significance is the perpetual call for liberating the symbols by asserting heterogeneity not only with other symbols but even against themselves. This differencing thought is informed most decisively by postmodern writing, particularly with Lyotard's manifesto on identifying the postmodern thinking as both inheriting and departing from the inevitable collapse of grand "meta-narratives", as to creat "multiplicity of communities of meaning" with absolute freedom, to give autonomy to micro-narratives with the recognition of irresolvable conflict and incompatibility in between.

Revolution is the thrust to the assertion of art being significantly formulated, however, it shall be as well the elegy. While art is couched with differencing impetus for symbolic games, the artworld, which George Dickie prescribes as the totality of institutional operation, coordination, and integration of the practices and the appreciation of art, is also very much into this vortex of symbols. Rather than to qualify what form is being significant, Dickie is asking who does and how to do the qualification. The concept of artworld is developed as to show the institutional production of art discourses with dynamic intraworldly relationships. Dickie is committed to a non-exhibitive analysis of how we come up to term with particular conceptual and classficatory pattern of art and art objects. The institutional theory is therefore both an attempt to accommodate the revolutionariness of art and to diffuse the underlying self-legitimating expressive impulse of art making. Whence artists in favor of the ideality of significant form are putting priority to the expression of ideas and feelings outwards, the institutional theory reminds us of the self-effecating mechanism that systematically checks the expression for its being appreciatable. For Dickie, to say art is non-discursive is part of deception concealed by revolutionary ideology. We do rely on criteria of appreciation, tacitly or actually agreed, to assess the arthood and artfulness of presented objects, and these criteria does function to give norms to the variety of art discourses. The artworld has to exist in order for art to have a sharing ground of communicating and interacting discursively what seems to be non-discursively intended and articulated. Dickie is right on the point that artworld is the community of all art-related practices that insitutionally proves that human being is indeed a species of symbols. Even his confessedly circular reasoning indeed begs doubt and criticism, particularly for his underestimate of the importance of artist real intention to the determination of the values of the artwork, the institutional theory is helpful to see how the alleged significance of the significant form is on the history of art discursively and sysmatically conceptualized.

This does not necessarily follow that art critic is in this artworld the authority of art discourses and art assessment, nor do I think it is identical to the proposal of art elitism,  yet it is important to note that even what claims to be very formally significant can be rather insignificant or even repressive in the eyes of the appreciators. The incongruence between the judgment of art makers and of the appreciators are standing call to be skeptic of the identity of being revolutionary with being significant, and on the other hand, due to the existence of incongruence, the artworld functions instutitonally to coordinate ideas and opinions in a hope to reach consensus with discursive awareness. The dynamics of the artworld is practically shown as the establishing changing conditions for coordination. The eventual consent to the significance of given art form is mostly a result of a discursive bargaining game.

When Arthur Danto declares the death of art, he is alerting us of the exhausion of art theories ever to offer new type of consciousness to art making. Art has reached its end of theoretical makeup that the practice of art is virtually just repetition and vindication of old thoughts in different forms and media.  The production of new art is like play of innumerable seemingly new board games with however identical rules of gameplay. Any claim for realizing the significance of art is becoming trivial and inevitably fragmentary. If so, we may wonder if the appreciation of art is to become institutionally conservative and probably repressive as well. It is not unusual for art critics to be overtly flattery rather than detached and critical for the interests of both artists and themselves, artworld can be deterioriating from a cradle of new thoughts to an assembly line of banal artifacts, ruined by pedantry and factionalism. The call for significance is easily utilized by commerce and politics, to achieve an end that are merely significant in auctioned price or the number of pamphlets distributed. Significance is thus an indispensible coat for art being immensely useful, and the symbolic density of an artwork becomes the patent to warrent economic success. We therefore witness the rise of an entire cultural industry to exploit unstoppably the significance of so called "significant form".

# data[].attributes.headline
On George Dickie, “What is Art? An Institutional Analysis”

# data[].attributes.subject
On George Dickie, “What is Art? An Institutional Analysis”

# data[].attributes.body
By Johnson

In his essay, “What is Art? An Institutional Analysis”, George Dickie proposes his famous institutional theory of art in which the dynamism of art is to the largest extent acknowledged. In this theory, art has two necessary and sufficient conditions: 1) art must be some form of artifact; 2) art must be the candidates which are conferred as a work of art. The first condition is basic. Dickie raises this first definition to reject any claims that say art has no definition after all. Any art carries a sense of human appreciation, or a sense of intentions behind the various forms of art. Dickie specifically replies Morris Weitz’s argument that natural objects can also be art, therefore, art does not have to be artificially made. Dickie simply rebuts that the natural works of art require a sense of derivative paradigm of works of art which are man-made. Therefore, according to Dickie a boundary can still be found that is limiting what art can be.

Dickie’s second definition of art articulates that art has an institutional nature, in which its peculiarity is historically relative. In the history of art, however, Dickie believes he finds what is constant: some forms of organization which has the power to give something a status of art (conference). The organization can be composed of artists, audience, and art critiques etc. Within a range of candidates of works of art, in which the term “candidate” is defined as potentially appreciable, the organization selects for those whose value for appreciation is conferred. Dickie takes a phenomenal step here. He is even bold enough not to speak about any particular judgments which define art, but he simply turns to explain how we make the judgments and uses this as the basis to define a work of art. The strength of the second part of Dickie’s argument is obviously its creativity of trying to identify art as not something independent in itself, but is something generated by an entire system of social contexts. He really provides a reason here which explains why art seems to be so evolving and various in definitions. However, the weakness of his argument is also obvious. Dickie must ultimately return to face the circularity of his theory. If art works are all potentially appreciable, what sort of things is potentially appreciable? If follows from the definition of art that artistic value is to be conferred, and so it must follow that the potential artistic value, which is the potentially appreciable qualities, derives from the status conferred. But it seems that the status conferred is derived from the potentially appreciable.

So, the cycle here is clearly not informative as Dickie tries to prove it so. Our inquiry here is not a mere description of how the art world operates, but the true issues rest on the reasons for the art world to operate in a certain way. In this case, we want to ask why the artists, the audience, and the art critiques etc. would give certain works of art a conference of their status but not the others. Unless Dickie has proved that the only sound reason behind all these decisions of the art world is always pointing back to itself, we would then have to admit that art is for now established and in its essence not informative and shallow in its content. But I doubt if we cannot find good reasons in the place of an artist, an audience, or an art critique etc. to give my conference to an art work. Maybe I will neither rely on just one common principle or always rely on some common sets of principles to give my conference, but it doesn’t mean that I have no sensible principles at all as if I can only justify my actions by circularity. The empirical complexity of the analysis of principles of art does not renounce the logical feasibility of the principles of art.

If we apply the counterargument above to the entirety of Dickie’s second definition of art, we may see that the act of referring the essence of art to some institutions behind it would be missing the point. It may be a fact that we must talk art in some institutional sense, but should we take the institution itself as some necessary conditions which constitute a work of art? What I am pushing here is that what matters is to clarify what gives the institution its power to select, be it some forms of consensus between the people involved, the paradigms of art of work, or any other reasons we may want to specify. Any institution without justification is a blank slate of paper that we can still write anything on it as we wish. Not only it does not do anything, but also it does not mean anything. The institution of art works only if we believe that it has good reason to work in this way. And if we are only satisfied with knowing what it looks like, we are really missing out the essential part under the frame of the institution.

To sum up my arguments, George Dickie’s idea of art tries an innovative and balanced view of art, as it both acknowledges the variations and the limitations of art. And I think the direction set forwards in this essay is going to be fruitful, for we stop seeing art as something within but open to interact. However, I believe that Dickie by emphasizing only on the institution of art has not provided us a valid definition of art. If we stop by the depth of Dickie’s theory, we will be still looking at some mythical (however practical it sounds) labelling process of art. I have good reasons to believe, that it is getting clearer as art work finally turning into an empirical question, in which we do not have to dwell in between the art we have already known and art we think we have not yet come to know.

# data[].attributes.body
by William
In George Dickie's "What is Art? An Institutional Analysis", he started with arguing against imitation theory and expressionist theory. He came about the idea that Art can be defined, but not with such kinds of necessary or sufficient conditions raised by the imitation theory or expressionist theory. The definition of the concept of art needs to be deeply analyzed.

First, art must be a closed concept instead of an open one proposed by Morris Weitz. This is mainly for the division between what is art and what is non-art. If, as Weitz said, art is an open concept, with constantly arisen new conditions and new art forms, then we cannot really distinguish art from non-art, since the classification is not so clear. Everything might be considered as art. However, if art is a closed concept, does it mean that it will foreclose the very conditions of creativity in arts? Weitz said yes, but Dickie argued against this point. Weitz mainly argued that, when the generic conception of art is closed, the subconcepts of art may still be open, which means that there can still be infinite subconcepts adding to, like, novel, tragedy, painting and sculpture.

Then, after we know that art is a closed concept, what makes an art an art? What are works of art? Firstly, it must be an artifact. If it is an object in nature, then, the only possible way that it can become a work of art is to be conferred the artifactuality by having human intentions on it. Secondly, it must be conferred the status for appreciation by some person or persons acting on behalf of a certain social institution (the artworld), these persons include artists, audience, museum workers, art critics, and so on. Although whether it will be appreciated or not is still a question, it does not influence its status of being a work of art. Appreciated or not appreciated is just on the evaluative level.

However, from this institutional theory, we can find that the argument is clearly circular, even the author himself had raised this point in his article. The process of conferring the status is vague since it is not something as formal as the one in a legal institution. It does not have certain kinds of celebrations or ceremonies. And Dickie said that, most people would rather keep art as an informal one since it would be a bad thing, threatening the freshness and exuberance of art. Then, who are these people within the artwork? Dickie’s answer is that “every person who sees himself as a member of the artworld is thereby a member”, which is clearly unsatisfactory. In reality, not everyone has the right to confer the status of art, even one sees himself as a member of the artworld. This definition needs to be more clearly explained. From my personal opinion, combining what I know for the current field of art, becoming a member of artworld actually needs some kind of semi-formal ceremonies. Most importantly, it seems that one need to struggle for recognition in order to “gain” that status of becoming a member of the artworld.

In the final part of Dickie’s paper, he acknowledged that some of the arguments and definitions are circular. Nonetheless, he suggested that this circular is not viciously so, since it is informative. It contains a great deal of information about the artworld. I personally think that he actually does not solve any problem. Although this institutional theory really provides us some insight toward how we can see the social institution of art, the definition of work of art from an environmental, social point of view, it does not necessarily depict the real situation in the current world. As a vague, informal institution, the artworld might exist. However, the particular definitions for its membership, for its process of conferring the status, for its process of appreciation and evaluation are still unsatisfactory.

# data[].attributes.headline
Art World and the Institutional Theory of Art

# data[].attributes.subject
Art World and the Institutional Theory of Art

# data[].attributes.body
By Alvin

Danto's idea of artworld has so proposed as to question how to consider and justify the dynamism in our classification of art word, it is evident that many objects of art had to struggle to be recognizably classified as work of art, and the reason for such a change of recognition has to be found, as suggested by Danto, in an equally dynamic conception of art. to claim for the dynamism of art is to show the nature of art itself has a history of its being so naturalized, we certainly can say art comes into our life with multiple facade of looks and probably confuse us with their bizarre forms, but even so we have to say the strangeness of art itself has its own history to evolve into an outlook visually strange to us. Danto wants to show the way of classifying art is the result of how we see classification does make sense to us, and for that to be possible, we need to see the conception of art historically.

The use of imitation and expression theories is that, the objects to be classified as work of art has to rely on correspondence with classificatory criteria that are endorsed as universal in these theories. each object is like a token that is fully described by the type of art legitimated under the description of these two theories. to successfully save each token to the type, we have to ensure this token has all of its possible attributes that can be unexceptionally found in the type of art, whenever we happen to find a token not able to fulfill such a correspondence, we will have trouble to classify the token at stake.

The trouble, however, is for Danto a necessary impetus for us to reconsider the art and its classfication. The type of art is kept check for its inclusiveness, despite the border between art and non-art remains unseen but we may be clear that it is constantly changing. Danto delves unto a philosophical understanding of what such a changing border manifests. in the first sense, the border is so maintained as to demarcate a realm in which the art is acknowledged as artful, it might sound tautological, but it shall be easily becoming intelligible if we can give description to what and how to create this border, namely, what are the conceptual make-up of this border. This make-up can vary from time to time, but at least we can have an imaginary sense of there exists such a make-up of border so that art is saved and retained for its autonomy. Both imitation and expression theories are such candidates of the make-up of this border, and we do use this candidate make-up in the past to judge art from non-art, and even to judge good art from bad art. This border has its classificatory function to fulfill, for the second, this border is also useful to cross over, to trespass. This is the dialectic of the border with dynamic consideration. The presence of border gives meaning to art, yet the trespassing of border, if with assured intention of doing so, is also likely to extend that border to the position where new trespassing is required. Trespassing is defining, and producing new criteria for classifying. Border exists for the reason to be trespassed, to be violated, to be redefined, to be reborn. the success to perpetuate the borderline is only possible when art does need to have a new borderline to define itself, art has reached its limit, or death for the border to be perpetuated, otherwise, the vivacity of art requires constant questioning of the legitimacy of existing border.

this may give rise to an identification of art making with anarchism, an intentional annihilating of the borders and rules  as the sole purpose of art. This is of course mere illusion. Even the most radical artists, who are committed to destroying border and destroying the artwork that defines the border at stake, are nevertheless equally committed to the faith that border can be destroyed, the consciousness of border is a necessity for any radical artists to become a pure destroyer. We reach the dialectic of border in order to show, in Danto's essay, that art is never precisely clear of where it is except for a direction of where it could be heading for. we could say representation and emotion are two major pillars of aesthetic ideology in the past, while when these pillars are shaken and eventually knocked down by the impact of new aesthetic thinking, we try to install the new pillars to pay homage to the old pillars, and that is how art and the conception of art is evolving.

Artworld is "an atmosphere of artistic theory, a knowledge of the history of art", this nice description is an echo to the border consciousness of art. for due to the value of border we can share the appreciation of art with common atmosphere, and we are thus able to see the work of art we appreciate as part of history of art. Artworld is not a border itself, but the realization of the border consciousness in its historical context.

George Dickie inherited the idea of artworld and offered a more analytic look to its understanding. Dickie is more interested in giving this artworld with an institutional outlook. He is more deep into the portrayal of detailed activities inside the border at particular cultural and historical context, and therefore strives to offer more substantial explanation for what we mean by border consciousness and it works to classify art. A key element in his portrayal is named as conferral of status, a work needs to be conferred to the artworld for it to be appreciated. Dickie is very clear at this point that this conferral may not be actual, but entirely intentional, and there could be only the author of the work who claims to carry out such a conferral with no other witness. This conferral of status is essential to the work to be deemed as art for it entails such a work to be intentionally regarded not as a mere object but an object of art. without such a conferral, the work is as if not to be registered as a work of art. However, we have to ask what and how to intend a particular work to be so conferred as to register its status of art. if the author does confer the work with such an awareness that this work is to be registered as art, he has already had an idea of what is art in his mind before making the conferral, so the conferral of work in this sense is better to be understood as conferral of work with prediction of success. Only with such a predication thus the author is confident about the usefulness of such a conferral, but if so, do we again need to ask how such a predication is made possible in the first place, do we need to have a primary idea of art that is not the product of institutions.

If the author has no idea whatsoever what to count as a work of art but he simply choose to confer his work to artworld in a hope to be recognized, then the problem would be, how the artworld can manage to see the intention involved such a conferral as to entail artful consideration. without the conferral of a work as an artful intention, the artworld has to rely on some criteria external to the intention of author to name the work art. this would cause the confusion whether the work of art is produced by the author or by the artworld instead. if we insist that the work of art is actually a result of the artworld deeming it as so, and not yet so in the hands of the author who confers, then we would doubt who is responsible for the success of conferral, the author or the artworld. It shows it has to be dependent on the artworld to decide whether conferral of work is accomplished or not, and this definitely undermines the autonomy of conferral subjects.

Both of these two situations above indicates flaws in the institutional theory. As Dickie states in his paper that he aims to show a non-exhibitive characterization of art, he is very much committed to those invisible compositions of art,  but these invisible compositions are actually effective to understanding of art, if we don't depend on visible elements and symbols to classify art, then we must show the invisible ones are good enough to make art visible. Even we may concede to the validity of Dickie's circular argument to the theory, we still need to question whether each of these invisible elements are valid for being candidate for description and judgment. Dickie wish to avoid the admission of any possible preconception of art into his circular reasoning, but for me this remains a necessary starting point of his infinite loop. that is to say, we have to return to visible elements ever to make sense of invisible elements to make art visible, but if so, which is responsible for the visibility of art?

Dickie then moves on to describe what he means by appreciation and artworld, and their roles in relation to his institutional construct of art.

# data[].attributes.body
By Joey

1. Definition of Art:

a) Susanne Langer proposed an tentative definition of art with are built as follows: Art is the creation of form symbolic of human feelings.

b) Susanne Langer’s argument can be regarded as a further elaboration on Clive Bell’s argument of “significant form”. Recognizing that a work of art is often a spontaneous expression of feelings and such expression is the function of symbols: articulation and presentation of concepts, in this case, the “significant form”. Whereas, problem soon arise about the motive to choose between feeling and form.

c) The feature of the “significant form” is that it is easier to perceive and handle. Its general pattern may be reincarnated again and again by repeated performance and depends on personal independence. Forms are, rather, negotiable medium, capable of voluntary composition and repetition, whereas, feeling is not; this trait recommends formal explanation for symbolic purpose.

2. Distinction Between Language and Forms:

a) A major problem is that if the form is as a mean of expressing aesthetic feelings, what is the distinction between the “significant form” and language: which serves perfectly as uttering feelings. The explanation, given by Susanne Langer, is bounded with personal interpretations. That is to say, language imposes an one-to-one correlation bounded by semantic principles, grammar in this case; namely, separate words are assigned to separately conceived items of experience on a basis of simple, one-to-one correlation. Word meanings and grammatical forms may be freely assigned; but once they are accepted, propositions emerge automatically as the meaning of sentences.

b) However, in the significant forms, it is not necessarily the same. “Significant forms” is non-discursive, and served as a “unconsummated symbol” that it has no vocabulary. “Significant forms” is adhered to personal interpretations that we are always free to fill its forms with any meaning that fits them; that is, a “significant form” may convey an idea of anything conceivable.

# data[].attributes.body
By Joey

1. Significant Form

a) Knowing that there is a particular kind of emotion provoked by works of visual art, and this emotion, so called “aesthetic emotion” is common and necessary for all artworks. Hence, there must be one quality without which a work of art can not exist, and, in this case, Clive Bell proposed the concept of “Significant form” which is defined as the lines and columns combined in a particular way, certain forms and relations of forms, stir our aesthetic emotion.

b) Clive Bell here proposes an interesting viewpoint on the definition of art; namely, he proclaims that in pure aesthetics we have only to consider our emotion and its object: we have no right nor necessity to pry behind the object to the thoughts of the author.

c) The merit of the “significant form” is that it does serve to explain things. The “significant form” explanation distinguish art works from “Descriptive Painting” - that is, painting in which forms are used not as objects of emotion, but as means of suggesting emotion or convey information (“Paddington Station”, “The Doctor”, “Futurists”)

2. Difference between “beauty” and “aesthetic”

a) The distinction between “beauty” and “aesthetic” is necessary is because the word “beauty”, which often time used in an aesthetically way (namely, a beautiful woman does not mean a women that moves me aesthetically), is used to connote the object of quite distinguishable emotions, and that is reason for not employing a term which will inevitably lead to confusion and misunderstanding.

3. The profound impact of the form and the “Primitive Arts”

a) A important question will necessarily be asked that in what ways that a form can moves us so profoundly? And the answer from Clive Bell is on a perspective of “Primitive Arts”. Bell asserts that in primitive art only significant form is found and thus the analyzing of the Primitive Arts will lead to a accurate explanation of the profound impact of the “significant form”. His approach to this question is via the three-dimensional space and rhythm; that is, there is a certain arrangement that comes to be significant in three-dimensional space, and rhythm in poems and music that stir up aesthetic emotions in audiences that even are totally ignorant in musical theories.

# data[].attributes.body
By Mark

Danto's essay mainly describes imitation theory, the objection of it and other theories. Then he described what is an art world. After that, he argues that the "is" term in the sentence "xxx is an art" may have several interpretations. These things will be introduced below.

Danto starts his essay by first attacking the imitation theory. The imitation theory mainly argues that the end of artwork is to imitate the mature. For an example, I painting of a person is used to "copy" that person in the drawing. This theory is approved by both Socrates and Helmet. However, the invention of photography has totally ended the theory because the photograph can totally reflect the nature with few or no emissions. And additionally, it is really absurd to say that the aim of the artwork is to purely imitate nature because can we say that the artist himself can not add other personal details into the art? Hence the imitation theory is deduced to be not valid.

After attacking the imitation theory, Danto then raised out a new theory called the Reality theory to explain art There are several impressionist artists aiming for this. If we use the reality theory to explain art, we are then able to interpret art in several new ways. The first one is that the artist can add their personal interpretations (emotions) into the art. Admittedly, the art may to some extent resemble the nature, e.g. the mask will have holes for eyes, nose, and mouth. However, it is still considered to be different because the picture of the mask shown may add some strikes that can not be seen on any one's face. The mask can also be only in the single color instead of representing a face of a real human. In another way, it can also create new entities. For instance, the man may not have a proper ratio of a body (the upper body may be too short while the legs may be too long). In this case, the artist is just trying to create a new entity based on a human, but not completely human.

Art requires personal interpretations and can not only reflect nature. However, people may not understand this art piece. A normal bedroom may be changed by changing the stripes on the bed and the wall. Despite the fact that it is an art, someone may consider it just as a messy bed. Danto here uses the term "Testradura" to call these people. For they can not interpret the art completely/ at all, what they did are mistaken.

After discussing theories relating to artwork, Danto then discussed the identification of artwork by using this command sentence "The bad is an artwork". Here, the "is" term is considered to be a type of identification of art. After finding that the "is" term is valid here, we can see that the bed is not the bed itself but now becomes an artwork. Just like a man is also not only about his single body, he also has his emotions and feelings. It is also worth noticing that a single artwork may have multiple types of interpretations. To give an example, the black line in the middle of a white paper may both reflect Newton's first law and the third law by considering the black line as the trail of the particle for the former and two white blocks for the latter.

In the final part of this essay, Danto finally discusses the style matrix of art. If the expressionist art is H and realistic is G. There will be 4 different styles of art. When there is a new style of art, the matrix itself can be enriched and that is why a new type of art is important. For an example, the artwork is used to be created on a flat surface(H), but now it can be created on a curved surface (non-H). The music used to have sound from instruments(H), but it can have only sound from the surroundings after the appearance of 4'22''(non-H).

# data[].attributes.body
By Johnson

In his essay, “Art and Its Objects”, Richard Wollheim articulates a type-token relationship between art and its objects. He begins by rejecting a physical-object hypothesis, stressing the distinction between a type and a token of art. He goes on to argue that neither a type or a token of art is unchanged. A type of art may extend its horizon whenever we accept a new theory of art, and new tokens are continuously created to embody the type of art with different expressions of it.

In sum, Wollheim’s rejection of the physical-object hypothesis is based on the assertion that works of art have properties which are not shared by physical objects. In his first part of rejection to the physical-object hypothesis, the physical objects here are defined as entities that are merely physical, being something that are tangible and independent from human interpretations. This definition is implied from his arguments that copies of art works as physical objects can cease to exist whereas the works of art do not necessarily perish with them. This definition is more evident from Wollheim’s statement that physical objects are inanimate, and most importantly they reject representational properties of art. I must agree with Wollheim that solely by tangible objects themselves it is not sufficient for us to call anything a work of art. Art necessarily has an affection on the viewers, and it must run the full cycle of being created, performed, and interpreted to justify its status as work of art.

In his second part of his rejection to physical-object hypothesis, Wollheim speaks about the particularity and the generality of works of art. The physical-object hypothesis, as he explains, raises two issues: “Are works of art PHYSICAL objects?” and “Are works of art physical OBJECTS?” Here, Wollheim seems to introduce two follow-up concepts of physical-object hypothesis, which are the physicality of all art works and the particularity of all art works. The first concept emphasizes that all works of art ought to be physical. Wollheim does not seem to come up with strong arguments against this concept of works for art. Wollheim has two arguments against this view. His first argument goes like this: it is a fact that there is a process to complete a work of art by the artist; before the artist completes the work of art, he must already possess a certain idea of the art work he intends to create. Implying from what he says so far, I believe that Wollheim considers this idea of the art work as proper art already. His second argument stresses that each performance of art work does not exactly match with each other. Physical-object hypothesis should face the difficulty of explaining how we classify a set of art pieces to be one type of art. But here, I think there is not necessarily a classificatory issue here. When we are listening to a performance of an art, we identify this piece of art by comparing it with the art works which we have already appreciated. To determine if this piece of art falls into the same category with, for instance, another piece of art that I appreciated three days ago, I will only need to decide if some physical forms of this piece of art the same as the physical forms of the one three days ago. If they generally fit, I will say they belong to the same category of art work. And if I have done a thorough look into my mind and found nothing similar to what I am hearing right now, I will say instead that it is my first time acquainting with the art work. As we can see, the physicality of art work should not be discarded without good reasons. It could be a useful criterion for us to distinguish between categories of art. Besides, physicalists may come up with some really strong arguments against any mentalists’ construct of the creation of art. They simply deny that ontologically art process is physical. An idea in mind can still be identical with some physical phenomenon that is potentially to be expressed. For example, if the copies of an art work are all destroyed, we say that the art work survives as long as people still have an impression of it. But what if everyone forgets about this art work? The impression of the art work can survive for a certain time after the public copies are destroyed, but the impression itself can be interpreted as physical activities in mind. Strictly speaking, we cannot say art work is not physical, or, not physical at all. Maybe art work cannot just be any physical objects, but it needs to take form of an physical object, be it an impression or a set of copies.

The second sub-concept of physical-object hypothesis is the emphasis on the particularity of art work. I believe here is where Wollheim’s theory is the strongest. Should art just be exactly the sum of its particularity? Wollheim simply disagrees. He challenges that for every piece of art work, there ought to be some types behind each set of art works. And I believe here the significance of Wollheim’s argument rests on the application of his type-token idea on the relationship between art and art works. Art in general, should not be exactly equal to all properties of its token (the various art works). First, not every property of the tokens of art do we need to determine their artistic qualities. I do not care if the papers used by the painters have certain roughness, unless it affects the expressiveness of entire picture. Therefore, there must be some relevant aspects of the token of art which distinguish them from the category of non-art to the category of art. How is that relevance decided? Well, as the type itself is the established conventions on how to decide the relevance of properties of tokens of art, the reasons behind the selection is truly complex and various. I think that Wollheim won’t find himself bothered by this question, because he simply needs to inform us about the necessity of the idea of type which makes conventions for tokens. On the other hand, tokens can vary in their expressiveness of the types they belong to. A tragic story does not need to include every property we think proper to tragedy. Also, a piece of music does not need to cover every property of other token of art, such as painting, to become an art work. As long as we agree that this piece of work shows enough properties in the type we identify in our minds, that piece of work will become an art work then. Wollheim acknowledges the flexibility of his definition of art, and we can see this effort more clearly from his understanding of the evolution of art. In Wollheim’s viewpoint, new types are created whenever a new piece of token is added to the context of art work. As we extend the group of tokens of art, some new properties are transmitted to the type of art from the newly-add tokens of art. A fine example will be the Fountain by Duchamp. At first, no one accepts his work because this token does not share enough properties with the properties we agree in the type of art. But as we become more tolerating, we have decided to acknowledge the status of Fountain. And so we extend the range of the type of arts, so we can include works such as Fountain.

The generality of the concept of art should be clearly thought about, as Wollheim has shown us its necessity. However, the next issue will be how to find good reasons to distinguish art from non-art, as the boundary as well as the expressiveness of the tokens of art vary across the art work and across the history. Thus, it remains vague as if we can truly tell art from non-art, since we do not know if we are going to agree one day that we should include this thing into the category of art. Type-token relationship is undoubtedly dynamic, but I don’t think its essence is boundless. For if the nature of art is infinite, the art will then reject definition. In the correspondence between particularity and generality, we have to find a conventional force neither so strong as it turns art into a closed concept that refuses to change nor too weak to constitute a true idea of art.

# data[].attributes.body
By Wilson

The general logical pattern of Goodman’s essay on “When is Art”:

1.1  Defining the theory of symbol --- Artwork as a symbol of something: a representative.

1.2  The theory of symbol implies that the symbol is something extrinsic to the artwork itself.

1.3  In the context of formalists or purists in aesthetics, artwork should and only should be legitimately categorized as a piece of art under the circumstances of being totally intrinsic.

1.4  Combining 1.2 and 1.3, art with symbolization cannot be legitimately categorized as artwork. Symbolization, or representative art, is actually somehow kind of disturbance and irrelevance.

2.1 However, there are bunch of evidences showing that art with symbol are regarded as art (It is important to see here is not a internal logical critique, but rather a evidential claim).
2.2 Arguing that some symbols are not entirely extrinsic.
2.3 Arguing that everything are somehow not "pure" (universality of symbols)
2.4 It is somehow important to make a distinction between different properties concerning internality and externality.
2.5 The question is: "How that distinction is made possible?"

3.1 Defining sampling: sample is a sample of some of properties, but not all (family-resembalance)
3.2 Sampling serves as exemplifications of certain art.
3.3 In this way, purists' artwork do symbolize something because it serves as a sampling showing certain properties.
3.4 Going back to the question of what is art, now it may seems difficult to say whether art is representative or not, since they all carry certain symbol.

4.1 Hence it is important to revise the question again: "when is art?"
4.2 Sampling as the function of an art is different from the sampling as the function of other things.
4.3 Here a valid implication could be "an art is art at certain time while providing some sampling symbolic function in the context"

My own understanding on Goodman's argument:

1. In this case Nelson Goodman might be a representative philosopher on the concept of art, for he believes that the so-called symbols are actually serving as a part of the sample of art, which is universally exist. He argued in this way by saying that no matter shape, color or what properties, they do represent some symbol indeed, therefore, purists' argument is actually invalid (here is an internal logical counter-argument rather than the simple dilemma at the beginning).

2. I agree with Nelson Goodman's argument in the temporality and context-dependency of a piece of art. It entailed some modernist philosophical concept such as Structuralism and some basic thought of Analytic philosophy here. In order to fulfill a certain kind of interpretation for someone, not only on determining what is art, but also determining how that convey the idea, do definitively require some context, which is being indicated by the terminology "when". Surely the terminology "when" in Goodman's title is not only about time, but it could be well-interpreted as a metaphorical terminology of "context". This can be proved in the examples he provided: the stone in the driveway is not only different in time between the stone in art gallery, but also its space, location and other external properties. All those external properties actually provide the viewer of the artwork some indication on the way to look at that stone --- whichever functioning as symbol or functioning as roadblocks.

3. The concept of sampling is pretty analytic. Categorization is one of the toughest problem facing philosopher is 20th century indeed. Here I believe that there is a underlying difference of Nelson's idea of sampling to Wittgenstein's idea of family resembalance. Sampling means that there are several properties that presented in an art, and definitively not presented in things other than art. However in Wittgenstein's family resembalance, it is actually impossible to derive a category for art because, as analogous to language-games, the classification of category is actually very vague. I can argue that there are some arts that are completely different in their essential (sampling) properties, while they are being called art at the same time just because they shared certain relationship in family resembalance. This is one of the potential weakness of Nelson's argument on the sampling categorization of art due to the vague nature of defining those things.

# data[].attributes.headline
Collingwood and Tolstoy: Art as a way to communicate emotions

# data[].attributes.subject
Collingwood and Tolstoy: Art as a way to communicate emotions

# data[].attributes.body
By Alvin

Tolstoy argues that art is an important medium to transport emotions from the author to public, he believes that emotions has the power to unionize people, as thus it is possible for the human society to progress, as for the author, the effectiveness of the communication of the emotion depends on three conditions: individuality, sincerity and clarity, except for the quality of emotion to be communicated, tolstoy also articulate the message of the author should be determined by social elites.

The equalization of art to beauty is for Tolstoy a legitimate corollary, for to say art is beautiful is to say beauty can exist as an essential attribute to define what art is to be like, in this way,  beauty is essentially related to the appreciation of art in a way that defines borders to art against non-art. This idea of beauty exists as if like a cleanser to save the purity and transparency of art, like a coat unique to the object of art that. Beauty is itself a value that is valued only in relation to its embodiment with object of art. For Tolstoy, beauty remains mystical unless it is received by the audience. To claim for the identity of art with beauty is not helpful to make sense of the artfulness of art,  unless we might first make a universally recognized picture of what we mean by beauty first. Now the burden of explaining beauty, however, lies on in what way we can have common perception of beauty through objects of art, and this would require common base to form such a perception of objects of art that we can universally agree to its judgment. (Johnson: Except for the shift from beauty within the object of art to the appreciation of art, Tolstoy further suggests that by defining art as beauty we are making art into somehting external to artistic appreciation. It is not only metaphysical, but also overlooking the truely important and primary functions of art.) Tolstoy sees the futility of reaching such an agreement in judgment thus he discarded the idea of beauty as a way to define art.

If beauty is no good to characterize art, it is equally a bad idea to relate art as where we can derive pleasure from. In his belief, art is not merely for pleasure, not is it that we relate the making of art as a way to seek for sharing of pleasure with the producer. The problem with such a reduction is that art lost its peculiarity as distinctive human activity that captures human soul to an elevation from mundane life. Arguably, the sanctity of art has very clear religious reference that may restrict access to the appreciation of so called noble art. Tolstoy wants to reserve such a sanctimonious sense of art while on the meantime, save art from being equal to the container of pleasure, no matter how delicately embroiled such experience of pleasure could be.

On the other hand, the aesthetic hedonism is also very much an idea deriving from centralization of authorship in the art making. to say the appreciation of art entails a particular sense of pleasure is to suggest a very problematic relationship between the author and spectator. if the art is a medium that evokes and stimulates pleasure on the side of spectator, we might wonder who has the power to produce pleasure, because we need to explain the causation of pleasure generation with an appropriate understanding of how artwork can achieve that. It might be assumed that the spectator feels pleased is because the artwork contains something like a stimulant to our senses that manage to stir up pleasure in our mind, now if so, we need to further ask what might be a candidate of such stimulant, and certainly, this stimulant must be substantial so that we can catch this stimulant in our senses and give rise of the experience of pleasure afterwards. This shall immediately raise our inquiry on art as pleasure back to artwork as pleasure, that is to say, we ask not how ( Johnson: some specific properties of art generate specific stimulations in the audience. Then I want to ask, what is the difference between the stimulations aroused by an art work and the stimulations aroused by laughing at some silly jokes made by the clawn? When we are appreciating an art work, we are carrying a sense of sacred. This sense of sacred comes from the artisitic value we attach to an art work, by which we belive that there is something unique about an art work, and it really means something good and significant. This artistic value can be different things, be it the sincerity and seriousness of the author's expression of emotions, or the exploration of one's own emotional states, but one thing in common to them is that they cannot be simply reduced to mere desires and stimulations. This, i belive, is why expressionism avoids using the word beauty and pleasure in describing what art really is.)

The form of art can be indeed very innovative, however, if the form as such only serves to offer a channel to find pleasure, it follows that the form itself is no more than a production of pattern that pleases our senses with tricky skills. The reduction of form to a sensually pleasing organization of lines and shapes and colors, is, according to Tolstoy, making a reduction of art to mere craft. While it is necessarily for art to have craft form, yet it is important that the form itself does not retain as being merely formal, we can't just say art is formally made up of some perceivable elements and no more than that.

# data[].attributes.body
By Johnson

Plato believes that mind and body are two different entities, to a monist view of mind-body problem, which believes that mind and body are essentially one thing. Although schools of philosophers differ in their positions, as we have already picked up some insights provided by anomalous monism (the theory which emphasizes the heterogeneous nature between mind and body, i.e. the system of mind is resistant to the system of body) and normative monism (which includes behaviorism, functionalism, and general identity theory etc.).

However, some people still want to defend something unique of mental events, something irreducible to mere physical phenome

In this chapter, Plato develops his hierarchy of matters and beauty in this world. He makes it an example that while arts immitate things created by people by hands, things we see in everyday life are by themselves immitations of some ideas which exist permanently. These ideas of things are named as "Forms", which are the abstractions of physical matters. Thus, Plato concludes that arts are something immitating the immitations of truths. Furthermore, Plato argues that the world in which Forms exist is discovered by reason; the world in which physical objects are observed is polished by hands; and finally, the world in which arts work is driven by preferences and desires. So Plato asserts the inferiority of arts in opposite to human rationale capacity.

However, one clear disadvantage of this theory is that where are those forms exactly? According to Plato, Froms ought to be permanent and absolute - no variations at all by time and by space. But is it possible that we can truly discover any things so absolute as Forms? Taking a standpoint from today, many seemingly permanent things are reduced to contingencies. For instance, even reason itself is reduced back to the negotiation between pleasure principle and reality principle by Freud. So it is hardly for people today to see that necessity of constituting some thing higher and above than things in this world.

Second of all, arts are not limited to please the audience in a level of bodily desire. For the sculptures made to represent God in ancient Greek, no reasons can be made to categorize these arts as some satisfactions of desires, rather they do serve some devine purposes that should be considered as more noble than desires. The range of arts are underestimated by Plato.

Finally, as I have mentioned in the previous paper, when you look at an art you are never going to see this art as merely a subject itself that the art describes about. In other words, the arts are never merely about the subject it intends to describe. Arts usually deliver a purpose, which can either be linked with the subject or be linked with other things, and this purpose usually has nothing to do with the pragmatic uses and knowledge about the subject. Plato uses the pragmatic uses and the knowledge about the subject to turn against the value of arts, but he has no reasons to claim that our value system is all about knowledge and pragmatic usage.

# data[].attributes.body
By Johnson

In this chapter, Socrates challenged one common sense about arts, which claims the values of arts derive from its description on the subjects of arts. Socrates compare the masters of actual sujects, who improve the use of, know best about the actual things artists are discribing, with the artists themselves, who are merely passing on something divine to the audiences with the subjects. There are two implications that we can derive from Socrates' arguement.

First, what Socrates conclude leads Plato to propose his more advanced theory later in the Republic, which states the arts should be categorized as immitations of physical world. Further, Plato develops his theory of this world, which divides the world into three layers: the true world of reason, the physical world of perceptions, and the illusionary world of arts. Each sub-world is a representation of the upper one, and after one representation the degree of being true decreases. So to speak, Plato is convinced that arts are just the representaion of the representation of the reality, which deceives rather than educates, which seduces rather than flourishes mankind. If Socrates does speak about how arts should never be understood as anything pragmatically useful and existing, his attitude towards arts will be consistant with the tone of Plato. As Socrates suggests, that arts are never anything as real as making sensational contact directly with any entities - how can we find any ontologies true in arts? So to speak, what arts have passed on is never anything "solid", and Socrates call what arts do to the people a chain effect, which transports artists' muses and inspirations, the "divine power".

What then, does the divine power refer to? This leads to the second implication of Socrates. First possibility is that the divine power primarily refers to the forms arts take to perform a certain subject in this world. If a person were to choose read poems about a war instead of learn about that war from a technical history book, the reason he should probably have given to us is, "The way poem tells the war is surely more enjoyable...... It is really beautiful." So to speak, only after artists have created some symbols through various techniques, which make the process of making contact with that subject enjoable to people, by means of pathos, logos, ethos, visual preferences etc. we can call this product arts. Without certain forms, arts are rubbish. Only with these forms, people can make sense of arts and be attracted by them. Another possibility is that the divine power is some kind of purposes arts serve. For instance, novels usually have a theme to be instilled into readers' mind. This purpose of writing this story with these subjects, be it to purify the souls, rule the mind of citizens, or just to appeal to readers' desires, make arts then valueable to us. In this case, subjects are tools of artists to realize some other purposes. In Socrates' sense, it is to realize some divine purposes that cannot be explained. But that is only one possibility of purposes artists can choose. There is a wide range of purposes arts can take, to destroy or to create. Therefore, arts can in some sense be defined if we combien the two implications listed above. Arts are just those symbols and various tricks to combine them (forms) in order to send certain messages or realize any goals (themes) by artists. The former component is like the body of arts, and the latter is like the spirit of it.