Questions in Aesthetics
(a partial list for the course and for your project):
Do criticism and theory make any contribution to art? Why not just experience the art?
What makes art different from nonart?
Should we recognize a difference between fine art, commercial art, and craftwork?
What (if anything) do the arts have in common?
Why does art matter?
Are artists prophets?
Are art and beauty essentially related?
What is a symbol?
How does art mean? How does the answer to this question differ with the different arts? (e.g., painting, music, dance).
What's the status of aesthetic standards? Do they simply express individual or cultural tastes? Is there something objective about them?
What's the nature of aesthetic properties? Are they in any sense "objective"? Or are they simply "in the eye (or ear) of the beholder"?
How do the arts relate to: Religion?
Morality? Emotions? Economic power and class structure? Philosophy? Culture and cultural development?
What's the nature of aesthetic intelligence, and how does it relate to other sorts of intelligence?
Can animals be artists?
Is there any special connection between art and gender, or between art and sex or the erotic?
How important is performance to art?
Why aren't natural objects works of art? Or are they?
Do artists reveal? Interpret? Express? All of the above?
Where do we go from here? Is art history over?
Should art ever be censored?