The best (and worst) philosophy of art

One question on the final exam for my Philosophy of Art course asked students to identify the best or worst theorist of art we studied this semester. We devoted significant time to five major philosophers — Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Nietzsche, and Rand — and discussed a few others along the way more briefly.

In deciding best or worst, the students were to specify their criteria, give an overview of the theory in question, and explain why the theory succeeded or failed at meeting the criteria.

kant-silhouette-75x134Ten students selected the best theory option, and they chose as follows:
Kant 4
Aristotle 2
Nietzsche 2
Rand 2

Three students chose to do the worst theory — and all of them chose Plato.

So I hereby declare Immanuel Kant to be the most sublime philosopher of art for the Spring 2012 semester.

(That was a hard sentence for me to write, somehow. Two indications of my thoughts on Kant’s aesthetics: Is modern art too complicated for us? and Kant and modern art.)

In addition to studying the above philosophers, we also spent time in four art-historical eras — ancient Greece, Renaissance Italy, the Dutch Golden Age, and nineteenth-century France — blending a study of the era’s art with its history, philosophy, and culture.

11 thoughts on “The best (and worst) philosophy of art”

  1. Jack Gardner

    These results are very telling or enlightening or something. Since I am confident in your ability to present the essentials and implications of these esthetic views, and to generate class discussion. However, I am thus at a loss to explain the results?

    How can Rand’s expansion of Aristotle’s rational approach be so rejected?

  2. Hi Jack: Part of the explanation has to do with what the students bring to the class. A strong interest in theater? Then Aristotle’s Poetics will absorb them. A sense of conflict between living rationally and living passionately? Then Nietzsche’s Apollonian/Dionysian duality will resonate. An attraction to the ominous and the forbidding? Then the Kantian sublime will feel darkly delicious. And other variations.
    Since the students aren’t blank slates, what the text says and the professor’s explications will only be part of the explanation.

  3. R Richard Schweitzer

    Do go you into approaches such as Ortega y Gaset’s “Dehumanization of Art?”

  4. Perhaps your students grasped (where you have not) the fact that Kant’s notion of the Sublime is NOT about having “an attraction to the ominous and forbidding,” but about the experience of “regarding our estate as exalted above” phenomena of immense power and magnitude. Perhaps your students recognized (where you have not) that, despite Rand’s uninformed condemnation of Kant’s aesthetics, she unknowingly adopted his concept of the Sublime as the signature aesthetic style of ALL of her own art.

    J

  5. I wonder, Jonathan, if you have actually taught Kant’s sublime to students and noticed what they are drawn to and what they focus on in their essays and exams? Notice that the hypothesis is not about the best scholarly interpretation of Kant but only about students’ reactions to Kant.
    Your second sentence illustrates the same phenomenon: The topic at hand is student reactions to Kant, but you jump to an attack on Rand, which tells us more about your agenda than the actual topic of discussion.

  6. I wonder, Stephen, if YOU’VE ever actually taught Kant’s concept of the Sublime, rather than your own Rand-inspired misinterpretation of it. Are your students reacting to Kant’s actual ideas, or to your distorted portrayal of them, or to some jumble of the two? I don’t see how your students could possibly be giving you their “reactions to Kant” if you’ve been “Comprachicoing” them to think that Kant believed the opposite of what he believed.

    Do you instruct your students that the aesthetic notion of Sublimity as being stimulated by magnitude/awe/terror goes back way before Kant, and that Kant’s explanation of its effect is based in a sense of heroism/exaltation and the superiority of human will, imagination and reason? Do you inform your students that Rand’s novels are perfect (and very powerful) examples of Kant’s concept of Sublimity — that they represent the very essence of Kantian Sublimity? Or have you been misleading them to believe something else?

    Anyway, I didn’t “attack” Rand, but simply identified the fact that, when it came to her very brief, unsupported condemnation of Kant’s aesthetics, she didn’t know what she was talking about. Her opinion was uninformed. That’s not an attack or an insult, but a dispassionate statement of fact. And her errors appear to have influenced yours.

    J

  7. Okay, Jonathan. I don’t know where your anger is coming from. I don’t know you. You don’t know my views on Kant’s sublime, how I teach it, what I think of Rand’s views, etc. Yet you show up and launch a disconnected-from-the-topic-of-discussion broadside. All of those are fascinating (and fun) issues to get into at some point, but why would anyone want to talk with you about them given your self-introduction? So we will leave it at that.

  8. I’m not angry. Are you psychologizing, or perhaps projecting? Is your labeling me as angry an attempt to distract from my points and to avoid addressing them?

    You say that I don’t know you views on Kant’s Sublime. Does that mean that the views of yours on Kant and Sublimity that I’ve read are not your views? Do you mean that I can’t know your views by reading your views?

    J

  9. Virginia Murr

    Dr. Hicks, I’ve spent some time in your classes, including this one. The problem is certainly not a lack of objectivity. You are frustratingly objective (I say this with the utmost respect). With most professors, discovering what they like and don’t like is part of the game of getting good grades. If you can key-in on their passions, you will most assuredly get them to like you and, usually, your work. Not so with you. Trying to figure you out was a bit like trying to understand how a brick wall feels. Thus, you left me in the enviable position of presenting my own views. It was enormously liberating. However, as you mentioned above, college students are not blank slates. When you add this with the surprisingly sizable amount of students who have low or very narrow academic aspirations, the resulting opinions on any given topic are likely to be scatter-shot. The results don’t just show us about your students, they also show (quite clearly) that you teach with a high level of objectivity and, therefore, without prejudice. Thank you for that.

  10. It’s good to hear that Dr. Hicks teaches with objectivity and without prejudice. After reading his written views on the subjects of Art, Beauty, the Sublime and Kant, and seeing some of his quite passionate and non-objective viewpoints and judgments on those subjects and their histories, it’s truly heartening to hear that the errors, inappropriate moralizing and psychologizing that can be found in his essays and blog posts do not make their way into his classroom, and are therefore having no influence whatsoever on his students’ educations.

    J

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