149 sats \ 6 replies \ @Scoresby 4 Apr \ on: What Is Art For ? FiresidePhilosophy
Both Plato and Aristotle are wrong. It's not imitation at all. Art is creation.
If art was imitation, we'd be like bowerbirds hopping around in front of our fancy nests, just trying to get laid.
But human art is gratifying even to ourselves alone. It's what we do to escape our fear that we are nothing more than a collection of atoms.
Art is transhumanism before it was cool.
By which I mean art is how we become gods.
It takes guts to go against Plato and Aristotle! 😂 The Force is strong with you!
But I see your point, it makes sense.
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If we consider writing as an art, there were many. Whether they made other types of art, I don't know.
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It's interesting to think about philosophy as art. Does the Nicomachean Ethics have artistry?
Probably a lot of it is changed by translation (I certainly don't read Greek). So are we even experiencing Aristotle's artistry - or the translator's?
But this gets to the bigger point: what part of human life is art and what is not?
If a cashier makes change for me - not art.
If they do it with flair - art?
Art is distinct from the other stuff we do in that it is somehow beautiful.
A landscape is beautiful but not art until you paint it or describe it or photograph it.
What if the cashier making change without flair was actually the true artistry?
I guess art is intentional too.
Probably there is only fuzziness when we look too closely at the boundaries of art.
But I think this is a good taglong question for the one you pose in the OP:
What isn't art?
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You raise some good points. In a broader sense, I would say that anything that involves creation can be considered art. But that's a highly debatable topic. We can talk about the art of cooking, the art of sewing, the art of writing poetry, and so on. Now I have more doubts than I did an hour ago. :)