This article submits the idea that, beyond traditional readings of the essay, Hume's "Of the Standard of Taste" is an intimation to appreciate the fictional nature of the standard of taste and our aesthetic education thereof. It is argued that, with Hume, art is not for the benefit and enjoyment of the individual. One's private response to beauty…

The ultimate aim of artistic exploration is to explore the claim that objects are different from experience and beauty is just a by-product of the exploration. In other words, the truth in the eyes of each person may quite literally not be the same. This indicates that differences in the visual apparatus influence the viewing body's mastery of the…

Both John Dewey and Martin Heidegger thought that art's audience had to take a detour in order to appreciate or understand a work of art. They wrote about this around the same time (mid-1930s) and independently of one another, so this similar circumstance in the history of aesthetics is unusual since they come from very different philosophical…

A class of fourth-graders (nine-to-ten-year-olds) was taught art appreciation one day a week during an entire school year. Three years later their performance in visual awareness was tested and compared to the performance of pupils of the same age from another class who had not received any particular education in art appreciation. The results…

In "The Art of Theater," the author proposes and explains a claim that many theater people hold true in some form but have defended in a manner that has had almost no success outside discussions among themselves. The claim proposed is that, in an unqualified way, theater is a form of art. By that the author means theatrical performances are "what…

This paper explores critically the nature of art's value in education and argues in favor of both intrinsic and instrumental value. Form and expression, while being out of favor in some contemporary circles, are re-claimed as appropriate features of art. Concepts and forms in art as elsewhere serve to structure impressions and experience and…

During the eighteenth century, amateurs as well as philosophers ventured critical commentary on the arts. Talk concerning taste or beauty or the sublime was so much a part of general discourse that even novelists of that era incorporated such subjects in their work. So it would not be surprising to find that perspectives on aesthetics are…

In this essay, I argue that although philosophers of art have legitimately examined and emphasized the role of sight and hearing in respect to art appreciation, for the most part they have neglected the role of touch. I develop the idea that while sight and hearing form the melody line of art appreciation, touch is its bass line, one that is…

This is a critical response to the papers by Shusterman, Sartwell, and Stroud. I claim that Shusterman has missed the inter-human moral aesthetics of Confucianism, that Sartwell has misunderstood Taoism's idea of "receptivity," confusing it with anarchist "passivity," and Stroud has not overcome the "Gita's" injunction to sacrifice the self,…

The author writes that the point made in this article is a simple, twofold one. First, if the test of time is a reliable, viable mechanism for assessing the value of works of art, and if the integrity of this test can be maintained even when indexed to a particular person, then it makes sense that this person should want to possess those works…

This paper contends that art can critique a philosophical claim about the world. Artist imagination can envision how an idea can live and whether the idea is attractive to our living. Cormac McCarthy's novel, "Blood Meridian," narratively illustrates a certain idea of divine determinism and shows that, in terms of war and human cruelty, the idea…

This paper will examine an unresolved tension inherent in the question of art and argue for the idea of a singular rule as a natural resolution. In so doing, the structure of a singular rule will be fully outlined and its paradoxical constitution will be resolved. The tension I mention above unfolds both as a matter of history and as a product of…

An analysis is made of the way art is presented to students. (CK)