Aesthetic Creation

Abstract

INAesthetic Creation Nick Zangwill defends an aesthetic theory of art—a theory according to which having an aesthetic purpose is what makes something a work of art. He describes himself, as do some other aestheticians, as following ‘the great Monroe Beardsley' (pp. 11–12) in holding this view, and recognizes that much Anglophone philosophy of art of the last fifty years is deeply distrustful of it. His subtle articulation and vigorous defence of his distinctive version of aestheticism is a splendid contribution to what might turn out to be a revival of it. While Zangwill is resolutely traditional in seeking the essence of art—what it is that makes something a work of art—he does not see this as the task of defining ‘art' or analysing ‘our concept of art'. In fact he is sceptical of the utility or even the existence of something that deserves to be called ‘our concept of art', at least if it is conceived of as comprising painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and poetry, first grouped together in the middle of the eighteenth century in Western Europe in what Kristeller called the Modern System of the Arts.