Kant’s Aesthetics and the Challenge of Conceptual Art

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 7 returns to Kant. The author begins by surveying the hardest case for aesthetic theories of art, Conceptual Art, before distinguishing much more carefully than other philosophers between competing conceptions of such art. The author starts by canvasing the views of influential participants (both artists and curators) before turning to later philosophical reconstructions. The author distinguishes his own account of ‘Non-Perceptual Art’ from other views, and argues that strongly Non-Perceptual Art (that is, art with no sensible properties relevant to its appreciation as art) provides the stiffest challenge to aesthetic theory, despite being a more minority position within the field than is generally realized. The author then sets out the two aspects of Kant’s theory most relevant to demonstrating its capacity to cope with such art: Kant’s discussion of ‘dependent beauty’ (aesthetic judgements that implicate a concept of the object judged [CJ §16]) and works of art as ‘expressions of aesthetic ideas’ (indirect presentations of ideas that cannot be directly presented [CJ §49]), respectively. He then takes two works by Lawrence Weiner as instances of ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ NPA respectively, and shows how both can be illuminated by Kant’s theory.