Thomas Reid and the Expression Theory of Art

Abstract

I shall mean by theory of the theory which holds (in its various forms) that the of emotion is the essential property of art: that something is work of art if and only if it is an of emo tion. I shall mean by a theory of artistic expression any theory which gives an account of how?in what way?works of art express emotions. Every ex pression theory of art that I know about embodies theory of artistic ex pression: that is, it offers an account of what it is claiming when it claims that art is expression. But not every theory of artistic is an instance of the theory of art; for it is entirely possible to maintain (as many people have done) that art expresses emotions, without maintaining further that this is what makes it art, or that it is either necessary or suf ficient condition for being art. Among theories of artistic expression, it is useful to distinguish between those that are theories and those that are not. By self expression theory I mean one making out that work of art can truthfully be said to express given emotion only if the artist experienced the emotion while (or perhaps shortly before) creating the work of art. The theory of art in its classical form?as held by Collingwood, Bosanquet, Ducasse, and others like them?is pre-eminently self-expression theory: that is, the theory of artistic that it embodies is self-expression theory. My argument here will be that Thomas Reid, in contrast to those of his contemporaries and immediate predecessors with whom I am acquainted, did not merely have theory of artistic (which many Enlightenment writers had), but, rather, came very close indeed to maintaining the expres sion theory of art. My claim, then, is double one: that Reid had something like the classical theory; and that no one else in the eighteenth century did. I shall try to establish the first claim in the obvious way: by try ing to dig out the theory in Reid. The second claim I can do nothing with here, as it would require full account of the theory of artistic in Enlightenment thought. I simply leave it as an hypothesis that further investigation may either support or refute.