Definition and Interpretation of Art

Pre-requisites: Finished master studies.

Course objectives: Student should get introduced to different approaches to the definition and interpretation of art in contemporary aesthetics, including their implications for the resolution of the open questions in theory of literature and fine arts.

Course description: Special attention will be paid to wittgensteinian criticism of traditional definitions of art and modern attempts (institutional, functional and historical) to respond to it, as well as large disputes in philosophical theory of interpretation of art, regarding interpretative intentionalism, interpretative contextualism and interpretative realism.

Learning Outcomes: Student should be trained, on the basis of introduction to the problems of definition and interpretation of art, for independent philosophical review and exploration of these issues and their implications.

Literature/Reading:

• Peter Lamarque and S. H. Olsen (eds.), Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art, 2004, str. 9-62, 142-171 i 235-294
• Stephen Davies, Definitions of Art, 1991
• Noel Carroll (ed.), Theories of Art Today, 2001, str. 25-64, 93-108 i 130-140
• Robert Stecker, Artworks: Definition, Meaning, Value, 1997
• Jerrold Levinson, The Pleasures of Aesthetics, 1996, str. 150-171
• Jerrold Levinson, Contemplating Art, 2006, str. 13-26 i 275-311
• Richard Wollheim, Painting as an Art, 1987
• Anthony Savile, The Test of Time, 1982, str. 41-85
• J. Tully (ed.), Meaning and Context: Quentin Skinner and His Critics, 1989, str. 68-78 i 231-288
• Leon Kojen, Umetnost i vrednost, 1989, str. 41-76
• M.H. Abrams, Doing Things with Texts, 1991, str. 31-87
• Gary Iseminger (ed.), Intention and Interpretation, 1992
• M. Krausz (ed.), Is There a Single Right Interpretation, 2002