Customer Reviews

Philosophy of Art: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy)

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For the past few years, I've been looking for a good introduction to the philosophy of art. Noël Carroll provides this missing book.

There are several guides, companions and anthologies. But none of them was able to provide me with a clear and elegant tool to tackle this subject. This lack of a reference manual is specifically acute in my own country, France, as the aesthetics analytic tradition is not part of the basic Philosophy curriculum.

Most books in the field are focusing on the philosophy works of Goodman, Danto and Cavell. I do see why an academic would consider these works to be crucial to the understanding of contemporary aesthetics discussions. But my impression is that the mention of these authors only turns off students.

Mr. Carroll's books focuses on very basic problems and on one basic question: what is art about? Is it about representation? Or expression? Or form? - This choice of simplicity makes this book the only available introduction to a very exciting field.

I do not think the book requires any philosophy background - so it could also be of a great interest for a wider audience.

The only thing I miss is a more comprehensive discussion of the question of "intention", as it is the problem that surfaces during most discussions on aesthetics issues. I guess the author had to keep the book short and focused.

This book is primarily concerned with figuring out what makes an object a work of art. The strategy adopted here attempts to find necessary and sufficient conditions which an object must satisfy in order for it to properly be called a work of art. Carroll considers several different traditions which offer answers to this question. Most of the book proceeds by way of finding counterexamples to the proposed definition. While engaging, this book won't be very congenial for philosophers who deny a definitional view of concepts or who deny analyticity. If you are one of these, the project will be doomed to failure at the outset. He does consider family resemblence, but quickly dismisses it. However, you may find value in the later chapters, which consider whether pure fiat confers art-status on an object. Good intro though with plentiful references to works of art.

This is what I packed to the lake this summer. The suspense of following art thinking from verisimitude to conceptualism. The romance of potent examples from the history of art! The tragedy of the Fall of the aesthetic enterprise. The hope of uncovering the as-yet unsolved mysteries in defining a work of Art. All told with, if not humor, at least honsety.

I read this book for a graduate seminar on the philosophy of art. An interesting facet of literature is how fiction is intentionally used by an author to introduce and argue non-fictional ideas and theories. This case in point is examined by Noël Carroll in his book "Philosophy of Art." Carroll astutely argues that if the "intentional fallacy" argument rests on the premise that "all literature is fictional," then this notion is problematic. Carroll observes that there are plenty of non-fictional passages in fictional books that authors insert to espouse philosophical or scientific theories, and that fiction is sometimes used as a "vehicle" to carry these ideas to the reader that they would ordinarily have a hard time getting out into the public in a "dry" treatise. Good examples of this notion are the novels written by Ayn Rand. Rand intentionally used several of her novels such as, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, both popular works of fiction, to espouse her libertarian philosophical theory of "objectivism." In addition, Carroll understands the interests that readers have, namely the "conversational interests" they have in "communion" with or "communicating" with the author through reading the text. Carroll wisely perceives that readers have a conversational interest in literature; a conversation of wanting to understand what the author is communicating. Thus, Carroll correctly argues, "We want to understand the author, even if that will lead to rejecting his or her point of view."

I recommend this work for anyone interested in philosophy, philosophy of art, and textual criticism.

This book, written by a philosophy professor, is filled with circular reasoning that would be spotted by a ten year old.

For instance, the author rejects the representational theory of art with the argument, that some art isn't representational. Therefore, the representational theory must be wrong. Easy, right?

Wrong. The whole point of the representational theory is that non-representational art *isn't* art. Carroll's argument is therefore a non sequitur. Essentially, he just says: "YES, IT IS". To which the representationalist will respond: "NO, IT ISN'T". Quite a debate!

Carroll assumes what needs to be proven: that the avantgarde is art. Duchamp's ready-mades and "Two Minutes of Silence" are art. Why? No idea. Because Carroll and modernist art critics say so, presumably. Therefore, definitions of art which would exclude Duchamp and the Silent Guy cannot be correct. QED.

That's an argument?

When the chips are down, Carroll cannot even present a definition of his own, at least not a coherent one. Carroll believes that design isn't art. Why not? Many people would disagree. But perhaps they aren't part of the cognoscenti Art Circle. He further believes that a traffic sign used as a wall decoration wouldn't be art. Again, why not?

What is art? Perhaps the question cannot be given a clear answer. And then, perhaps it can. How come the public after 100 years of modernist indoctrination still doesn't consider the modernist monstrosities to be "art"? Carroll implies that such people are simply silly and philistine. Another possibility is that modern and postmodern art simply doesn't appeal to some kind of aesthetic, symbolic or ritual instincts deeply embedded in our psyches. In plain English: no, Noël, it really isn't "art" after all!

This book is the worst book i ever read in my life. I wouldn't recommend this to anybody. Carroll doesn't know what the hell she is talking about, let alone know anything about art.