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Articles

Let’s Abolish ‘Art’!

Mark Roberts gives an answer to the question of ‘Art’.

The meaning of the word ‘art’ has been a regular theme in Philosophy Now, most notably in the ‘arty issue’ of 2006 (Issue 57). Introducing that issue, the Editor referred to ancient examples of art – “graceful, stylised cave paintings” and “patterns on… prehistoric pottery” – and posed the question: “What links them to Tracey Emin’s unmade bed, Jeff Koons’ kitsch dogs, or Damien Hirst’s pickled shark, so that we can call them all by the same name of Art?”

It’s a question which often generates much heat, but less light. Wittgenstein wrote that the aim of his philosophy was “to show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle” (Philosophical Investigations p.309), and the heated debate about the meaning of ‘art’ can certainly be likened to the buzzing of angry flies caught in a seemingly inescapable trap. So how would Wittgenstein show us the way out of this particular fly-bottle? Surely, as always, he would tell us to examine how the word ‘art’ is actually used.

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