In this richly argued and provocative book, David Davies elaborates and defends a broad conceptual framework for thinking about the arts that reveals important continuities and discontinuities between traditional and modern art, and between different artistic disciplines.
Preface.
1. Introduction:.
Challenges to Aesthetic Empiricism.
Methodological Interlude: The ‘Pragmatic Constraint’ on the Ontology of Art.
Aesthetic Empiricism and the Philosophy of Art.
2. Aesthetic Empiricism:.
Indirect Arguments Against Aesthetic Empiricism.
3. The Fine Structure of the Focus of Appreciation:.
The Structure of the Focus of Appreciation.
4. The Artwork as Performance: An Argument from Artistic Intentions:.
Overview.
The Bearing of Provenance on Work and Focus.
Artistic Intentions and the Ontology of Art.
Interpretation and Intention.
A Role for Actual Intentions.
Ontological Implications.
Conclusions.
5. Provenance, Modality, and the Identity of the Artwork:.
Preliminaries.
6. Artwork, Action, and Performance.
7. Art as Performance:.
Elaborating the Performance Theory.
Structure and Focus.
Heuristics and the Individuation of Artworks.
Work-Constitution and Modality on the Performance Theory.
Performances, Actions, and Doings.
8. Revisionism and Modernism Revisited.
9. Performance as Art.
10. Defining ‘Art’ as Performance, and the Values of Art:.
Notes Towards a Definition of ‘Art’.
The Values of Art.
Conclusions: The Case Against Contextualism.
References.
Index
