HPH312: Philosophy of the Arts
Assignment Three: Kant and Hume
Prof. Domenic
Type your answers out in essay form, using full paragraphs, and really thinking about your arguments. Double space. 1 – 2 pages. Any website you might have used for your research must go on the reference page. (Hint: Google and Wikipedia by themselves are not references).
Can you think of any ways in which Kant’s belief that true beauty must be completely separated from utilitarian function may have harmed the way art history has been written? (Prof. Domenic is going to giving you hints in class but be sure to do some follow up research on those hints).
Conversely, is there any way in which this view may help the arts in general? (Again, Prof. Domenic will give you some prompts to follow up on).
Following Hume’s belief that some of us have better taste than others, can you think of ways in which this may have helped or harmed art history?
Should all art and music be judged by the same criteria? In other words, should we use the same criteria that we might use to critique an opera singer be the same as for a hip hop artist? Should we judge a painting by Picasso the same as we would a painting by Leonardo da Vinci?
Can you think of some instances where it might be more important for a work of art to not be beautiful? What would those be? Can you think of a work of art that is not beautiful, but because of the message it conveys, it is considered to be important?
