Artworks are objects that, when viewed and interpreted by people, arouse aesthetic emotions. They are widely considered to be a special type of object, distinct from, but related to, other things such as sunsets, musical compositions and buildings. People study artworks in the academic fields of art history and art criticism. Consequently, there is much philosophical discussion about what constitutes an artwork and how such objects should be appraised and appreciated. A central question that this article aims to answer is whether it is possible to have a unified, though incomplete, philosophy of art.
The first step in answering this question is to define what an artwork is, and this involves considering the various options for describing what art is. Classical definitions, such as Monroe Beardsley’s, characterize an artwork as an arrangement of conditions that is capable of producing an aesthetic experience, or as being intended to have this capacity (see the entry on Deweyan aesthetics).
Other definitions take a different approach. They define an artwork as an artifact that is created, or intended to be created, by an artist and presented to the artworld public. This approach has the disadvantage that it appears to allow just about anything to be called an artwork if it is conferred this status by experts in the artworld system. The alternative to this is a conventional definition, which comes in two varieties, institutional and historical (see Chapter 5). Institutionalist conventionalism defines an artwork as an artifact that, in order to be deemed an artwork, must have certain institutions or art-historical relations. Historical conventionalism, on the other hand, defines an artwork as an artifact that is a work in a particular style or period of art.
Still others have taken the view that an artwork is something that conveys a specific element of truth, either by its sensuous/perceptual appearance or by its expression of this truth. Hegel, for example, took this view, claiming that the beauty of an artwork conveys the deepest metaphysical truth because it represents the idea of the world as a self-consciously developing universe. Artworks, therefore, are not merely representations of the way things actually are, but actual springboards from which this truth can be derived (see The Origin of the Work of Art).
A final option is to define an artwork in terms of its evolving functions. This is a particularly attractive idea because, unlike the other alternatives discussed in this essay, it does not place an unreasonably restrictive constraint on what counts as an artwork. This option has been argued by a number of philosophers, most notably Joseph Margolis and Richard Rorty (see Chapter 4). However, it is important to remember that this theory can be criticized in the same ways as the other three. In addition, the functionalists’ construal of an artwork is not always compatible with their own characterizations of aesthetic experiences and the nature of artistic value.