Cornell University Press Art as Language: Wittgenstein, Meaning, and Aesthetic Theory

Art as Language systematically considers the implications of the pervasive belief that art is a language or functions like language. This insightful book clarifies the similarities and differences between expression in speech and expression in art, and examines Wittgenstein's work on language and mind as it applies to several prominent aesthetic theories. Working from a Wittgensteinian perspective, G. L. Hagberg opens with a reexamination of some of the foundational aesthetic theorists of the earlier part of the twentieth century, including R. G. Collingwood and Susanne Langer. He uncovers the sources of many contemporary issues in philosophical aesthetics and investigates the ways in which problems have been conceptualized and theoretical advances have been formulated. He then discusses the nature of linguistic intention and explores its significance for understanding artistic intention and creation. Here Hagberg draws on Wittgenstein's work on linguistic meaning, and particularly on "private language," to provide a deeper understanding of artistic meaning. The book closes with an analysis of the issues raised by leading aesthetic philosophies in the post-Wittgenteinian years. Focusing on the work of Arthur Danto, George Dickie, and Joseph Margolis, Hagberg discusses the philosophical presumptions and hidden complexities in recent theories of artistic perception, in theories concerning the nature of the art object, and in the institutional conception of the arts. Throughout Art as Language, he tests the claims of aesthetics against artistic practices in order to rethink the fundamental positions of the most important aesthetic theories of the last century.