Explanation and Value in the Arts

In Explanation and value in the arts, art historians, literary theorists, and philosophers explore the sources of interest in literature and the fine arts, the intimate relation between aesthetic and other values, the involvement of values in the explanations of works, and the determining role of power. The first chapters consider the construction of value in works. Michael Podro analyzes the density or presence of the medium, arguing that explanations must account for this significance or fail to grasp value. Walter Biemel and Wayne C. Booth propose that philosophy and morality are crucial to aesthetic valuation. The following chapters examine the construction of value in the study of the arts. Mark Roskill looks at what "extra-aesthetic" considerations make particular works historically important, and contends that literature and art history invite distinctive criteria. Svetlana Alpers assesses the contribution of Panofsky, among others, to show how methodological commitments in art history import assumptions about value; while Gregg Horowitz argues that the study of works of fine art is something other than a merely theoretical enterprise of trying to grasp the nature of objects from the past. Questions of power underlie Jon Elster's contribution, an analysis of the nature of creativity, and Pierre Bourdieu's, a philosophical and sociological construal of the principles for an explanation of cultural objects. In the final chapters, Richard Eldridge and Noel Carroll take up this theme, examining the nature and role of ideology.

Explanation and Value in the Arts offers penetrating studies by art historians, literary theorists and philosophers, of issues central to explaining works of literature and painting. The first chapters look at the sources of interest in the fine arts and point to the intimate relation between aesthetic and other values. The following contributions develop the interaction between value and explanation by examining the construction of value in the study of the arts, including considerations of the nature of creativity and the principles for the explanations of works. A final section takes up questions of the role of ideology and the determining role of power.

List of contributors; Editor's acknowledgements; 1. Interests, values and explanations Salim Kemal and Ivan Gaskell; 2. Fiction and reality in painting Michael Podro; 3. Franz Kafka: the necessity for a philosophical interpretation of his work Walter Biemel; 4. On relocating ethical criticism Wayne C. Booth; 5. Explanation and value: what makes the visual arts so different, so appealing? Mark Roskill; 6. Is art history? Svetlana Alpers; 7. Objectivity and valuation in contemporary art history Gregg Horowitz; 8. Fullness and parsimony: notes on creativity in the arts Jon Elster; 9. Principles of a sociology of cultural works Pierre Bourdieu; 10. Althusser and ideological criticism of the arts Richard Eldridge; 11. Film, rhetoric, and ideology Noël Carroll; Index.

Penetrating studies by a group of art historians, literary theorists, and philosophers consider 'explanation' of works of literature and painting.