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    Wollheim's account in 'Art and Its Objects' establishes t... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→The Mona Lisa, as a kind, can be said to have perceptual properties in an extended sense

    Wollheim's account in 'Art and Its Objects' establishes that perceptual properties belong exclusively to particular instances, not to the type, making 'extended' attribution explanatorily idle rather than genuinely descriptive.

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    1 reason for
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    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Perceptual properties like color and texture are directly observable only in individual artworks, not in abstract types or classes.
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    • 2.Attributing properties to types rather than tokens commits a category mistake—types are not objects of perception but conceptual abstractions.
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    • 3.Extended type-attribution does no explanatory work: we always ultimately appeal to particular instance-properties to explain aesthetic experience.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.Multiple tokens of the same type (prints, casts, performances) can share identical perceptual properties, suggesting type-level description captures real similarities.
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    • 2.We meaningfully discuss what properties a musical composition or literary work has independent of any single instantiation, suggesting type-properties are genuine.
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    • 3.Denying type-properties leaves no principled way to explain why two instances of the same work look similar or why we recognize instances as belonging to the same type.
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    Key Terms

    Art and Its Objects(the specific philosophical work being discussed)
    A famous book by Wollheim about what art is and how it exists—like whether a painting is just the physical canvas or something more.
    Explanatorily idle(in philosophy)
    Unable to actually explain or account for something; basically doing no real work in solving a problem.
    Extended attribution(the kind of description being criticized as unhelpful)
    Saying that a quality applies to a whole group or type of things, rather than just individual examples.
    Genuinely descriptive(contrasted with being explanatorily idle)
    Actually telling us something real and useful about what something is like, rather than being merely superficial.
    Particular instances(where perceptual properties are said to belong)
    Individual, specific examples of something—like one specific painting, rather than paintings in general.
    Perceptual properties(what kinds of characteristics are being discussed)
    Qualities of something that you can directly see, hear, or sense—like the color red, a rough texture, or a loud sound.
    Wollheim(the philosopher being cited)
    Richard Wollheim was a 20th-century British philosopher who wrote influential work on how we understand and experience art.
    type(Epistemic type spaces in multi-agent belief systems)
    A structured object of the form ⟨f₀, f₁, …⟩ containing some fₙ for every natural number n, used to represent an agent's full hierarchy of informational attitudes.

    Connections

    2 topics

    Philosophy of Language1 linkedAesthetics1 linked

    Related

    Attributing properties to types rather than tokens commits a category mistake—ty...Denying type-properties leaves no principled way to explain why two instances of...

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    2 (1 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit
    Extended type-attribution does no explanatory work: we always ultimately appeal ...
    Multiple tokens of the same type (prints, casts, performances) can share identic...
    +3 moreShow less
    Perceptual properties like color and texture are directly observable only in ind...The Mona Lisa, as a kind, can be said to have perceptual properties in an extend...We meaningfully discuss what properties a musical composition or literary work h...