An Introductory Curriculum in Philosophical Problems in Aesthetics and

Philosophy of Art

Introduction for the Teacher

Reflecting on the presence of beauty, the puzzling nature of aesthetic experience, the phenomena of the
arts offers us a delightful philosophical adventure. Some people will undoubtedly go directly to the
notions that “there is no disputing about taste,” “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” and other such
typical relativistic positions. However, we don’t want to rush to these conclusions because they too
quickly dismiss any attempt to explore the problematic aspects of aesthetic experiences and the search for
cogent criteria for artistic judgments. We might easily agree that there are some significant differences
between a Mozart Concerto and “Chopsticks” played by your little brother on the piano. Or a fresco by
Raphael and a chalk drawing that you yourself might whip off in five minutes. There do seem to be
qualitative differences among art works, even if we might still continue to be confused as to how to
justify those differences. So, you may want to begin by getting your students to put aside the quick trip to
“ art is whatever you like” and invite them to consider whether there might not be genuine criteria to
determine the nature of art, artistic creativity, beauty and meaning in aesthetic experience.

The following units invite you and your students to explore the range of aesthetic questions that both
puzzle and delight. We suggest using many examples, bringing in all art forms, natural phenomena and
perhaps even connecting your explorations to their art and music courses. This curriculum includes some
materials to use in conjunction with the questions, discussions and activities but please consider
developing your own materials or having the students work on projects to create opportunities for “hands-
on” aesthetic inquiry.

Reading Resources

There are many excellent books on aesthetics, some written to be used in college courses but others
simply as provocative explorations of our fascination with beauty and arts. Here are a very few
suggestions:

Eldridge, Richard. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Art. Cambridge University Press, 2003.
This text is a college text that introduces the main problems in aesthetics and philosophy of art
and the ideas of the major philosophers who work on them.
Feagin, Susan and Maynard, Patrick. Aesthetics. Oxford University Press, 1996.
Including some classical sources, this anthology of excerpts and articles features many
commentaries by contemporary philosophers and introduces essays on non-Western aesthetic
ideals.
Sartwell, Crispin. The Six Names of Beauty. Routledge, 2006.
A delightfully inventive foray through six different words for ‘beauty’ from world cultures,
ranging from Japanese Zen aesthetics, ancient Greek ideals to contemporary Navaho concepts.
Sartwell does a wonderful job of musing on the role of beauty in our daily lives as experienced
through all our senses as well through art proper.
Stecker, Robert. Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers,
2005.
This offers a careful journey thought the conceptual vocabulary of aesthetics and
philosophy of art. While written for college students, advanced students in high school might
find this a good resource to help them articulate the problems.
Wartenberg, Thomas. The Nature of Art—an anthology, third edition. Wadsworth, 2007.
This is another anthology but the author/editor includes accessible and rich introductions as well
as study questions for each reading which span from classical to quite contemporary sources.

These texts might be useful to provide the teacher with some support background information as well as
serve as a helpful source for readings to share with the students. The teacher is the best judge of whether a
particular reading would be challenging but successful in the classroom or simply too challenging, and
therefore off-putting, for the students.

It might be worth nothing the following caveats to our five unit lesson plans that follow:
1. While each unit introduces a particular topic in aesthetics and philosophy of art, they are clearly
interrelated. Later units will re-enliven earlier discussions as students continue to “unpack” the
complexity involved in reflecting on art. It is perfectly appropriate to circle back to earlier ideas
for a revisiting analysis.

2. The original charge was to provide a curriculum that could be implemented in a five day
introduction to aesthetics and philosophy of art. While aesthetics may not receive much
mainstream attention within the philosophical community, you will discover that a careful
examination of its problems and issues connects to all the classical areas in philosophy: ontology,
epistemology, axiology, and political philosophy. With that in mind, it is a daunting proposition
to cover philosophy of art in a mere five days! Nevertheless, you will find here the ingredients to
invite your student to engage in philosophical inquiry over the full range of topics. Pick and
choose your activities and readings based on your time schedule and do not fret if you cannot
cover everything.

3. The hope is that an individual unit will be provocative enough to prompt further inquiry, if not
during the particular period, then perhaps at a later class time or even individually for interested
students. In no way should these lessons be viewed as putting to rest the issues! Philosophy
always invites further scrutiny and indeed, your biggest success may be to uncover more
problems than you solve.

4. Encourage your students, and yourself, to bring to the table a wide range of examples. In some
cases, a philosophical position on art seems particularly apt for one art form but fails to do proper
service to another. Only with a rich array of “test cases” can you and your students continue the
tradition of problematizing the nature and meaning of art in human experience. You should draw
upon their own favorite works but don’t be afraid to introduce them to some unfamiliar art forms
or examples. If possible, consider a class trip to a museum, an opera, a concert or a walking tour
to consider local architecture.

5. Finally, philosophy should have an element of play in it. Encourage students to have fun even as
they engage in the serious business of trying to make sense of these mysterious beings—works of
art and to make meaning in their own lives.

Key to working with the materials:

The introductions are written to orient the teacher to the topic of the day/week. Give yourself some
lead time to think about this before you present it to the students. If you think they would benefit
from some of the ideas in the introduction, share them. Otherwise, use the activities, discussion
plans, group projects, included movies and other materials, and critical readings to help your
class get actively involved in the philosophical inquiry.

Supplemental Materials
 The short PowerPoint/pdf slides on “Beautiful or Ugly?”
 The short movie Art Samples
 Two articles: on Tolstoy’s What is Art? and Authenticity in Art
 Artworks: the more genres you and your students can bring into the discussion, the richer
that discussion will be