Kayla Dean, Lauren Antkowiak, Matt Aria, Justin Burr

Passage 1, Intro Answers

1.
Whats the purpose of Collingwoods work?
The purpose of his work is to answer the question: What is art?
What two stages are required, and why?
The first stage is to get to a position where we can say this and this and this are
art; that and that and that are not art. The problem is, is that we often want to clarify and
systematize ideas we already possess, but what we need to do is find a way to use the
word according to common usage. One must review the improper senses of the word
art in a systematic way in order to properly identify art.
The second stage is to achieve a definition of the term art. This is the second
step because before one can define a term, you must have a clear idea of the thing to be
defined. The thing is, is that definition necessarily means defining one thing in terms of
something else, therefore in order to define a term, one must also understand all the other
things by reference to which one defines it.
What are the dangers of not following this advice?
The dangers of not following this advice are that people often think in order to
construct a definition of something, it is enough to just have a clear idea of that one thing
which is incorrect. You must have knowledge on the relations to other things as well, and
if your ideas of these other things are vague, your definition will be worthless.
2.
In what two ways can the investigation at hand fail?
1) It may settle the problem of usage satisfactorily but break down over the
problem of definition. 2) deal completely with the problem of definition but fail over the
problem of usage.
Whats the difference between a philosopher-aesthetician and an artist-aesthetician?
Art aesthetician knows what he's talking about. He can discriminate things that
are art from things that are pseudo art and can say what the other things are and what
prevents them from being art. And what deceives people. They are art critiques.
Philosopher aesthetician is trained to do the things an art aesthetician can't. They don't
talk nonsense but there is no security that they will know what they're talking about. They
detect logical flaws in a theory and dismiss it as false. But they can never acclaim or
propound any theory as true.
What kind of person will develop a good theory of art?
Art Aesthetician because they focus on how art is art versus Philosopher
aestheticians who can detect logical flaws. It's better to have a person develop a theory of

art who actually knows what art is and why it's art instead of someone who bases their
theories on logic.
3.
Generally describe the evolution of the meaning of the word art as presented by
Collingwood.
The word art started from the ancient Latin word ars meaning craft or
specialized form of skill such as carpentry or surgery. What we call art today would
have been categorized as a group of crafts such as poetry in the Greek and Romans day.
Ars in Medieval Latin is similar to ancient Latin such that it meant any special form of
book learning such as grammar or logic. The word ars then transferred back to its
original meaning during the renaissance to mean craftsman. It wasnt until the 17th
century when the problems and conceptions of aesthetic began to disassociate from craft
and become separate identities. The late 18th century brought along the distinction
between fine arts and useful arts, with fine arts meaning beautiful. Finally, the 19th
century began the phrase art and theoretically, the separation between art and craft was
finished.
Why does he think its important to understand the term historically?
Collingwood thinks its important to understand the term to get rid of the
ambiguities attached to the word. One must discover the proper meaning to a word and
to do that must ask, What are we trying to mean and What is preventing us from
meaning what we are trying to mean?
4.
Whats the significance of each kind (give non-art-related examples of each)?
The significance of obsolete meanings is that every word with a history contains
meaning it once had and those meanings stay with the word out of habit. The very
obsolete are not dangerous to the present meaning because that meaning is no longer
used; they are dead and buried. The less obsolete are dangerous because they cling to our
mind and jostle the present meaning that we can only distinguish the difference after
careful analysis. An example of this is the word sick. For a very long time the word
sick meant an illness. Nowadays, it is slang for something that is good or great, or for
describing something that happened as amazing.
The significance of analogical meaning comes when discussing the experience of
other people, we can only do so using our own language. We assimilate their experience
with our own. An example of this is the word state or political. The word state was
invented to express new secularized political consciousness of the modern world.
However, the Greeks had no such experience. Their political consciousness was
combined with that of religion. Therefore, what they meant looks like a confusion
between Church and State to us. We dont have a word for such a thing, so we use state
or political, not in their proper sense, but in an analogical sense.
The significance of courtesy meaning comes from that fact that we name things
that are important to us. Words in living language are never used without some practical

and emotional attachment, which sometimes takes precedent over the descriptive
definition. An example of this is the word gentlemen. People claim or disclaim such
title descriptively because they think they have or not have the qualities to be called a
gentlemen, or emotionally because they wish to possess or not possess such qualities.
When the descriptive is overshadowed by the emotional, the word becomes a courtesy or
discourtesy title regardless of what the word actually means.
How are each latent in everyday uses of the word art?
Obsolete meaning of any importance is that which identifies art with craft.
However, this raises controversy, by asking the question of whether it is any kind of craft
at all. This is of no importance, as we know that art is not craft.
Analogically, we use the word art such that in certain ways it resembles what
we call art in our own modern world and in other ways that are unlike it.
The terms art, artist, and artistic are used as courtesy titles. When we
consider these terms, it becomes apparent that the thing which most constantly demands
and receives the courtesy title of art is the thing that should be most called amusement
or entertainment.