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Rating: 
Summary: A Serious Attempt at the Epistemology of Art
Review: Serious attempts at developing a robust and cogent account of art (as a category) are quite scarce. This book stands out against this background. James Young is concerned that something in the modern era has gone seriously wrong with arthood. That type of art, avant-garde, has lost most of what we find appreciative about art: that it offers nontrivial cognitive (and hedonic) value. If we were to recognize that art has cognitive value that other sources of inquiry do not as easily provide - philosophy or the empirical sciences, for instance - our culture's opinion of art would probably change significantly.... well, maybe not. What this book attempts to do, then, is to explain "what is art?", what gives art its value (noted above here), and how (by what means) does it do this, such as through semantic representation or through illustrative representation, and what are those? While I concur with Young's over all thesis, most broadly as a defense of Keat's hypothesis, that beauty is truth - and that there is value in art - I think Young's book is an absolute failure. At first, I provided this a four star rating. But after reading through this book a second time, I think he does a horrible job making a strong case. Here's my argument: Young distinguishes between two types of representation and almost everything hinges on their differences and the type of knowledge they can convey. However, his explanation for his distinction is so flawed, that his entire larger project, the one I'd endorse (to support good art), fails. When you read through this book, pay careful attention to what he calls "compositionality" and what distinguishes semantic from illustrative representation: ask, "can what is true of illustrative representation also be true of semantic and vice-versa?" This is only an Amazon review and I can't lay out the full argument. Nonetheless, this point shouldn't hinder you from looking at this book if you are interested in art and epistemology. Just know that there still is work to do! That said, in one sense, this book will waste your time since it will not give you a decent account for why we should support the arts - at least it is an incomplete account with big holes. On the other hand, it does raise several questions about meaning and language and wouldn't be a bad book to discuss among other philosophers over dinner.
Rating:
Summary: A Serious(ly Bad) Attempt at the Epistemology of Art
Review: Serious attempts at developing a robust and cogent account of art (as a category) are quite scarce. This book stands out against this background. James Young is concerned that something in the modern era has gone seriously wrong with arthood. That type of art, avant-garde, has lost most of what we find appreciative about art: that it offers nontrivial cognitive (and hedonic) value. If we were to recognize that art has cognitive value that other sources of inquiry do not as easily provide - philosophy or the empirical sciences, for instance - our culture's opinion of art would probably change significantly.... well, maybe not. What this book attempts to do, then, is to explain "what is art?", what gives art its value (noted above here), and how (by what means) does it do this, such as through semantic representation or through illustrative representation, and what are those? While I concur with Young's over all thesis, most broadly as a defense of Keat's hypothesis, that beauty is truth - and that there is value in art - I think Young's book is an absolute failure. At first, I provided this a four star rating. But after reading through this book a second time, I think he does a horrible job making a strong case. Here's my argument: Young distinguishes between two types of representation and almost everything hinges on their differences and the type of knowledge they can convey. However, his explanation for his distinction is so flawed, that his entire larger project, the one I'd endorse (to support good art), fails. When you read through this book, pay careful attention to what he calls "compositionality" and what distinguishes semantic from illustrative representation: ask, "can what is true of illustrative representation also be true of semantic and vice-versa?" This is only an Amazon review and I can't lay out the full argument. Nonetheless, this point shouldn't hinder you from looking at this book if you are interested in art and epistemology. Just know that there still is work to do! That said, in one sense, this book will waste your time since it will not give you a decent account for why we should support the arts - at least it is an incomplete account with big holes. On the other hand, it does raise several questions about meaning and language and wouldn't be a bad book to discuss among other philosophers over dinner.
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