An Introduction to the Philosophy of Art

connected would be a horror. And so would a world in which we were exactly

the same, and therefore connected unfailingly, with every object on every

occasion.The Marriage of Figarohelps us be us.Ishtarhelps me be me. Thank

God for them both.^81

As our ongoing agreements and disagreements in identification and evalu-
ation show, works of art are for us crucial sites of the display and testing of
both what is deepest and most common among us, including shared capaci-
ties of felt response to presentations of a subject matter as a focus for thought
and emotional attitude, distinctively fused to the imaginative exploration of
material,andwhat is most personal about us, as we seek to sustain distinctive
personalities and routes of interest in social life. Identifications and evalu-
ations of works of art are, sometimes, open to reasoned discussion and to
reasoned discussion that issues in agreement. Critical authorities sometimes
play useful roles in these reasoned discussions, in which elucidatory critical
understanding is cultivated. But sometimes one will see and feel for a work
only“for oneself”or in common with a few others. This can be terrifying and
isolating, and so we can wish and seek to talk out our responses with others,
and sometimes this talk will bring more of us together. But it can also be
exhilarating and reassuring, in reminding me thatIhave a point of view and
a free personality, rather than being only a fungible functionary of objectiv-
ity. No wonder that philosophers (and people in general) argue over the
objectivity and subjectivity of judgments of taste, particularly in relation to
cases, and no wonder also, and a good thing, that these arguments do not
quite come to an end.

(^81) Ted Cohen,“High and Low Thinking About High and Low Art,”Journal of Aesthetics and Art
Criticism51, 2 (spring 1993), pp. 151–56 at pp. 153B–54A, 155B–56A, 156B.
Identifying and evaluating art 199