In considering the status of forms of expression unknown to the eigh-
teenth century, one might readily concede that nondocumentary feature
films, for example, may be viewed as examples of mimetic art, since
they are an effective form of dramatic and narrative story-telling. But
would what Baumgarten wrote in his Reflections on Poetry be applica-
ble to the largely unintelligible postmodernist “poems” of John Ashbery,
say? Can such work truly exemplify Baumgarten’s idea of “sensuous
cognition”? Further, can the phrase “rich cognitive effects” (to quote The
Monist’s call for papers on “Art and the Mind”) meaningfully apply to
works ranging from Mondrian’s signature grid paintings to Duchamp’s
“readymades,” much less to Minimalist works such as Ad Reinhardt’s
all-black paintings or Carl Andre’s “floor pieces,” or to John Cage’s
“chance compositions” or his 4'33"? Finally, can there be any but the
most flimsy connection between “sensuouscognition” and the whole
postmodernist category of conceptual art—defined by the 1988 Oxford
Dictionary of Artas “various forms of art in which the idea for a work
is considered more important than the finished product, if any”?
Contemporary aestheticians who attempt to analyze or define art are
apt to cite avant-garde inventions as conceptually “hard” cases, thereby
implying that they are essentially incommensurate with the traditional
categories of art. Nonetheless, on the basis of such deviant work, most
academic philosophers of art have adopted some sort of “institutional”
definition—holding, explicitly or implicitly, that “art is anything an
artist declares it is.” Even aestheticians who are critical of such defini-
tions are inclined to accept as “art” the antitraditional contemporary
works in question, no matter how outlandish or absurd. To discuss art
rationally in today’s context, however, requires admitting that the appro-
priate answer to the ubiquitous question But is it art?may in fact be a
resounding no.^12
It is worth noting here that one such answer was offered in the sec-
ond half of the twentieth century, when avant-gardism had already taken
full possession of the art world. Reacting against contemporary work
that seemed to be the antithesis of art, the popular philosopher-novelist
Ayn Rand proposed a cognitive view that was similar in major respects
to those of Baumgarten and Kant. In a series of four essays, one of
which was entitled “Art and Cognition,” she held not only that works of
art are essentially mimetic but also that they serve a distinctive psycho-
logical function that is both cognitive and emotional. Through the
“selective re-creation of reality,” she maintained, art “brings man’s con-
cepts [in particular, his values and worldview] to the perceptual level of
his consciousness and allows him to grasp them directly, as if they were42 Michelle Marder Kamhi