ESPES

7

Authors: Skalický David

What is the sense of the question “What is art?” It may seem that the only adequate answer will be the effort to define the notion of art, that is, the exclusive purpose of this question is the classification of art, encompassing all artifacts regarded as works of art and distinguishing them from those do not belong to art. The study points to the connection between our classification of artifacts and our evaluation and understanding of them. It also recalls reflections on the subject “What is Art?”, which does not even attempt to define it. Their aim is different: to change our understanding, evaluation or explication of art.

10

Authors: Hadravová Tereza

In the 1990s and early 2000s, researchers in the field of so-called neuoaesthetics recruited research subjects who had been untrained in arts and did not have any pronounced interest in aesthetic matters for their laboratory experiments. The prevalent choice of research subjects has recently changed. Currently, a great number of studies uses subjects who are professionally engaged in the art world. In my paper, I describe, analyze, and critically discuss the two research paradigms regarding the subjects involved in the experiments in neuroaesthetics. I claim that although the more recent one can be generally regarded as an improvement of the research framework, it underestimates the difficulties brought by the notion of expertise in aesthetic perception

13

Authors: Makky Lukáš

The current form and transformation of artistic practice in the 20th and 21st century caused some estrangement of the recipient and the art. The current discourse is therefore dominated by some distrust in defining the criteria of (not only) contemporary art, or even the dilemma of whether or not art has to be defined at all, mostly under the influence of Morris Weitz. Arthur Danto very aptly reminds that there is currently no way to distinguish art from objects that are not art, even though many theorists have tried to come up with a (normative) solution. The need to distinguish different objects in order to carry out the theoretical examination or to have a functional defining apparatus for criticism, or the exhibition practice is not necessary only on the semantic level. The aim of the submitted paper is therefore to offer a brief cross-section of theories, which, over the past sixty years, dealt with the problem of the definition of art and (re)appreciate/re-think the need for a functional definition of art as the determinant of adequate aesthetic theory.