
Aris
totle's Critique of Pla
to essayThe arts are seen
to play a positive role
in the lives of many people. Across cultures, times, places, and class-divisi
ons, people s
ing, dance, decorate, enact, represent, narrate, and express,
in c
onventi
onalized ways,
to audiences who enjoy and participate
in these activities, and often care about
them deeply. It seems natural, if not highly
informative,
to call such practices 'artistic'. Many of
them may also be religious, commercial,
therapeutic, political, or educati
onal
in their motivati
on--but
there is usually a fairly clear dist
incti
on between pursu
ing such ends artistically, and do
ing so
in o
ther ways. We tend
to assume that
the arts, however
in the end
they may be def
ined, are
in general a good th
ing. Some artistic producti
ons are better than o
thers, some are good for
one reas
on, o
thers for ano
ther--but artistic producti
ons as a whole are someth
ing it is better
to have than not
to have. More
inflatable, we th
ink that
the ability to engage
in them is valuable because it is deeply entrenched
in, or essential
to, our be
ing human. Such thoughts are often extremely vague. So what can philosophy do? Socrates tells us that '
the unexam
ined life is not worth liv
ing for a human be
ing' ( Apol. 38a5-6). Many of us live with
the arts with few qualms--philosophy tempts us
to step back out of that security and ask what account can be given,
in a general way, of
the nature and value of
the arts.