Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Magnus Anderson]

1. Doing or creating something on purpose is not art. This applies to cooking, telling story, kite-making, and so on. Call that CRAFT. Don't mix fast food with fine cuisine, not that there is anything wrong with fast food.

Pretty much everything we do is done on purpose. As an artist, your goal is to create a work of art that will serve you and/or other people. Every work of art has a function which is to satisfy a specific need in a specific way. You don't have to be aware of it, and most people aren't, but that doesn't mean it's not there.

The word "art" is used to mean a range of related but different things, so a simple, straightforward, definition might not be possible without being too broad. However, most of the things that we call "art", such as sculptures, paintings, fiction, poetry, music, dances, movies, etc, are no more than devices that help us engage in surrogate activity via imagination. By "surrogate activity" I mean an activity that is a replacement for an activity that we want to engage in but are prevented from doing so. It's essentially a form of assisted make believe.