Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion Part 1

The dialogue begins with a letter from Pamphilus to Hermippus.  The letter discusses the advantages and disadvantages of dialogue as a form.  Pamphilus argues that questions in philosophy that are obscure and uncertain, such as natural religion, lead naturally into the style of dialogue.  There seem to be two reasons for this.  First "reasonable men may be allowed to differ, where no one can reasonably be positive."  So, presumably, the dialogue style displays these disagreements.   Interestingly he also believes that this sort of debate will "afford an agreeable amusement" and that such a book will provide these two purest pleasures of life, "study and society."  Now he makes a big point that we are not here to be questioning the existence of God, since after all, the existence of God provides the "surest foundation of morality" and "the firmest support of society."  The importance of this truth is such that it should always be present in our thoughts.  I suspect, as others have, that Hume is being extremely cautious here.  He does not want to be accused of being an atheist even though his dialogue might encourage atheist conclusions.  Even Philo the skeptic will assume that the existence of God is unassailable.   The paragraph ends with the admission that "nothing but doubt, uncertainty, and contradiction, have as yet been the result of our most accurate researches."  His last paragraph refers to Cleanthes' "accurate philosophical turn" to Philo's "careless skepticism and to Demea's "rigid inflexible orthodoxy."  As a student of Cleanthes it is natural that he would be more favorable to him.  Philo's skepticism seems hardly careless.

Part 1  is mainly a debate between Cleanthes and Philo about skepticism generally.  As with Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, the dialogue begins with discouraging younger students from entering into these debates.  But mainly here we are talking about children.  Demea insists that students only study the nature of the gods after logic, ethics and physics:  "this science of natural theology...being the most profound and abstruse of any, required the maturest judgment in its students..." and this requires that their minds should be "enriched with all the other sciences."

Philo worries that this means that the children have not been taught "the principles of religion."  But Demea is only holding them back from religion as a science, i.e. as something that can be debated.  He will teach them piety through precept and example so that they will have "habitual reverence."  Also, as they are studying the other sciences he will point out "the uncertainty of each part" the debates surrounding them and "the obscurity of all philosophy."  He will also observe the "strange, ridiculous conclusions" derived from mere reason.  It is only then that they were learn the "greatest mysteries of religion."  He will now feel that they are safe from the "assuming arrogance of philosophy" that might lead them to reject "the most established doctrines," for example the existence of God.  So, interestingly, Demea is committed to promoting a kind of skepticism, at least about the sciences.

Philo is excited (perhaps ironically) about this early teaching of piety, which is needed in our "irreligious age."  But mainly he admires Demea's drawing from principles of philosophy in this, principles which people have always seen as being destructive of religion.  Vulgar people who have not studied science and observing the disputes of learned people will have contempt for philosophy and will settle on religious belief too quickly.  People who have studied only a little philosophy think that very little is "too difficult for human reason."  They then presumptuously question religious doctrine.  So the way to avoid this is to follow and even improve on Demea's principles, i.e. becoming "thoroughly sensible of the weakness, blindness, and narrow limits of human reason."  Philo even goes so far, in this skeptical vein, to note the uncertainty of reason "even in subjects of common life and practice."  He then brings up the common skeptical theme that the senses deceive us.  (It looks here that he is no longer talking about advice in the upbringing of children.)  "Let the errors and deceits of our very senses be set before us" and in addition, all the difficulties entailed in the first principles of philosophical systems.  These include contradictions involved in natural science, i.e. those which "adhere to the very ideas of matter, cause and effect, extension, space, time, motion" i.e. all areas that are quantifiable.   This skepticism is extreme since this area, physics, is the only one "that can fairly pretend to any certainty or evidence."  At the end of this, no one can retain confidence in "this frail faculty of reason" especially on such sublime and abstruse points that are far from everyday life.  If we cannot explain how a stone hold together then how can we decide about the origin of the universe.

Pamphilus notes that Demea and Cleanthes were both smiling during this speech.  But whereas Demea was happy, Cleanthes seemed to think that Philo was joking or just being artificially mean.  Cleanthes says to Philo that he is proposing to "erect religious faith on philosophical scepticism."  And he believes Cleanthes thinks that if we reject certainty in every other discipline it will still exist in theology, even acquiring "superior force and authority."  But he questions whether Philo is as absolute and sincere in his scepticism as he pretends.  If he were then he might well go out of the room through a window and might doubt that he would fall or be harmed by such a fall, since he questions the senses and experience.  But if skeptics were earnest then we would not have to worry about them long.  And if they are jokers they are not dangerous. Sure, a man might "after intense reflection on the many contradictions and imperfections of human reason, may entirely renounce all belief and opinion" he cannot continue in total scepticism or act by it for more than a few hours.  External object, internal feelings, lightening of spirit will intervene:  he just can't impose such violence on himself.  The followers of Pyrrho should have confined their scepticism to their schools.  Actually they are like the Stoics in having their system "founded on this erroneous maxim" viz. "that what a man can perform sometimes, and in some dispositions, he can perform always, and in every disposition."  The Stoic thinks that the mind can withstand utmost bodily pain, but he cannot support such enthusiasm.  

Philo replies even the Stoic when his mind cannot "support the highest flights of philosophy" still retains its disposition, and this will appear in how he lives his life.  Similarly a sceptic will continue as a sceptic.  Sure he must "live, and converse like other men."  Also he notes that everyone has this philosophy to some extent in order to make advances, and that philosophy is the "methodical operation" of this kind.  But when we look to "the properties of surrounding [nonhuman] bodies" and speculate about the "creation and formation of the universe" as well as the "existence and properties of spirits" and "the powers and operations of one universal spirit, existing without beginning and without end" [God] "omnipotent, omniscient, immutable, infinite, and incomprehensible" we will, like the skeptics, think we might have gotten "quite beyond the reach of our faculties." With more practical matters of business, morals, politics, criticism, we appeal to "common sense or experience" and these "strengthen our philosophical conclusions" and this partly removes sceptical worries.  But in theology we cannot do this.  

Confucius Analects Book 1

 "As though cut, as though chiseled, As though carved, as though polished" quote from the Poetry.  This is found in the Analects. (1.15)

The junzi (noble human) is as a sculpture, chiseled, carved, polished.  He polishes himself, creates himself as a work of art.  "To be poor but joyful; to be wealthy and love li." (1.15)  The junzi achieves joy through this process of self-creation in which the civilized arts (li) are encountered with love. 

"A junzi is not concerned that food fill his belly; he does not see comfort in his residence."  (1.14)  The junzi is no crude aesthete in the sense of being concerned with good food and a comfortable home.  But consider the rest of the saying.  "If a person is apt in conduct and cautious in speech, stays near those who keep to the dao and corrects himself thereby, he may be said to love learning."  The alternative to the narrow aesthete is someone who loves learning.  But this is not necessarily literal love of reading and writing.  It is sufficient to conduct oneself well, speak carefully, and choose friends who follow the dao. Still, all of this can be done in an aesthetic way, understood more broadly.

Another passage that concerns aesthetics:  "In the practice of li, Harmony is the key.  In the Dao of the kings of old, This was the beauty."  (1.12)  Li is translated usually as ritual, but this is ritual considered broadly.  Ritual can be seen as a kind of aesthetics of daily life.  One tries to achieve harmony and beauty in one's actions. So, even in small matters one should follow this path.  But do not "act in harmony simply because one understands what is harmonious."  To do this would be to pursue beauty for beauty's sake.  Rather one must "regulate one's conduct according to li." (1.12)  What would that be?  Think of li as a broader aesthetic that takes the shaping of relations in society as intrinsic. 

Much of the first two books is devoted to virtues, for example trustworthiness, righteousness, reverence, and filial piety.  It is said we should not depart from our father's way after he passes, for three years. What sense can be made of not departing from one's father's way?  (1.13, 1.11)  The father's way might not be the way of one's literal father.  It could be symbolic for the proper and ethical way of tradition.  But even tradition has its sell by date. 

We are all concerned that others will give us credit.  But "do not be concerned that no one recognizes your merits."  It is better to worry about recognizing the merits of others.  This is like the golden rule.  (1.16)  People think too much about their personal honor.  Recognizing the merits of others is a constant project.

"If a person treats worthy people as worthy and so alters his expression..." (1.7), and does various other moral things he is "learned" although perhaps not in book learning.   What one says is one thing but how it appears in one's face is another.  The look of disgust shows no respect.  "The look" is a central part of our moral/aesthetic space.

"exerts all his effort when serving his parents"  (1.7)  A moving period of my life was when my parents were still alive, both having dementia.  I didn't exert all of my effort to them, but it was a major project.  I felt better about myself and felt good about paying them back care for care.  "exhausts himself when serving his lord"  (1.7)  Being naturally a rebel in my teens and twenties, it took me a while to see the advantages of being a good servant, a second-in command sometimes to the chair of my department.  "is trustworthy in keeping his word when in the company of friends"  (1.7)  Here trustworthiness is associated with friendship:  of course it extends to non-friends as well.  But if you are engaged in creating a harmonious lifestyle, this is central.

"if a junzi is not serious he will not be held in awe.  If you study you will not be crude."  It takes a long time to realize how important it is to be serious.  It takes a long time to realize how important it is to really study.  Refinement comes with serious study.  (1.8)  But again, you need someone to share this with.  For me, it has been my wife, with whom I constantly study the arts and domestic harmony, my colleagues both in my department and in my specialization (aesthetics), my students, and my oldest friends.  "Take loyalty and trustworthiness as the pivot and have no friends who are not like yourself in this." (1.8)  And then, of course, "if you err, do not be afraid to correct yourself."

"pursue respect for the distant dead"  (1.9)  Is the serious study of Kant, Hume, Confucius, Chuang Tzu, and so on, anything less than pursuing respect for the distant dead.  It is the philosophy teacher's way of devoting "care to life's end."  

"[T]o study and at due times practice what one has studied, is this not a pleasure" (1.1)  There are two pleasures here.  Study is one.  We philosophers read a lot of philosophy.  But also you need to stand back a bit and see how these ideas might fit one's life.  That too is a source of pleasure.  And note that Confucius, although not a hedonist, does not ignore pleasure.  For also, "when friends come from distant places, is this not joy?"  Pleasure, as we have seen, is not just a solitary thing.  Joy comes with the best moments of friendship.  But again, what about the worries that haunt us:  am I successful?  Well "to remain unsoured when his talents are unrecognized, is this not a junzi?" (1.1)

"the junzi works on the root - once the root is planted, the dao is born." (1.2)  Study until you find the root.  But the root is not just previously there.  You need to plant the root.  The dao is not just a pre-existent path, it is something that is born, flourishes, declines, and possibly dies away.  "Filiality and respect for elders, are these not the roots of ren." (1.2) Ren is commonly translated as humaneness.  There are not only the wise masters of the past, Nietzsche, Simone de Beauvoir, etc., but also one's seniors in the profession, one's personal teachers, one's elders.  To respect them is to listen to them carefully, gain inspiration from them, and show gratitude.  Hard thing to do.  

He who "does not like opposing his ruler" does not raise a rebellion.  Sure, and yet not opposing one's ruler (and we need not think of political leaders here) is a matter of showing respect, of studying seriously.  (1.2)  

What is ren?  Well "those of crafty words and ingratiating expression are rarely ren."  You do not show respect in this way. (1.3)

And then sometimes you get to rule yourself.  On a couple occasions I got to be chair of my department.  It was not a "state great enough to possess a thousand war chariots" but I still had to be "attentive to affairs and trustworthy...regulate expenditures and treat persons as valuable."  And that was an important part of my education, even though it happened late in life.  (1.5)  One also had to "employ the people according to the proper season" which is to say, find the right way to handle the community of the department, fitting person to task, and so on.  

As I have mentioned, in the first book there is much focus on ethics and yet some mention of the aesthetic dimension as well.  In 1.6 it is said that we should be filial at home (respect for parents) and "respectful of elders when outside."  One should also be "careful...trustworthy...caring of people at large" and, as said before, be friends with those who are ren.  All good things.  "If he has energy left over, he may study the refinements of culture (wen)." But isn't there some ambiguity here?  It seems at first that study is superfluous but, as we have seen, it is central.  And it is significant that the comment comes at the end of the passage, where often the most important issues are addressed.  

Each of the key terms in Confucian thought is defined by all of the others.  We cannot separate ren from wen, humaneness from culture, in the end.  And neither of these from li (ritual).

What is a philosophical theory? Wittgensteinians are partly right, partly wrong.

  

There is much debate over the nature of philosophical theories.  Are they like scientific theories?  Is so, to what extent? Wittgenstein thought that no realm of phenomena is the special business of the philosopher.  Paul Horwich in his article "Was Wittgenstein Right?" published in The Stone Reader, says that for Wittgenstein there are no phenomena about which a philosopher "should devise profound a priori theories and sophisticated supporting arguments." Further "There are no startling discoveries to be made of facts, not open to the methods of science, yet accessible 'from the armchair' through some blend of intuition, pure reason and conceptual analysis." 

So this is what I think.  Philosophical theories and arguments are stories which are more or less illuminating depending on the context.  They are a priori only in the loose sense that they are not tethered close to sense data or scientific experiment.  But they are based on experience, and there is nothing to keep philosophers from developing their theories in a way that is at least consistent with contemporary science.  Philosophical theories are based on philosophical dialogue (whether implicit or explicit.)  Sure, philosophy tends to be done in armchairs, although that's true for a lot of science too.  And philosophers are not horribly limited by that since their armchairs are generally in front  of computers connected to the web.  And usually those armchairs are in well-stocked libraries.  

So the question remains whether there are startling discoveries that philosophers can make.  Probably not, or not often.  However there are moments of inspiration.  There are discoveries.  I like to think of these as sudden revelations of essences, although, in an unorthodox way, since I see essences as evolving through history.  It is more like "I now see how to say something interesting about art that is relevant to our own times" rather than "I now see art's eternal unchanging essence."

Horwich describes Wittgenstein's attitude as "in stark opposition to the traditional view, which continues to prevail.  Philosophy is respected...for its promise to provide fundamental insights into the human condition and the ultimate character of the universe, leading to vital conclusions about how we are to arrange our lives."  I partly agree with the traditional view and partly do not.  Yes, Philosophy should be respected for its promise to provide fundamental insights.  However I doubt there is just one human condition, or that there is just one ultimate character of the universe.  Philosophy can just reveal essential things about the world as we experience it, and that world changes.  Doing this, revealing essences, however, is enough to lead to vital conclusions about how we should arrange our lives.

Wittgenstein thinks we are bound to be disappointed if we take the traditional view, and I agree.  But Horwich goes on to say that the perennial controversy of philosophy is an embarrassing failure.  I would say, taking more of a Hegelian line, that it is not embarrassing at all...something more like a wondrous success story.  Each successful philosophical project, i.e. the ones that ultimately make it into the history books, is both insight and invention.... a further development in the ongoing evolution of essences.    

Horwich/Wittgenstein (for now I treat them as the same) believe that traditional theorizing must be replaced by "painstaking identification of its tempting bu misguided presuppositions and an understanding of how we ever came to regard them as legitimate."  This is a fine thing to do.  But this is part of the dialectic, and there are other parts to the dialectic.  It is the process of destroying the thesis.  But dialectical process, and hence Philosophy, is not complete until it provides an antithesis and a synthesis.   

So Wittgenstein thinks that philosophical investigation should only destroy everything interesting.  I think it does this, but only to make new interesting things.  He thinks the point of Philosophy is "clearing up the ground of language on which they [the so-called interesting things] stand."  I think that this is just one sub-project in philosophy.  

So, unlike Horwich and Wittgenstein, who are extreme pessimists about Philosophy, I am an optimist.  (Although I must say that I am a pessimist about a lot of other things.)  The difference between me and Wittgenstein here is that he is a disappointed absolutist.  I never was an absolutist and so, hopefully, avoid the illusions of being a disappointed absolutist.

So I have no problem with the primary goals of traditional philosophy, which Horwich describes as "to arrive at simple, general principles, to uncover profound explanations, and to correct naive opinions..."  I just disagree with anyone who wants to see these things as much like what scientists do under the same names. 

The place where I most agree with Horwich is when he says:  "our concepts exhibit a highly theory-resistant complexity and variability.  They evolved, not for the sake of science and its objectives, but rather in order to cater to the interacting contingencies of our nature, our culture, our environment, our communicative needs and our other purposes."  Hear hear!  Except that I disagree with "theory-resistant."  This evolution is theory-dependent, or better, it just is the development of theory.  I also agree that "the commitments defining individual concepts are rarely simple or determinate and differ dramatically from one concept to another."  The "general principles" we look for here are very unlike the ones we look for in science:  they are best seen as philosophical definitions offered as part of the ongoing dialectic.

But it is fundamental to Wittgenstein to avoid theory-construction and to be merely therapeutic, and this will be an exposing of irrational assumptions on which theory is based.  I just do not see why this is an either/or situation.  Theory-construction IS story-telling that is therapeutic.  To expose some assumption of an opposing theory is just what one does in dialectic.  Be prepared for that to happen to you too, later down the line.

Horwich then goes on to apply this thinking to the evolving idea of "truth."  His point, as always with the Wittgensteinians, is that the entire history of the concept is a history of failures.  But no theory ever really fails, it just recedes, or is sublated.  It goes underground, for awhile.  It can be reinterpreted and enter the fray again.  True, "truth" is not like an empirical concept such as "red" or "magnetic."  It is, to follow Gallie's terminology, an essentially contested concept.  So it doesn't quite stand for a property:  it stands for an object of philosophical contest, an essence.  But this means that Horwich is profoundly wrong when he concludes that "Truth emerges as exceptionally unprofound and exceptionally unmysterious" because he accepts the disquotational theory of truth, i.e. ""It's true that E = mc2" is equivalent to E=mc2."" This is just ignoring the problem of truth.  It is a deliberate avoiding of Philosophy, and I think there is something inauthentic going on here.  

No, all of the essentially contested concepts are profound, all are mysterious.  Diving deep into the nature of anything is diving deep into a nested collection of essences and thus, for example, into an entire culture.  What he calls a "wild goose chase" is really the point...except it is never just one goose.  

Of course belief in the disquotational theory of truth is belief that there is one final definition of truth, one that, it turns out, is marvelously unmarvelous.  This is the path of a disappointed absolutist who is still, really, an absolutist at heart.  

  

      

Everyday Aesthetics: quote by Kierkegaard

Consider the following quote, which I found in Adorno's Aesthetics (302):    "To transform the leap of life into a gait, absolutely to express the sublime in the pedestrian - that only the knight of faith can do - and that is the only miracle." Soren Kierkegaard.  Fear and Trembling.  tr. Sylvia Walsh (Cambridge U. Press, 2006) 34.  When I read Kierkegaard as a graduate student I wondered what if anything I could do with him.  I was then, and still am, an atheist, and Kierkegaard's message seems entirely for the religious-minded, and even more so for the Christian.  And yet even atheistic existentialists were inspired by him. 

A question that has often exercised me is something like "what is the highest calling for everyday aesthetics?"  I think that the Kierkegaard quote speaks to this, and it is psychologically helpful for me that I find it in a work by Adorno, who, although like Kierkegaard, influenced strongly by Hegel, is no ally to orthodox religious thinking.  I also find interesting the idea of "the only miracle" since I take this to mean that no miracle produced by any religious hero goes beyond this.  This is as metaphysical as it gets.  Also, one would think (might well think, falsely) that the everyday aesthetician would be committed to what Kierkegaard believed to be the lowest kind of life, the sensuous.  But then it turns out the the highest form of life, the life of "the knight of faith," is a matter of bringing the extraordinary down to the ordinary, to "express the sublime in the pedestrian."  I think that everyday aesthetics can serve many purposes, but the most important of these is to find a new home for religious sentiments, a home for atheists and agnostics during a time of crisis.  

So this connects with another question which is how does one find meaning in life during the time of the Covid epidemic.  For those who still believe in God the path may well be similar, but I will only address it for the non-believer.  To put it simply, to find meaning one must every day find meaning in what is experienced every day.  This takes on a special potency in a time in which the significant moments of our days are associated with the daily walks, working in the garden, cooking at home, and so on.  The daily walk is of particular interest here.  I have been reading Wanderlust: A History of Walking by Rebecca Solnit.  Solnit treats walking as a kind of secular meditation, as, one could say, did Thoreau.  Kierkegaard's point, for me, is to try to experience what I see, hear, and smell as I walk (the last requires taking my mask off for a bit when no one is around) in such a way as to experience the extraordinary, the sublime, in the ordinary, in the, literally, pedestrian.   

From My Unpublished Book: Essences in Aesthetics and Philosophy 2

1.  Essences and Imagination.

Plato thought that the Forms were apprehended only by reason and that we need to escape the world of sensation to enter the world of essence. Essences belong to an invisible world very different from the visible world. This is partially true, although it is hard to tease that part out while sticking to anti-dualism, as we here wish. Essences belong to our world and they are perceived in the world (the world as we experience it), but they are invisible (i.e., non-evident) usually. They are not invisible in being something else than what is seen. Rather, they are something normally not seen in the seen.

Essences can be seen in things as giving rise to a kind of aura:  when we see something in its essentiality it emerges from everyday being as with intense aesthetic quality, as participating in Beauty (as Plato would put it).

So essences are not objects of a special faculty called “reason” (unless, of course, “reason” were redefined to mean something more like the kind of activity and perception I will be describing here…  something I would favor.) Essences, rather, are objects of a process that might be best described as the activity of a kind of imagination. We are not talking about any sort of imagination, not about, for example, creating images in the mind from adding elements not previously seen together, such as horns to horses, but the capacity to “see as.” In particular, this is a “seeing something as” in which we see something as what it essentially is. (As we shall see, this often takes the form of metaphorical seeing: seeing something as it essentially is by way of seeing it as something it is not.) And this process inevitably is involved with searching out of essence through dialogue and dialectic. Change of perception comes with change of language.

Plato almost saw this. For example, when he spoke of “recollection” he stressed that something perceptual in the world stimulates mental perception of the Forms, and elsewhere that this is a matter of attending to the meanings of words in dialogue. These two things do in fact work together except that essences are revealed in experiential being.

Moreover, essences are models tied to words. Before, I said they are between concept and Form, but it is more accurate to say they are between perception, concept and Form. Hence Plato’s specific denial of the body and sensual experience is overcome, rejected. Essences are not just in a private mind:  they emerge in a shared world through philosophical dialogue and through other dialogue-like engagements.

Essences are models, or model-like (in that the perceived thing becomes a model, a paradigm), and they are real and true to the extent that they work. And they are manifested both in enhanced creative activity and in the experience of aura. So, as indicated above, they are and are not seen. In effect, to see something in essentiality is to truly see it. Essences are only not seen in the sense of being unavailable outside the activity of philosophical or other similar dialectic of the spirit (as in the arts).

Thus, the world of essences is, unlike the world of Forms, just an aspect of our dynamic phenomenological space that emergences from out interaction with the environment as living beings trying to solve problems and live life. It can be seen as a special realm since one can seem as if in a special transcendent realm when perceiving the world in terms of essences  

The word “imagination” may not always be helpful here. It is not as though there were a separate faculty of the mind called “imagination.” Rather, essences are perceived with the same faculties that we use to perceive things in more practical contexts. But essences emerge in a special kind of perception.

Plato, again, is oddly right that entering this state of being is like entering another realm, especially insofar as these things are as if unchanging. And it is also as if we were eternal and unchanging, as if we were perceiving all of these with eternal unchanging souls. Soul emerges as essences emerge:  they emerge in tandem. But whereas Plato saw this as escaping the world of the senses, of perception, the current view is that in essences perception is intensified, as words, through dialectic, interact with things seen. In a sense it could be said, perhaps Vico saw this, that essences are created by the imagination:  again, this just means that we, as fully embodied beings, interact with the world in such a way that aura and essentiality emerge together.

Perhaps all of this is what Plato was pointing towards when he spoke of a method that was hypothetical, the hypotheses being the Forms. Essences are hypotheses taken as first principles, and tested. But unlike Plato, the proof is in the effectiveness of this emergence, in what is generated.

It could be argued that Plato even saw this too when he spoke of the proof of grasping of the Form of the Good being in terms of the creative products that emerge.

2.      The Essence of Art and Dialectics.

The essence of art is emergent upon art works, the institutions of the artworld, and the various debates surrounding the question "what is the essence of art?" and related questions. Traditionally, we think of these debates as philosophical. Yet there are also dialectical developments within other modes of what Hegel called Spirit, for example within art and within religion. Within art, there are debates that are not verbal. The essence of art is emergent mostly upon debates, both verbal and nonverbal, within the world or worlds of art, just as the essence of religion is emergent upon such debates (call them dialectics) within the world or worlds of religion. A nonverbal debate may be exemplified by Picasso responding to a painting by Matisse with a painting of his own that indirectly expresses a different conception of the essence of art. However, the essence of art is also, in part, emergent upon a dialectics not limited to art itself: first, upon the dialectic within the philosophy of art, and second, upon a dialectical interaction between the philosophy, art criticism, and art practice, and finally upon dialectics between classes, nations, political philosophy and economics. There is a layering of dialectic, although this is also interactional.

Much of the value of art comes from the way its form and content resonates with moments in these other dialectics.

There are canonical definitions, canonical works, and canonical debates (with competing positions accepted as at least viable or living) at any particular time in history…place too. The search for essences takes place within the background of these.

3.      Philosophy of Art not Parasitic.

Although it is sometimes tempting to think otherwise, philosophy of art is not parasitic upon art practice. It is not merely a reflection on art practice or on the use of concepts within the world(s) of art. Nor should we judge it merely in terms of whether it meets the needs of artists, although it might well meet some of those needs. Neither is it parasitic on criticism:  it is not simply meta-criticism. Thinking about criticism is useful for philosophers in the same way thinking about philosophy is useful for critics. Spirit manifests itself in these different ways. That is, the spirit of the age and culture can be found in philosophy, religion, art and science of a particular place and time. Of course in the history of the philosophy of art certain critics have attained the status of philosophers of art insofar as they participate in or contribute to philosophical debates.

Philosophy of art is dynamically interactive and symbiotically related to both art practice and art criticism. The claim that it is meta-criticism is a false modesty hiding an improper inferiority complex. Sometimes philosophy of art is portrayed meanly from the standpoint of a hostile critic or from that of the currently dominant "core" of philosophy. These characterizations need to be countered by all who care about philosophy and about art.

Philosophy of art is primarily philosophy. It is concerned with meeting the needs of the philosophical side of our culture (i.e. by way of answering the central or burning questions of philosophy, which themselves are grounded on the burning questions of the culture and of current humanity).  Thus philosophy of art (allied with its close associate, aesthetics) it is in competition and dialectical tension with the so-called or current "core" areas of philosophy, for example metaphysics, epistemology and ethics. As we shall see, philosophy of art/aesthetics poses some significant challenges to these core areas.

Taking a Walk with Bob: Stecker's Approach to Everyday Aesthetics

These comments were  originally intended to be given at the American Society for Aesthetics Pacific Division meeting in Berkeley that was to meet last week but was cancelled due to the current pandemic.  I rewrote them somewhat after seeing Bob's intended reply.   All references are to Intersections of Value:  Art, Nature and the Everyday by Robert Stecker, Oxford University Press, 2019.

I went for a walk with Bob yesterday.  He is such a sensitive observer not only of art but also of nature and the world of human artifacts.  Both of us are pluralists about these things.  So there wasn’t much to disagree about, although I did have one or two worries and some thoughts off in my own direction.  First, we walked through the U.C. Botanical gardens, which, although not a pristine natural ecology, certainly offers a lot of occasions for nature appreciation.  Bob explained how there is no one appropriate way to appreciate nature.  There are many models for nature appreciation, and each can be useful under some circumstances.   We looked at a potted cactus in the museum store and we were able to appreciate it even when it was taken out of its natural context.  We looked at the meadow there as if it were a landscape painting, and that was enjoyable in its own way.   However, our fiends Allen (Carlson) and Glen (Parsons) were horrified.  They insisted that we look at nature with a lot of scientific knowledge as background.  Bob and I agreed that, although scientific background can be helpful, it is not necessary.  In short, knowing the chemical composition of a flower doesn’t normally enhance our appreciation of it.  We also agreed that it can sometimes be aesthetically enhancing to look at something in the natural environment using one’s imagination.   

  

From there, we moved on to downtown Berkeley, and we turned our attention to artifacts.  Bob took special interest in a frying pan that someone had used to make a satellite dish.  Some would argue that there is something aesthetically wrong with this, since being a satellite dish is not the proper function of a frying pan.  Bob took a somewhat different position.  He said that some artifacts are aesthetically indifferent, having no aesthetic value, negative or positive, and that this might be an example.  (143)  But I was not sure how you can say that anything is totally without aesthetic value.  In fact I thought that the frying pan satellite dish looked cool.  Isn’t “looking cool,” sometimes at least, an aesthetic attribute?   Bob himself alluded to the possibility that the satellite dish looked “functionally interesting.”  But isn’t “interesting” often an aesthetic predicate?  People use it all the time in artworld contexts.  As with nature, this might be an example of appropriate use of imagination.

Bob replied that even though I might find this artifact to be aesthetically indifferent, I must find some artifacts to be aesthetically indifferent, neither aesthetically good nor aesthetically bad.  I thought about this for a while.  I agreed that at any particular moment I might find something aesthetically indifferent, but that at another time I might not, and this would be true for just about any artifact.  Of course this would introduce an element of subjectivity into everyday aesthetics, but only on this matter of aesthetic indifference.  I also thought one can't say that one prefers a simple cast iron frying pan to other types (as Bob has done) and also say that one finds it aesthetically indifferent.  That would be a contradiction.    

Fortunately, Bob did not think everything that violated its proper function was aesthetically indifferent.   For example, he directed my attention to a church which had been re-purposed as a home.  He noted that although the church once had its proper function as a church, it no longer does.   Bob thought neither the building’s proper function nor its current capacity function is uniquely relevant to aesthetic appreciation.  He further thought that full appreciation of the church-as-house requires recognition both of its history and of its current function.  (143)  I found this idea, which reminded me of his pluralist approach to appreciation of nature, appealing  I thought, however, that the idea of “full appreciation” needed the following clarification, viz. that a fuller appreciation is one which draws on more than one model of appreciation, and this is true both in nature and in artifact appreciation.    

But I was disappointed when Bob returned to the claim that some objects are aesthetically indifferent.  Arguing against Carlson and Parsons’ theory that functional beauty is a matter of something’s look fitting its function, Bob insisted that, generally speaking, can openers do this but are aesthetically indifferent.  I wondered whether this was true.  I was reminded of Beatrice Wood’s defense of Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain” in which she said that plumbing is one of the great aesthetic achievements of America.  How do you respond to people who say that ordinary urinals, and can openers, are beautiful precisely because their look fits their function?  Le Corbusier and Sullivan tended to say things like this too.  In fact, this seems to have been the meaning of the functionalist movement in architecture.  Even an ordinary can opener can be aesthetically interesting if looked at from this perspective.  Sure, today, unless we are hard-core functionalists, we do not often find things beautiful just because they fit their function well.  But this is a matter of taste, and taste swings with changes in fashion.  

Also it is a matter of how one defines "fitting its function."  I wondered whether functionalism has ever been just about whether things look fit for their function in a narrow sense.  It seems to have been more a matter of a pared-down style that takes certain functional features to, in Nelson Goodman’s sense, exemplify in certain ways. 

Bob said, no no no, none of this Beatrice Wood talk, if you want to see a really attractive can opener you have to come with me into this Williams-Sonoma store.   Turns out that Bob has a real taste for this sort of stuff.   He thinks that design features of the sort you see in such a store, ones that have what he calls “formal aesthetic interest,” are necessary for ordinary artifacts to have aesthetic value.  (146)  I kind of doubt that, as we shall see.

Let’s consider whether, as Bob claims, it is the different design features of such utensils that makes them aesthetically compelling, i.e. variable colors and unexpected shapes, features that, as Bob puts it, “please the eye and engage the mind in forcing it to wonder whether they serve some purpose or are just decorative.”  (146) This does happen sometimes.  But what struck me on this occasion was Bob’s stylistic preference.  He reminded me of postmodern architects and designers.  As opposed to the advocates of functionalism, these figures, prominent in the 1980s, called on us to bring back decoration, without disregarding function entirely.   

Now I confess that I’ve purchased one or two things in stores like this.  But I kind of feel sleezy about it.   Maybe it’s the remains of a youthful Marxism, but isn’t there something a bit wrong about putting a lot of value on such commodities?  Or does my discomfort come from a different source?  Could the problem be more one of excess, of gilding the lily, of a kind of upscale kitsch?  

With these thoughts in mind, we turned to an aisle devoted to decorated plates.  We agreed that attractive designs can enhance the usefulness of these items. (146)  More generally (as Stephen Davies put it) something is functionally beautiful if it has aesthetic properties that contribute positively to satisfying its main function.  Bob elaborated this in relation to some plates on display.  He saw them as not only having shapes that make them better for consuming food but also as having a beautiful visual pattern that would enhance the experience of a meal.   He argued that although such patterns do not make the plates function better as plates, they serve as a secondary aesthetic function that also contributes to functional beauty.  (147)

Although I understood the distinction, I had a problem with separating the different aspects of this in my own experience.  How could the functional beauty aspect be separated from the aesthetic beauty aspect?   Bob says that “the aesthetic features do not strictly have to enhance the primary function of an artifact to contribute to its functional value” (148), which seems to be true.  But what I find more interesting is when he says that, although “the aesthetic function and the food-containing function of plates are distinguishable … they are wrapped together in expectations, even norms perhaps, about the role dinnerware should play in having certain types of meals.”  (148)  What this “wrapped together” means to me is that the distinction of functions is somewhat artificial.  Moreover, it is precisely when functional and aesthetic beauty are easily distinguished that you have a piece which lacks unity and appropriate seriousness.  This may have been the problem with postmodernism, and why the style had such a short life-span.  The decorative elements seemed to be added on gratuitously.  

When Bob says, “a design property contributes to functional aesthetic value if it enhances an aesthetic experience in which the artifact plays a central role when performing it primary function or functions.” (148) it is hard to disagree.   But he also sums up his position in this way: “I claimed that ordinary artifacts have aesthetic value only when they have formally interesting designs”  (150)  That seems wrong to me since it implies a kind of dualism (function vs. aesthetically interesting design) and a rejection of the holism he elsewhere accepts.  Also, sometimes ordinary objects look visually interesting and have aesthetic value but not for formal or design reasons, for example a front yard that expresses the owner’s personality. 

Because of the joy he took in fancy cutlery I directed Bob to Chez Panisse, my favorite restaurant in Berkeley.  He thought that in evaluating artifacts we need to think of their role in an overall way of approaching life.  It struck me that this was in line with his holism.  First, he focused on the experience as a whole, and now on life style as a whole. He talked about experience as embedded in a larger appreciative enterprise, i.e. “the identification and evaluation of the way of life in which the artifacts, their use, and the experiences they generate is understood and evaluated.” (153) And he observed that one does this in appreciating art as well.  Bob is also sensitive to the interplay of different kinds of value cognitive, ethical, and aesthetic, and to how these values “interact or conflict in each way of life.” (154)

But the ethical dimension might pose a problem for the Chez Panisse experience.   As Bob put it, a life in “which eating exquisite food in an exquisite environment is highly valued, but there is complete indifference to the poor and hungry” would be a bad life. (157)  Yet, although I thought this was probably true, I wondered how it should play out in practice.  Would we be ethically allowed to appreciate an experience at Chez Panisse while not thinking about the suffering of the homeless?  Could we enjoy the experience as long as we tried to do something to help them later? Or does engagement with exquisite aesthetic experience in itself show complete indifference to suffering?  

  

After our walk and when I got home I couldn’t stop thinking about the whole issue surrounding the can opener.   Bob uses the example to counter Carlson and Parsons’ theory that something is functionally beautiful if its form fits its functions.  Their theory is quite technical.  Based on Kendall Walton's concept of categories, they argue that an object looks fit when, viewed under a functional category, it is perceived to have no contra-standard features and has, to a high degree, variable features indicative of functionality.  In response, Bob writes, writes, if I may quote at length, “First, regarding the purported aesthetic property of looking fit, the fact is that many artifacts are aesthetically indifferent even though they are well designed to fulfill their function or functions on whichever conception of function that is relevant to appreciation.  Further, the artifact’s ability to fulfill its function may be quite visible without this making the artifact aesthetically valuable.  That is, it may have design features that give it variable features that are indicative of functionality without making that object aesthetically valuable in any way.  The basic metal can and bottle cap opener tends to open cans and remove bottle caps quite efficiently.  Because its design is well known, simple visual inspection may reveal its aptness to fulfill these functions.  But this is not sufficient to make it aesthetically interesting or valuable.  The can opener looks fit in the sense defined above" [i.e. “occurs when an object, viewed under a functional concept, has only standard features"] (144-5).  "Hence looking fit per se is not an aesthetic property, at least not one that has any implications for aesthetic value." (145)

What exactly is meant by “looks fit for its function?”  The phrase is quite uncommon.  When I Googled it, the only users were Carlson, Parsons, and following them, myself and Bob.  “Looking fit” is much more common.  It registers about half a million hits on Google, most of which have to do with the physical fitness.  Although it might make sense to simply stipulate what it means based on Parsons and Carlson I am more interested in what it might mean torn away from that narrow context, as when we might ask someone about a bar in a former church, do you think this building looks like it fits its current function?  What is a natural way to talk about fitting form and function?  

I tend to think that the ordinary houses I see on my walk to work look like they fit their function if they look good to live in.  But, as with the plates Bob and I were looking at, it seems difficult to separate this issue in my mind from whether or not they look good, period.  That is, if I were looking for a house to buy or rent I would also want it to look good, to be aesthetically attractive.  It seems obvious that if something is designed well then it looks good. 

What does it mean to say that something looks like it fits its function?  Are we simply saying it looks like it will do its job?  Are we simply predicting whether it will do its job?   But wouldn’t that be true of most of the houses I see on my walk, the only exception being the one recently gutted by a fire (although, to be sure, a walk in gutted districts of a major city, might find houses that look fit for their function much rarer).

So, is functionality just a minimum condition for attractiveness in houses?   Or is something different happening when we say that something looks good to live in, which is what I take us to mean when we say a house is functionally beautiful.  Are we making a prediction about how well the house will fit its function, such a prediction seeming to have little aesthetic about it?  But, again, it is really hard to separate functionality from aesthetics when it comes to houses once we get beyond the minimal interpretation of what “functionality” means.  Shouldn’t we distinguish here between thin and thick  functionality, only the later having to do with functional beauty?  Again, what does it mean to say that a can opener looks like it will actually open cans?  Isn’t this just a prediction of functionality (a thin one) based on looking at something?  Is it really a characterization of something’s look?   I think not.  Prediction of functionality is very different from functional beauty, and functional beauty is ultimately not separable from beauty as such.

Here is another way to look at it.  Even between two can-openers we can be asked to choose which is more attractive.  Similarly, between any two houses one can decide which one looks nicer.  Looking nice seems at first to have nothing to do with functionality.  But what about “looks nice to live in”?  If a house looks nice to live in then most would agree that it looks fit to fulfill its function.  The function of a house is to BE nice to live in.  (Admittedly that might not have anything to do with looking nice: for example it might be nice to live in this house because the people are nice.) You might say “that house looks nice but I couldn’t picture living in it,” but normally “looks nice” is short for looks nice to live in.  And to say that a house looks nice but you couldn’t picture living in it sounds odd. 

So I cannot agree with Bob that there are well-designed artifacts that are aesthetically indifferent.  (Maybe there is a scale here, and ordinary can openers as well as battery rechargers are relatively indifferent.  But isn’t this a problem with our civilization, one that such design reformers as William Morris and the Bauhaus, as well as the functionalists generally, rightly tried to oppose?)  An important function of most artifacts is to look good:  a good knife should not only cut well but look good.  Looking good is one of the functions of kitchen utensils in general.  Functionality in the thick/rich sense cannot be separated from aesthetics.  Although we might be able to predict by inspecting it that a can opener will be able to open a can adequately, this has nothing to do with aesthetics.  But if we look at a can opener and say that it looks like a nice can opener then we are referring to an aesthetic quality, albeit a low level one.  “Nice,” as I have argued elsewhere, is like “pretty” in this regard:  one of the neglected low-level aesthetic qualities.  Nor does it have to be a fancy Williams-Sonoma product to have such qualities.  

Bob denies that the ordinary can opener can be aesthetic because such things are not aesthetically valuable.  And yet they may have aesthetic properties.  For example, the can opener can still be nice-looking.   Similarly, I wouldn’t say that a nice looking house is necessarily aesthetically valuable, if by “aesthetically valuable” you mean something we might find in the architectural guidebooks.  Standards for “aesthetically valuable” are a lot higher than standards for “looks nice,” “pretty,” “looks good,” or “charming.”  Something can have aesthetic value in the sense of having aesthetic properties without being aesthetically valuable in the sense of having high level aesthetic values.  Such things, however,  would not be aesthetically indifferent.  

However, I like resolving what Carlson and Parsons called the problem of indeterminacy (how to determine the right function for evaluation) in Bob’s way more than in their way.  That is, it is not a matter of eliminating all functions but one, the proper function, but a matter of considering all functions.  Looking at the Plaza Major one should consider both the original and the current function in order to get a better, richer, appreciation of it.  This goes along not only with pluralism but with the idea of combining different perspectives…a matter already discussed with respect to appreciation of nature.   

Bob says “to make an adequate overall judgment one must weigh up all these considerations.” (149)  I would go a bit further: one must not only weigh considerations but synthesize approaches.  Bob considers the Zaha Hadid designed museum at Michigan State.  Here, it is clear that he is concerned with the fact that some functions do not work well together, for he says that “an evaluation of the overall aesthetic effectiveness of the museum should consider this defect [that it would work better in its own space] and weigh it against the building’s virtues.”  I am just not surely that weighing here is as important as synthesis, but I am not sure this is a point of real disagreement between us.

On an issue of great concern to everyday aestheticians, whether we should treat the ordinary as ordinary,  Bob answers very sensibly:  “this is a problem if only one way of seeing the chair is required for aesthetic appreciation” and he replies “this is not even true for art or for nature, much less for everyday artifacts.” (151)  Again, on this, Bob and I both take a pluralist approach and we both think that synthesis of more than one approach is best.  One can take a relatively disinterested approach and one can look at it in terms of intentions and context (taking these two stances alternatively for example).   Bob wisely wants to “leave room for standing back and looking at an artifact in a more detached manner” (151) but also recognizes that this is just one way of looking at it.  He also thinks that in this regard there is no big difference between aesthetic appreciation of art and of artifact, although, of course, there are many differences between the two, some of which he describes.  I think that this is a great way of resolving a continuing debate in everyday aesthetics.   Overall, there is no radical break between artifact and art-oriented aesthetic appreciation. 

From my unpublished book: Essences in Philosophy and Aesthetics

1.       Essences exist.

Essences exist, but they are not eternal and unchanging.  The surprising claim made here is that essences change historically.  Since they change they seem very much unlike Plato’s Forms, and yet, like the Forms, they are the realities revealed in the deep thinking associated with the “what is X?” question.

Essences are the main objects of philosophical understanding.  They are also accessed through mythical and artistic investigation.  They seem to be eternal and unchanging because they are as if eternal and unchanging.  They are emergent historically and ontologically from, and upon, the natural world.  They are often emergent upon non-natural created worlds as well.  Those non-natural worlds are themselves emergent upon the natural world.  Essences, as I will argue, are not concepts, natural kinds, types, Forms or Universals.  But they are what Plato was trying to get at when he described Forms (but failed because he turned them into gods).  They are immanent, not transcendent.   

Throughout my discussion of essences my paradigm will be the essence of art.  The phrase "the essence of art" (as also the phrase "the essence of religion" and other such phrases) refers to something that can be described, albeit in different ways, and with different effects.   It refers to something that cannot be described literally.  Nor can it be defined in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions, although such definitions are often useful as a way of articulating an understanding of that essence.   It does refer to something that can be described by way of certain seemingly necessary and sufficient conditions, and by certain metaphors and myths.  

Essences themselves are metaphor-like.  They are tensional, interactional, and capable of multiple interpretation in much the way metaphors are.   Just as there is a dimension of nature that corresponds to literally true statements there is an aspect of reality that corresponds to true metaphors.  Good and powerful definitions of essences are true metaphors.

The metaphoric-like nature of essences points to the idea that reality in its most significant aspect is a function of a dialectic of the fictional and the nonfictional, the unreal and the real, the unconcealed and the concealed.  

2.       Deep.

Essences are the objects of investigations that are deep.  Deep investigations are inexhaustible and comprehensive.  They go beneath mere surface appearance, and they are critical of accepted foundations.  They originate new fictional worlds, which are also, and at the same time, ways the world is.  

Deep investigations take into account the entire range of human experience:  not just the cognitive dimension, but also the sensuous, the emotional, and the imaginative.   Deep investigation, then, is phenomenologically deep.

3.       "Essence."

The word "essence" here, does not refer to natural phenomena, as in the essence of water.  The search for essences, as understood here, is a search for something that exists within the lived worlds of conscious and reflective beings.   Such entities could not exist without us. 

Water may have an "essence" under a completely different sense of that term than that used here.  Its essence would simply be a matter of what science is trying to define when it defines water.  One cannot model an essentialist investigation of human things, such as art and religion, on an essentialist investigation of purely physical things.  This is so, first, because human things are generally organic wholes, or participate in organic wholes, and second because human things are always constituted, in part, by consciousness.

4.       Culturally Emergent.

Essences are culturally emergent entities, and thus are like such other culturally emergent entities as minds, institutions, concepts, meanings, persons, and cultures themselves.  Essences are also biologically emergent through evolution.  Cultural emergence is emergent upon biological emergence.   Art, for example, may have been biologically emergent in our species 100,000 years ago.  The essence of art continues to emerge, but now it is culturally emergent.  The cultural emergence of art is on top of its biological emergence.

Essences emerge, and continue to emerge:  they emerge both ontologically and historically.   They emerge upon a substratum which itself is emergent in many ways.  For example, the essence of art is emergent in part on artists and their activities, and these, in turn, are culturally emergent. 

Essences are emergent upon, and therefore are aspects of, organic wholes.  Moreover the parts of organic wholes upon which essences are emergent also have aspects that are emergent upon the whole, and therefore upon the whole's emergent essence.  Emergence is therefore interactional.  Even the material world-as-experienced is emergent in this way.  For example, the experienced properties of a patch of paint pigment on a painting are emergent upon the contextual situation of the pigment within a larger whole (the painting) and upon the context of that painting within even larger wholes (e.g. the life of the artist, the historical movement, etc.).  Pigment also has emergent properties with respect to the history of its use and associations.

5.       Range of Essences.

We can speak of the essence of a person, an institution, a painting, or a concept, although the main concern of philosophers is over essences of things referred to by abstract general terms, such as "art" and "man."  When does a word refer to an essence?  When it refers to a culturally contested concept, that is, a concept the nature of which we argue over.  In other words, a word refers to an essence we argue over its definition, and this argument expresses differing overall world-views.

This is one place where essences depart from what Plato called Forms.  Plato considered largeness itself to be a Form.  Insofar as there is no culturally important debate over the nature of largeness, Largeness is not an essence in my sense of the word.  However, if there were to be a debate over largeness, as there is over life or art, then it would be an essence.

6.       Instantiation Upon Particulars.

Although culturally emergent entities can have physical properties, they are unlike physical objects in that they instantiate, and are embodied in, other particulars.  For example, a work of art instantiates the essence of art and is embodied in a physical object.  The cultural world is emergent upon the natural world.  An emergent entity is one that is embodied in that upon which it is emergent.  Thus, the cultural world is also embodied in the natural world.

Particulars become essences when they exemplify that essence.   This is perhaps a shocking claim.   We tend to think of particulars as radically different from essences.  But when a particular fully exemplifies beauty, for example, in the sense that it is a living exemplar, then it is the essence of beauty actualized and expressed.

7.       Metaphysical Emergence.

Essences arise from metaphysical emergence.  This is an extension of cultural emergence.  Just as works of art are emergent upon persons, communities, and their interactions, so too essences are emergent upon all of these at a higher level.  The essence of art, for example, is emergent upon persons, works of art, communities, and the art-relevant interactions between these as they relate to definitional debates.

Metaphysical emergence is not to be confused with metaphysical transcendence, the concept of which it replaces.  The idea of metaphysical emergence is that entities previously thought to be metaphysically transcendent are actually immanent within the world of experience.  However they are still ontologically distinct from those things upon which they are emergent.

The idea of foundationalism is here reversed.  The metaphysical does not form the foundation of the structured edifice of knowledge or of being.  Rather it is the crown of various events of emergence.  However, since metaphysical entities (essences) are organically related to the entities upon which they are emergent, they can also be seen as "within" these too.  The cultural world is itself made up of emergent entities directly, and upon the natural world indirectly.  However, there is no one-to-one emergence on physical objects.  For example, a sculpture is not one-to-one emergent upon a sculpture-shaped physical object.  Artworks are emergent upon, and embodied in, the materials of the art object and their relations to artists and public, all of which are culturally emergent entities.

8.       Essences, Concepts and Forms

As I said earlier, essences are neither concepts nor Forms.  But it is helpful to understand them as in some respects very like each.  For example, philosophers often see themselves as analyzing concepts.  But on one common interpretation of concepts this would mean that they are analyzing something in their minds, or at least something shared by many minds in a culture.   This is not what analyzing concepts really is since if it were it would be the same kind of work that lexicographers do.  Or maybe it would be that plus what psychoanalysts do.  But if you have an analysis of the essence of art, for example, you analyze art itself.  At the same time, in analyzing art itself you are analyzing some phenomena arranged and shaped under the word “art” and this is very much like what we mean by analyzing the concept of art.  This is why such analysis is inevitably historically situated.  To analysis the essence of art is to participate in the ongoing dialectic of that essence.  To create art seriously is also to do that.