04/04/2020
RIP
With the death of George Dickie, we have lost one of the great names of a golden generation of aestheticians. George Dickie published on the history of aesthetics (The Century of Taste, OUP, 1996) and on the evaluation of art (Evaluating Art, Temple University Press, 1988). However, his reputation and influence largely rests on two linked contributions. The first was ‘the institutional theory of art’, one, if not the most, influential and controversial view in the debate of the definition of art. According to this position, an object can only be art in the context of a social institution—the artworld—which emerges from the activities of the creation and appreciation. Although this was comprehensively reformulated in 1984 (The Art Circle: A Theory of Art, Haven, 1984) it is best known in its earlier form (Art and the Aesthetic, Cornell University Press, 1974). His second most influential contribution was his scepticism concerning aesthetic attitude theories, and, more ambitiously, whether the notion of ‘the aesthetic experience’ could be put to enlightening theoretical use. This contribution should not be underestimated if only because he was one of the first philosophers of art who systematically opposed to this traditional and well-established view in aesthetics. Dickie published ten articles in the British Journal of Aesthetics, from a paper on Clive Bell in 1965 through to one on the role of intentions in criticism in 2006. If we were to pick one of special significance, it would be his 1973 attack on aesthetic attitude theories, ‘Psychical Distance: In a Fog at Sea’ (BJA, 1973, 13:1, 17-29). It is unlikely, inconceivable even, that anyone now working in the field of Anglo-American aesthetics would not have engaged at some time (whether as an undergraduate or beyond) with his work. He will be greatly missed, but also very much remembered for his important contributions to the philosophy of art.
