Abstracta, Exemplars, and Choice: Comments on Art and Art-Attempts

Art and Art-Attempts by Christy Mag Uidhir is an excellent, insightful, and brilliantly precise book about the philosophy of art. This discussion will be concerned with the role of the intention of the artist in art, which is central to the book, and his discussion of abstracta and instantiation. I shall argue that intention should be replaced with choice and that abstracta should be replaced with exemplar representation as characterized in my book Art, Self and Knowledge to improve his account. I conclude that choice in art and focus on exemplars play a special role in aesthetic education.