Art as Cognition

Clinton Bronder

Subject: Art as Cognition

Class reading: The Nature of art: Chapter 2

February 31^st, 2011

Aristotle’s enjoyment of art and his belief that art can teach opposes that of his teacher, Plato. He agrees with Plato that art is representation but even though art is a copy of a natural thing, it still holds the ability to convey that thing’s message. He focuses particularly on tragic dramas. In Aristotle: the Desire to Understand, Jonathan Lear tells us of Aristotle’s view on visual representation and understanding. “All men by nature desire to know. An indication of this is the delight we take in our sense; and above all others the sense of sight. The reason is that this, most of all the senses, sight makes us know and brings to light many differences between things” (Lear, 1). Aristotle points out the importance of art in building understand of things we would often consider gross or unacceptable. Tomas E. Wartenberg, in The Nature of Art, says “We can enjoy an artwork whose content would disgust us if it were real”. (Wartenberg, 26). For instance, if we were to see someone be murdered right in front us we would be incredibly disturbed. Why when we watch someone die in a play or movie do we enjoy it? This is in part due to the fact that the disturbing even is far removed from our real life if it is in a move. We talked in class about how we are less disturbed when watching monsters kill than watching people kill in movies. This is to be expected though because monsters are far removed, actually absent, from our lives.