ART & EPISTEMOLOGY
The relationship between art and epistemology has been forever tenuous and fraught with much
debate. It seems fairly obvious that we gain something meaningful from experiences and interactions
with works of art. It does not seem so obvious whether or not the experiences we have with art can
produce propositional knowledge that is constituted by true justified belief. In what follows I will
give some historical background on the debate and flesh out some of the important issues surrounding
the question “(What) can we learn from art?”
1. Introduction
While engaging objects aesthetically is both a perceptual and emotionally laden activity, it is also
fundamentally cognitive. As such, aesthetic engagement is wedded to a number of epistemological
concerns. For example, we commonly claim to know things about art, and we respect what critics say
about various genres of art. We say that we thought the play was good or bad, that the emotions it
produced were warranted, justified, manipulative, or appropriate. People commonly claim that they
learn from art, that art changes their perception of the world, and that art has an impact on the way
that they see and make sense of the world. It is also widely believed that works of art, especially good
works of art, can engender beliefs about the world and can, in turn, provide knowledge about the
world. But what is it exactly that we can know about art? What is it precisely that art can teach us? Is
there any sort of propositional content that art can provide which resembles the content that we claim
to need for other kinds of knowledge claims? These are the sorts of questions that frame the debate
about whether, and in what sense, art is cognitive.
2. Plato and Aristotle
The question whether or not we can learn from art goes as far back as Plato's warning about the
dangers of indulging in both mimetic and narrative representations of the world and of human actions.
The ensuing debate has endured in the contemporary philosophical literature and has spurred the
further question of how we can learn from art. The arguments both for and against the notion that we
can learn from art have developed as well. The debate is not any less complicated than it was
historically, nor is it any closer to being resolved.
There are two extreme positions that one could take in answer to the question, "Can we learn from
art?" Either we can, and do, learn from art, or we cannot in any meaningful sense attain knowledge
that is non-propositional. Those who argue that we can learn from art generally argue that our
engagement with art arouses certain emotions or activities that are able to facilitate or produce
knowledge. They would argue that there is some aspect of the artwork which can help to produce
greater understanding of the world around us. Art is thus seen as a source of insight and awareness
that cannot be put into propositional language; but it can help us to see the world in a new or different
way.
Those who deny that we can learn from art often argue that there can be no knowledge that is not
propositionally-based knowledge. Jerome Stolnitz, for example, claims in a 1992 article that art does
not and cannot contribute to knowledge primarily because it does not generate any sort of truths.
Those who argue this line want to defend the notion that since art cannot provide facts or generate
arguments, then we cannot learn from it. Further, those who believe we cannot learn from art argue
that art cannot be understood as a source of knowledge because it is not productive of knowledge,
taken in the traditional sense of justified true belief. Art does not have propositional content that can
be learned in a traditional way, even though it can been seen to have effects that promote knowledge
and that can either encourage or undermine the development of understanding. Art can thus be
rejected as a source of knowledge because it does not provide true beliefs, and because it does not and
cannot justify the beliefs that it does convey. Both extremes agree that if art can be seen as a source of
knowledge, the only way that it could possibly fulfill such a function would be if that knowledge
reflected something essential to art's nature and value.
Plato points out in the Republic (595-601) that it is possible to make a representation of something
without having knowledge of the thing represented. Painters represent cobblers when the painters
have no knowledge of shoemaking themselves, and poets write about beauty and courage without
necessarily having any clear knowledge of these virtues. Only philosophers, the lovers of wisdom,
and especially those who strive to intuit the Forms and employ abstract reasoning, can really have
knowledge of these virtues. Artists mislead their viewers into thinking that knowledge lies in the
represented (mimetic) object. Plato's concern in the Republic extends to the literary arts in particular,
which are created with the express purpose to move us emotionally in such a way that one's character
could be corrupted (605-608). The more one indulges in emotions aroused by representation,
according to Plato, the more likely one is to suffer the effects of an unbalanced soul, and ultimately
the development of a bad character.
Aristotle agreed with Plato that art could indeed influence the development of one's moral character.
While Plato thought that we can learn from art and that it is detrimental to one's character, however,
Aristotle argued that indulging in the same mimetic emotions that Plato warned us of can actually
benefit one's character by producing an emotional catharsis (Poetics 1449b24-29). By purging the
tragic emotions in particular, Aristotle held, one has a better chance of being more rational in
everyday life. Thus, while both philosophers believed that we learn from art, one (Plato) argued that
the knowledge gained was detrimental while the other (Aristotle) argued that it was beneficial.
3. Rationalists, Empiricists, and Romantics
Continuing with the line of argument Aristotle began, all the way through the Renaissance and
beyond, philosophers have defended the notion that we can learn from art, and that poetry and fiction
engage the emotions in a helpful, rather than detrimental, way. The Romantics dealt with this
question in a manner that the earlier rationalists and empiricists did not. The rationalists rejected the
idea that the imagination could be considered a source of knowledge, with Descartes going so far as
to dismiss what he called "the blundering constructions of the imagination." Returning to the ideals of
Plato, the rationalists strictly employed a knowledge requirement involving justified true belief.
Empiricist epistemology too is particularly unhelpful when it comes to explaining how we might gain
justified knowledge from fictional or representational situations. For it seems impossible to learn
actual things from fictional situations.
The Romantics provided the real beginnings of an argument against the passive accounts of
knowledge for which the empiricists argued. Romantic epistemology emphasizes the role of the
imagination in addition to (or over) reason. This allowed for the notion that there is not merely one
right way to know, and that there is not only one right way to view, experience, understand, and
construct the world.
The Romantics adopted three main tenets concerning the relationship between literature (and art more
generally) and truth. The first denied that there is any one point of view from which Truth can be
determined. The second began to question the Augustinian conviction that art and literature, like
science, should concern only general features of nature. The third tenet, which the Romantics
developed more fully, concerned the notion of transcendence, especially in association with growth.
Natural science is able to describe the physical world, but only from a single point of view (Harrison
1998). Art and literature can describe the world in a myriad of ways, transcending experience of the
physical world into the emotional and even the supernatural. Although art does not record truths
about the world in the same way that science does, it can give insight into the different ways that we
understand the world and with different degrees of accuracy. It is those degrees of accuracy that
continue to be called into question.
4. Knowledge Claims about the Arts
David Novitz (1998) points out that there are three basic kinds of knowledge claims we can make
about the arts, all of which are distinguished by their objects. The first concerns what we claim to
know or believe about the art object itself and whatever imaginary or fictional worlds might be
connected to that object. For example, I can claim to know things about the way the light reflects in
Monet's Water Lilies. I can also claim to know things about Anna Karenina's relationships with her
husband and with her lover, Vronsky. Beyond this, we may feel justified in our pity for Anna, because
of the way Tolstoy's novel presents her story. Can my knowledge of Anna be meaningful, however,
or be considered knowledge at all in the traditional sense (justified true belief) if Anna Karenina is a
non-referring name? Further, how can one's interpretation of her situation be any more legitimate than
anyone else's? Can single interpretations hold value over time and across cultures? Without the
propositional content used to legitimize the standard analysis of knowledge, it seems that the
knowledge claims we have about the content of an artwork will never have the same kind of validity.
Whether or not that same kind of validity is required also needs to be called into question.
The second kind of knowledge claim we can make about art concerns what we know or believe to be
an appropriate or warranted emotional response to the artwork. We often believe that works of art are
only properly understood if we have a certain kind of emotional response to them. One problem here,
of course, concerns how it is that we know what kind of response is appropriate to a particular work.
On occasion we talk to friends about a response they had to a particular work of art that was
manifestly different from the one we had. How is it possible to judge which response is more
appropriate or justified? Even suggesting that one should respond as if a novel, for example, were to
be taken as an account of true events, with responses following as if the events depicted therein were
actually happening or had happened, does not solve the problem. For one thing, not all emotional
responses to real events are taken as equally justified. For another, most novels are not meant to be
taken as true (despite the "report model" of emotive response [see Matravers 1997]). The fact that we
do respond emotively to art, and to fiction in particular, would seem to indicate that there is
something in the artwork that is worth responding to, even if it is not the same thing possessed by the
objects we respond to outside the art world.
The third kind of knowledge claim we can have about art concerns the sort of information art can
provide about the world. That is, how is it that we can gain real knowledge from fictional or non-real
events or activities? It is widely accepted that art does, in fact, convey important insight into the way
we order and understand the world. It is also widely acknowledged that art gives a certain degree of
meaning to our lives. Art, and literature in particular, can elicit new beliefs and even new knowledge
about the world. But the concern is this: fiction is not produced in a way that is reflective of the world
as it actually is. It might be quite dangerous, in fact, for one to obtain knowledge about human affairs
only from fiction. For example, it could be downright unhealthy for me to get my sense of what it is
like to be in love from romance novels alone.
We can easily be experientially misled by art. The so-called empathic beliefs, those we gain from
experiencing art, should be based on and enhanced by our broader experience of the world and should
not arise independently of our other beliefs. But here the problem of justification returns. That is, if
the empathic beliefs we gain from our experience of art actually coincide with our experience of the
real world, then they can pass as empathic knowledge (i.e., beliefs become true and justified when
they are connected to other justified beliefs). The problem is that often the emotions and beliefs that
we adopt empathically turn out to be temporary, since they are not grounded in concrete experience.
Can the experience we have with a work of art be confirming in and of itself, or must there be
another, external authority to make the experience, or at least the knowledge gained from the
experience, legitimate? It seems that much of what we learn about the world does come from art, and
thus the justificatory claims to knowledge must be reconsidered.
The propositional theory of knowledge holds that one must have justified true belief in the content of
a proposition in order to have knowledge. This appears reasonable under normal circumstances, but
seems not to work at all in the case of art. It seems odd, in fact, to hold that in order to show that one
has learned from a work of fiction, one must show that the work has propositional content of a
general or philosophical nature, or that it provides experience that cannot be gained in any other way.
If we can learn from art, we must be able to do so in a manner that diverges from the traditional
notion of justified true belief, but that still holds some sort of legitimate ground.
What kind of justification is needed to ground these potential knowledge claims that art provides?
First of all, we must be at least somewhat aware of what the new knowledge consists of. Moreover,
one's engagement with the artwork should provide at least some degree of justification (e.g., I feel
pity for Anna Karenina because she is in an unfortunate set of circumstances that she feels she has no
control over. I am justified in my emotional response to her if I can see that she is in a truly pitiable
situation). It is important to distinguish learning from art from merely being affected or influenced by
it, or even from being challenged by it. Accounts of knowledge provided by art should be able to
identify clearly what it is about the artwork itself, qua artwork, which prompts knowledge. A
cognitivist account in particular will require first that the content of the work be specifiable (what is it
we learn?); second, that the demands for justification be respected; and third, that these accounts
appeal directly to aesthetic experience (Freeland 1997).
5. Art and Moral Knowledge
It would seem that there is indeed something about the content of an artwork that can be said to be
knowledge-producing. But how can that be so? The artist himself or herself is not the ultimate
authority here, since his/her knowledge or expertise is not necessarily directly transferred into the
artwork. Furthermore, even if it were capable of being transferred clearly, it is not always the case
that observers will interpret the meaning or significance of a work of art in any standard way. What
the artist knows and how others experience his/her art are not directly related enough to justify
epistemic legitimacy. It also seems unjustified to assume that there are intrinsic features of an artwork
that are always clearly identifiable. So the knowledge we gain from art has more to do with the
relationship between the art object and the consumer than anything else.
Another way we might argue for the possibility of gaining knowledge from art is by rejecting the
justified true belief account of knowledge. There might be more than one way to know, in other
words, and more than one way to learn. One of the most common alternative suggestions concerning
the knowledge that art elicits is that it is moral knowledge that we gain. These arguments are based
primarily of the presumption that art, and literature especially, can provide experiential and emotional
stimulation, and that moral knowledge is not simply propositional in nature. It has been objected,
however, that such stimulation is not equal to the propositional content that more traditional forms of
knowledge can provide.
Eileen John (2001) identifies two arguments for the claim that moral knowledge can be gained from
art. The first argument stresses the capacity of art to give us examples of, and exercise in, certain
morally pertinent activities. Thus, we come across circumstances and situations in art and literature
that we might not otherwise come across in our daily lives. If we simulate our own reactions to the
situations the work presents us with, we have an idea of how we might respond or how we would feel
(see especially Kendall Walton's theory of Make-Believe and Simulation Theory). On this view,
works of art can provide us with simulated or "off-line" emotional responses that could not be
achieved otherwise.
The second argument is based on the assumption that we can acquire specific substantive moral
knowledge from art. That is, works of art are taken to possess the ability to give us imaginative and
epistemic access to certain kinds of experiences relevant to moral knowledge and judgment. Not only
can we respond emotionally to particular moral situations presented through artworks; we cannot help
but find ourselves morally outraged or saddened by the plights of certain fictional characters.
6. Additional Objections
Noël Carroll (2002) lays out three additional objections to the suggestion that art can provide
knowledge. The first objection he calls the "banality argument": the idea that “the significant truths
that many claim art and literature may afford—that is, general truths about life, usually of an implied
nature (as opposed to what is 'true in the fiction')—are in the main, trivial." Compared to the
knowledge we are able to obtain from propositional statements and arguments, the kind of things
works of literature are can point out are so obvious as to be useless. Carroll continues by stating that
"art and knowledge are not sources of moral knowledge, but, at best, occasions for activating
antecedently possessed knowledge." The best it seems that art and literature can do is to point out
things we already know and believe.
The second objection Carroll outlines against the notion that we can learn from art is what he calls the
"no-evidence argument." This focuses on the fact that not only is anything we gain from art and
literature banal, but for any knowledge to be legitimate, it needs to be warranted and must be
supported by evidence. Few artworks, however, supply any evidence at all in defense of a particular
view. One of the reasons interpretations seem to legitimately vary so widely is precisely due to this
lack of solid evidence. Moreover, fiction is not a reliable source of evidence when it comes to
literature and other arts.
Carroll calls the third objection the "no-argument argument." As he explains, “it maintains that even
if artworks contained or implied general truths, neither the artworks themselves nor the critical
discourse that surrounds them engages in argument, analysis, and debate in defense of the alleged
truths." If artworks do indeed suggest any sort of knowledge, Carroll points out, it can only be
suggested or implied but never argued for or defended. Furthermore, the critical discourse that
surrounds artworks is not generally focused on arguing for or against any of the claims made in the
artwork itself.
7. Conclusion
The fact that we do respond to works of art, and that we commonly believe we can and do learn from
such works, is not enough to justify that learning actually occurs. However, it is enough to make us
examine our presuppositions about what constitutes knowledge, and perhaps may lead us to reconceive knowledge in such a way that we may eventually come to understand how it can be gained
non-propositionally.
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Author Information:
Sarah E. Worth
Department of Philosophy
Furman University