Classificatory Theories of Art:
Resemblance and the Artworld
‘Family Resemblance’
 A philosophical idea due to Ludwig Wittgenstein (18891951); developed into an account of art by Paul Ziff and
Morris Weitz (and others) since the 1950s.
The Basic Idea:
According to Wittgenstein, it is not necessary (and,
maybe, not possible) to provide a definition of concepts
like “art” (or “game”) in terms of necessary and sufficient
conditions…
1
…But this need not be any great philosophical
embarrassment, according to Wittgensteinian
philosophy, since we can instead account for art in terms
of the ‘family resemblance’ among things that we
recognize as art.
 Art, is an ‘open concept’: Its connotation cannot, or at
least need not, be precisely specified. Instead, we
recognize members of the class “art” by their
resemblance to paradigm instances of the concept.
Closed & Open Concepts
 The Wittgensteinian idea: “Meaning is use”
Implication: For at least some concepts, we do not need
to be able to specify necessary and sufficient conditions
in order to understand the meaning of those concepts.
‘Closed’ Concept: Completely specified in terms of
necessary and sufficient conditions. (e.g., stipulative
definitions in math; operational definitions in science)
‘Open’ Concept: We recognize members of the class
by their resemblance to paradigm instances of the
concept.
2
Why Art is an ‘Open Concept’
 Weitz: Creativity & Novelty
Any attempt to define art in terms of necessary and
sufficient conditions “forecloses on the very conditions of
creativity in art” (W 73)
 Specifically, we need an open concept of art in order to
allow for novelty—in particular, to allow for art works that
are presented precisely in order to challenge dominant
conceptions of art…
 …According to Weitz, it will be up to people who care
about art (i.e., people who use the term “art”) – in
particular, professional critics (76) – to decide which new
types of work ought to be admitted under the concept.
 For Weitz, this applies to sub-categories and genres of
art as well as to specific works.
For instance, if we were to stipulate “representation” as a
necessary feature of “painting,” we would illegitimately
rule out works that some people are in fact willing to call
‘art’…
3
But why value creativity and novelty?
Lessing: Art that was ‘merely beautiful’ would quickly
become boring—artists would simply reproduce what
was found to please in the past. (Cf. Aristotle and the
‘technical theory of art’)
Great art, by contrast, (necessarily?) strives not only (or
even?) to be beautiful, but also to be original.
Burke (& Aristotle): Moreover, we human beings are
naturally curious and take pleasure in novelty (78)…
A Logical Constraint?
 Weitz seems to assert that it is somehow logically
impossible to define art in terms of a closed concept.
Yet while some closed concepts (Bell’s, Collingwood’s)
may run afoul of the creativity criterion, couldn’t a
sufficiently broad definition of art still allow for novelty
and creativity?
 Indeed, are there possibly at least two distinct things
going on here? Novelty may be good (i.e., a source of
pleasure), but not all good art is novel and creativity can
be expressed even within highly delimited forms (fugue,
haiku, mime)
4
Institutional Theories (IT)
In contrast to evaluative theories (e.g.,
Bell, Collingwood) a purely classificatory
approach—“like that of Martian anthropologist.” (W 96)
Its central question:
Not good art/bad art?, but simply art/non-art?
George Dickie (1926-):
“A work of art in the classificatory sense is (1) an artifact
(2) a set of the aspects of which has had conferred upon
it the status of candidate for appreciation by some
person or person acting on behalf of a certain social
institution (the artworld)” (W 95)
 Dickie’s definition implies (contra Weitz) necessary and
sufficient conditions:
(a) artifactuality (necessary condition)
(b) conferral of status (necessary condition)
(a) + (b) are jointly sufficient for something to deemed a
work of art
 But while (a) according to Dickie is logically necessary, it
is still highly flexible: Even a piece of driftwood would
qualify as an artifact provided it is used for some human
purpose. (No “foreclosure on creativity”)
5
Institutional Theory: Some Criticisms
1. It excludes (or at least temporarily excludes) art that
happens to have not (yet) met the ‘conferral of status’
criterion.
E.g., outsider art (‘art brut’)
Outsider artists certainly make artifacts, but, more or
less by definition, they do not offer them to the artworld
as candidates for ‘conferral of status’…
2. Possible Arbitrariness
If members of the artworld have good reasons for
conferring ‘art’ status on certain works, then,
presumably, those reasons could be offered as
(normative) theories in place of IT.
If they have no good reasons…well, then, conferral is
arbitrary; any old crap could end up counting as art (!)
But notice that this has force only to the degree that you
believe that there must be (should be) some
restrictions…
6

…Plus as Dickie is careful to point out (though
Warburton is not), the artworld is not monolithic—it is
a complex set of social processes. There is plenty of
room for disagreement.

Notice that this also addresses the Warburton/Levinson
worry about some artist declaring everything a work of
art (or some anti-artist ‘de-conferring’ all existing works
of art): Go ahead. But don’t expect the entire artworld
system to go along with you.
7