Elaborates and defends a broad conceptual framework for thinking about the arts that reveals important continuities and discontinuities between traditional and modern art, and between different artistic disciplines. This book offers a view about the kinds of things that artworks are and how they are to be understood.

In this richly argued and provocative book, David Davies elaborates and defends a broad conceptual framework for thinking about the arts that reveals important continuities and discontinuities between traditional and modern art, and between different artistic disciplines. The book offers a provocative view about the kinds of things that artworks are and how they are to be understood. It reveals important continuities and discontinuities between traditional and modern art. It also highlights core topics in aesthetics and art theory, including traditional theories about the nature of art, aesthetic appreciation, artistic intentions, performance, and artistic meaning.

Preface.1. Introduction:.Challenges to Aesthetic Empiricism.Methodological Interlude: The 'Pragmatic Constraint' on the Ontology of Art.Aesthetic Empiricism and the Philosophy of Art.2. Aesthetic Empiricism:.Indirect Arguments Against Aesthetic Empiricism.3. The Fine Structure of the Focus of Appreciation:.The Structure of the Focus of Appreciation.4. The Artwork as Performance: An Argument from Artistic Intentions:.Overview.The Bearing of Provenance on Work and Focus.Artistic Intentions and the Ontology of Art.Interpretation and Intention.A Role for Actual Intentions.Ontological Implications.Conclusions.5. Provenance, Modality, and the Identity of the Artwork:.Preliminaries.6. Artwork, Action, and Performance.7. Art as Performance:.Elaborating the Performance Theory.Structure and Focus.Heuristics and the Individuation of Artworks.Work-Constitution and Modality on the Performance Theory.Performances, Actions, and Doings.8. Revisionism and Modernism Revisited.9. Performance as Art.10. Defining 'Art' as Performance, and the Values of Art:.Notes Towards a Definition of 'Art'.The Values of Art.Conclusions: The Case Against Contextualism.References.Index