Why Define 'Art'?

Recently I gave a series of lectures on defining 'art.' As is my usual practice, I first tried to offer some reason for why attempting a definition of is useful. One student, however, was not convinced by my appeal to intuition that of course there are objects (and events) in the world that are and others that are not. She objected that by her lights is anything you say it is. Her objection was hardly unusual. And I answered her challenge by pushing my appeal to intuition. I wadded up a sheet of paper, placed it on the lecter, and asked, Is this art? Can you, should you, consider this the same sort of object as the Mona Lisa? (Sometimes this is enough to silence the objection-either the added strength behind the intuition or the intimidation that a teacher can muster in confronting a student individually.) However, in this case the student did not back down but reiterated her claim that is anything one calls (or regards as) art, and one might just as well call the wadded-up paper as call painted canvasses or snow shovels, urinals, Brillo Boxes, or beds art.1 The story is light, but it masks a serious challenge: Why define 'art'? Why, in the face of the overwhelming challenge to definitions of that (bona fide) has offered in the last two centuries, ought we attempt to limit the set of objects that we refer to as 'art'? Why not simply allow Whatever you say is is art and the individually relative subjectivism it conveys? In this brief article, I want to explore the heart of these questions. In doing so, I do not wish to seem to be advancing any definition of my own, nor do I wish to be attacking any definition.2 Instead, I want merely to examine the sort of rationale one can give-and one can offer students-for why in today's world of the search for a definition of continues to be justified. I will label the position An object or event is if it is regarded as or labeled 'art' as the Nondefinition in virtue of the motivation behind the