Art Without a Single Definition: How Laypeople Define and Categorize Artworks

This study explored how laypeople define artworks and categorize items as artworks. Results from an ontology questionnaire revealed that participants held complex views with most agreeing that original artworks possess a unique aura, suggesting a belief in artworks as more than just physical objects. In terms of intension (the criteria that define a term), participants consistently emphasized intentionalism as central to their concept of artworks. In terms of extension (the set of things that fall under a term), AI-generated items emerged as particularly informative borderline cases. Notably, AI items were more often seen as artworks by physicalists and participants who valued functionalism or historicism. While laypeople's theoretical beliefs do influence their categorizations of items as artworks, the findings suggest that the extension emerges from the flexible interaction of multiple partially independent intensions rather than from a single coherent definition. These findings highlight the challenges in empirically investigating art concepts.