Abstract

Philosophical Perspectives on Art is a collection of sixteen articles on the philosophy of art that Stephen Davies published between 1984 and 2006. The book consists of two parts that focus, in turn, on the nature of art and on meaning and interpretation. Although there is unavoidably some overlap between the different chapters, the book is remarkable in its scope, engaging with all the central questions in the philosophy of art in a thorough, coherent and far-reaching manner.The category of art that is under analysis in the first part, is, as Davies explains, one that crosses the boundaries between the natural and the humanly invented and, further, escapes the confines of Western fine art to encompass, for instance, folk or pre-18th century Western art, as well as the art production of non-Western cultures.An all-inclusive category of art, however, sets two challenges for a comprehensive theory of art: on the one hand, with such a wide and varied token …