Essentially Contested Concepts
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
The 'art' example: "(I) Art as we use the term to-day is mainly, if not exclusively, an appraisive term. (II) The kind of achievement it accredits is always internally complex. (Ill) This achievement has proved to be variously describable—largely, if not solely, because at different times and in different circles it has seemed both natural and justifiable to describe the phenomena of Art with a dominant emphasis now on the work of Art (Art-product) itself, now on the response of the audience or spectator, now on the aim and inspiration of the artist, now on the tradition within which the artist works, now on the general fact of communication between the artist, via art-product, and audience. (IV) Artistic achievement, or the persistence of artistic activity is always " open " in character in the sense that, at any one stage in its history, no one can predict or prescribe what new development of current art-forms may come to be regarded as of properly artistic worth. (V) Intelligent artists and critics will readily agree that the term Art and its derivatives are used, for the most part, both aggressively and defensively." [1] |
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"Essentially Contested Concepts" (1956) is an essay by Walter Bryce Gallie.
References
- 1956: "Art as an Essentially Contested Concept", The Philosophical Quarterly Vol.6, No.23, pp. 97–114.
See also
- Essentially contested concept, open concept
- Champion, bowling, style, calibre
- Christian life, democracy, art
- Exemplar, examplar
- Historicist fallacy
- Semantic externalism
- Ambiguity
- Argumentation theory
- Critical thinking
- Ethics in mathematics
- Ideograph (rhetoric)
- Loaded language
- Logical argument
- Natural kind
- Vagueness
- What Is Art?