Art, Ontology Of
Ontology is concerned with what exists. So one may think the ontology of art is concerned with whether artworks exist. However, most people take the existence of artworks for granted. (See Dilworth 2004 for someone who does not.) The main issue for the ontology of art is what kind or kinds of objects artworks are. A second important issue is about the identity and individuation of works. Concerning both of these issues there is wide disagreement along a variety of parameters.
Objects That Are Artworks
One Kind or Many
One parameter along which there is disagreement is whether all artworks belong to a single kind or whether they belong to irreducibly different kinds. The second view seems more plausible, at least initially. A painting, such as one made with oils or watercolors, is an entity that has physical properties, such as spatial dimensions, that exists in a single place at a single time, and, for these reasons, may be plausibly taken for a physical object. A novel could be said to exist in many places—wherever there is a copy—or in no place, because no copy or even the original manuscript is the novel. For this reason, novels could not be physical objects.
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