The Critical Research Of George Dickie's Institutional Theory Of Art

What is art? What is the nature of art? It is always one of the core tasks of the philosophy of art or aesthetics to provide a well-regarded definition of art. The theories on definition of art are numerous in the long history of the philosophy of art, however, It is difficult to find a satisfied view and there is no a definition of art that all agree with. As a result, the mystery of the Sphinx of the philosophy of art confused people has not been resolved up to now.It is really unintelligible and hard for the philosophers of art to furnish an excellent definition of art. There are varieties theories with regard to the definition of art in the history of philosophy of art, but we have not got an unanimous endorsement. In the face of some defects of the traditional definitions of art and the arguments that art can not be defined proposed by the analytic aestheticians, especially in order to prevent the sharp dispute brought by the incident of Marcel Duchamp's "The Spring", George Dickie, a famous contemporary analytic aesthetician, claims that it is entirely possible to define art as long as we change the thinking and develop the necessary and sufficient conditions for the definition of art. So that on the basis of standing on social customs and critically absorbing many other theorists' suggestions including Wittgenstein's ideas, he puts forward a new theory which is called the Institutional Theory of Art in his books Art and Aesthetics and the Art World to define art to reconcile the contradictions of the traditional art and the modern art by a compromised manner to set up a bottom line of art.Dickie believes that people's institutions in certain times determine whether an artifact is art or not, furthermore the scope of Art will change and expand with the development of social institutions. In his opinion that institutions are crucial to art. This unique definition of contemporary art conforms to the real situation completely; however, the conception of art is extended unlimitedly and artificially and this has also led to a crisis of art, in other words, some irrelevant things now openly interfused the territory of art so that the boundary between art and non-art becomes even more unclear. This article is for the purpose of making comments on the confused practices which are induced by the Institutional Theory of Art and the circumstances of modern art.The whole text is divided into four chapters. The article begins with a brief introduction to why I choose the topic and the problem will be solved. Chapter one describes the Institutional Theory of Art as well as the background and origin of it, the two basic conditions of works of art. Chapter two exhibits the three features of the theory, namely, circular, self-contradictory and "super-democratic". From this we can see that there is no doubt that these features are indeed the shortcomings, Why there are so many hidden defects of the theory? Chapter three will for further research on it. In this part, I want to reveal the hidden things behind this theory through analyses of three questions including the relationship between modern art and the theory in question. For this reason, chapter four makes a reflection on the essence of modern art and display the dilemma of art in the twentieth century in order to show the theoretical and practical significance of making a definition of art. Finally, at the conclusion of the article summarizes the full text and establish confidence and courage to define art.