What Is Art?

The Role of Intention, Beauty, and Institutional Recognition

Elzė Sigutė Mikalonytė ([email protected])
University of Cambridge, Department of Psychology, Downing Pl,
Cambridge CB2 3EB, United Kingdom

Markus Kneer ([email protected])

University of Zurich, Department of Philosophy, Zollikerstrasse 117,
CH-8008 Zurich, Switzerland

Abstract factors are discussed as the most important properties of art

by many philosophers, it is unknown how the folk see the
In two experiments (N=888), we explore to what extent the relative importance of these factors.
folk concept of art is compatible with the leading philosophical
definitions of art, and whether it is an essentialist or a non- Three types of accounts of art
essentialist concept. We manipulate three factors: whether an
object is created intentionally, whether it has aesthetic value, Let us briefly outline a few essentialist definitions of art.
and whether it is institutionally recognized. In addition, we also Historical definitions focus on how a work of art relates to
manipulate the artistic domain (visual art or music). The results some previously established artworks. For instance, they
suggest that none of the three properties is seen by the folk as involve a requirement for an artwork to bear a deliberate
necessary for an object to be considered art, which suggests
resemblance to certain recognized earlier works of art
that the folk concept of art might be a cluster concept.
(Carroll, 1993). According to the intentional-historical
Keywords: definition of art; intention; beauty; institutional definition, an artist must intend the work of art to be treated
recognition; experimental aesthetics; experimental philosophy similarly to other objects in this category. Whether something
qualifies as art depends on what has historically been
Introduction considered to be so, as well as whether the creator intended
The search for the most accurate definition of art has been the work to be considered in the same way as some prior art
one of the main themes in philosophical aesthetics over the that they are familiar with (Levinson, 2002). For example, a
past century. Finding an acceptable definition of art, painting would have to be considered “with attention to color,
however, proved to be very difficult. In light of this, a second with attention to painterly detail, with awareness of stylistic
issue has recently gained more attention: is art really features, with awareness of art-historical background, with
something that can be defined? What kind of definition, if sensitivity to formal structure and expressive effect, with an
any, would it have? There are three categories of theories of eye to representational seeing, with willingness to view
art: essentialist definitions, disjunctive theories, and cluster patiently and sustainedly, …” (Levinson, 1989). Functional
theories of art. Essentialist definitions specify individually accounts hold that art must be defined in terms of its purpose.
necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for an object to be This means that each piece of art must fulfill a particular
art, while anti-essentialist accounts of art claim the opposite: purpose to satisfy some particular need that can only be
there are no individually necessary properties. There are two fulfilled by engaging with art. The most typical example of
kinds of non-essentialist theories: disjunctive and cluster functional definitions of art is the aesthetic view. This theory
accounts of art. Disjunctive accounts state that there are holds that the purpose of art is to address our need for
individually sufficient and jointly necessary properties. aesthetic experiences (Beardsley, 1982; Zangwill, 1995).
Cluster accounts of art are similar to disjunctive theories, but There are also functional definitions that do not specify one
they see the set of properties that make an object art in a particular function that art must fulfil (e.g., Stecker, 2005).
different way: none of the properties are individually According to procedural-institutional definitions, by contrast,
sufficient. an object only acquires the status of being art when it is
Although most aestheticians believe that the correct granted to it by a person in a position of authority (Danto,
definition of art is at least partly descriptive, that is, it must 1981; Davies, 2004; Dickie, 1974). The process of having the
be coherent with the actual folk beliefs about art rather than object made by an artist, displayed to the art world, and
how people should think about art, to date, very limited discussed by art historians and critics is mentioned by those
research has been reported on ordinary intuitions as to what who support this account. Objections to all the above-
people consider art. mentioned definitions typically use counterexamples to show
To that end, our paper aims to answer two questions: (1) how over- or underinclusive the respective theory is.
whether the folk concept of art is an essentialist, disjunctive Each of the definitions that have been discussed above is
or cluster concept, and (2) to what extent aesthetic value, essentialist, as all of them invoke necessary and sufficient
institutional recognition, and intentional creation are conditions for an object to qualify as an artwork. Anti-
important for judgments on what is art. While these three essentialism, which is based on Wittgenstein's notion of
3039
In M. Goldwater, F. K. Anggoro, B. K. Hayes, & D. C. Ong (Eds.), Proceedings of the 45th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science
Society. ©2023 The Author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY).
“family resemblance,” contests this theory (Dean, 2003; persons, having the appropriate proprietary right over X, non-
Weitz, 1956; Wittgenstein PI, 2009: 67; Ziff, 1953). passingly intends (or intended) X for regard-as-a-work-of-
According to the anti-essentialist view, every artwork shares art, i. e., regard in any way (or ways) in which objects in the
at least one property with other objects that are regarded as extension of ‘art work’ prior to t are or were correctly (or
works of art, but there is no single common property. standardly) regarded” (1979).
One of the authors who defend cluster accounts of art is There are three reasons why we should have a closer look
Gaut. He lists the following properties as counting towards at those three theories of art. First, according to Davies
an object being a work of art: (1) possessing positive aesthetic (1990), there are two views on how to define art: procedural
qualities; (2) being expressive of emotion; (3) being and functional, and all other options are reducible to one of
intellectually challenging; (4) being formally complex and the two. Dickie’s and Beardsley’s theories are the most
coherent; (5) having a capacity to convey complex meanings; typical instances of the two approaches. Intentional creation
(6) exhibiting an individual point of view; (7) being an is almost universally held by philosophers to be a necessary
exercise of creative imagination; (8) being an artifact or condition for being art (Uidhir, 2013). It is popular not only
performance which is the product of a high degree of skill; in philosophy, but also in psychological literature:
(9) belonging to an established artistic form; and (10) being Levinson’s theory of art has been extended by Bloom (1996)
the product of an intention to make a work of art (Gaut, 2000: to other kinds of artefacts and is highly influential in the
28). A similar list of properties is offered by Dutton (2009). literature on artefact categorisation. Levinson’s intentional-
The third type of accounts of art is disjunctive definitions historical theory thus seems to be important to include among
(Davies, 2015; Hazelwood, 2021; Longworth & Scarantino, the definitions that should be tested. Second, intentional
2010; Stecker, 1994). They usually consist of the same creation, beauty, and institutional recognition are properties
properties as those listed by the cluster theorists but take a that frequently appear in cluster and disjunctive theories. For
different form. Disjunctive definitions consist of a instance, they are listed among the qualities that “count
disjunction of sufficient conditions, but no conditions are towards being art” in both Gaut’s (2000) and Dutton’s (2009)
individually necessary: instead, those properties are lists, in the disjunctive theory of art (Longworth &
individually sufficient and disjunctively necessary. To Scarantino, 2010), and they are also discussed by Stecker
illustrate, Davies offers the following definition: an object is (2000) and Hazelwood (2021). Moreover, they correspond to
art “(a) if it shows excellence of skill and achievement in the three disjuncts in Davies’ (2015) disjunctive definition of
realizing significant aesthetic goals, and either doing so is its art. Third, the following sections will present an overview of
primary, identifying function or doing so makes a vital the empirical research and will reveal that the three
contribution to the realization of its primary, identifying definitions are also significant from a psychological point of
function, or (b) if it falls under an art genre or art form view.
established and publicly recognized within an art tradition, or
(c) if it is intended by its maker/presenter to be art and its The role of empirical research
maker/presenter does what is necessary and appropriate to Many aestheticians claim that the definition of art must be
realizing that intention (2015).” Although the difference coherent with ordinary intuitions (Kania, 2011; Stecker,
between cluster and disjunctive theories is very subtle, 2000; Davies, 1991). However, there are only a couple of
disjunctive theories require their conditions to be individually studies in experimental philosophy of aesthetics that are
sufficient, whereas it is not the case in cluster theories. related to the concept of art. To date, most work in
experimental aesthetics has focused on the following topics:
The most influential essentialist accounts imaginative resistance (Black & Barnes, 2017, 2020;
Three essentialist accounts of those discussed in the Campbell et al., 2021; Liao, Strohminger & Sripada, 2014;
previous section are the most influential: the institutional Kim, Kneer & Stuart, 2019), aesthetic adjectives (Liao,
account (Dickie, 1974), the aesthetic account (Beardsley, McNally & Meskin, 2016; Liao & Meskin, 2017) aesthetic
1982) and the intentional-historical account (Levinson, objectivism/subjectivism (Bonard, Cova & Humbert-Droz,
1979). According to Dickie’s institutional theory, an artwork 2022; Cova et al., 2019; Cova & Pain, 2012; Rabb et al.,
is “(1) an artifact, (2) a set of the aspects of which has had 2020), ontology of musical works (Bartel, 2018; Mikalonytė,
conferred upon it the status of candidate for appreciation by 2022; Mikalonytė & Dranseika, 2020; Mikalonytė &
some person or persons acting on behalf of a certain social Dranseika, 2022; Puy, 2022), interaction between people’s
institution (the art-world)” (Dickie, 1974). According to aesthetic and moral qualities (Doran, 2021), or experience of
Beardsley’s aesthetic definition, an artwork is “either an guilty pleasures (Goffin & Cova, 2019). For a review, see
arrangement of conditions intended to be capable of affording Cova (in press).
an experience with marked aesthetic character or Currently, there are only three studies directly related to the
(incidentally) an arrangement belonging to a class or type of concept of art. Mikalonytė and Kneer (2022) found that
arrangements that is typically intended to have this capacity” people consider AI- and human-created objects art to a
(Beardsley, 1982). Levinson proposes the intentional- similar extent; however, they are less inclined to consider AI-
historical definition and claims that “X is an art work at t = equipped agents as artists. People are also not very inclined
df X is an object of which it is true at t that some person or to ascribe intentions to AI-driven robots. If art can be created

3040
by an agent who is not capable of having artistic intentions, Institutional recognition
it seems that the folk concept of art does not include There is also some empirical support for the institutional
intentional creation as a necessary condition. theory of art. McCallum, Mitchell, and Scott-Phillips (2019)
Kamber (2011) tested a large number of definitions of art explain the way institutional theory works through the lens of
by presenting the study participants with a number of pictures relevance theory (Sperber and Wilson, 1986). According to
and asking the participants whether this is art. Kamber’s relevance theory, communicative acts are associated with two
approach was to examine a variety of “hard cases” discussed kinds of intentions: an informative intention (the intention to
by philosophers of art, such as an aesthetically bad painting inform the audience of something), and the communicative
or a poem lacking secondary meaning, institutionally intention (the intention to make the audience aware of one’s
recognized nontraditional creations (such as Duchamp’s informative intention). When an object is presented as an
Fountain), commercial illustrations, institutionally artwork, for example by putting it into a gallery, this
recognised (v. anonymous) photographs, or objects as they presentation works as an ostensive act. It draws the viewer’s
were regarded before the social art-making practices attention to the object and suggests that it is worth the
appeared. The results suggest that none of the art theories viewer’s effort to process it. In the context of the institutional
succeeds in tracking intuitions. In another study, Kamber and theory of art, McCallum, Mitchell, and Scott-Phillips call this
Enoch (2018) asked participants to justify their decisions by ostensive act “presentation as a candidate for appreciation”.
rating a set of fourteen possible reasons why an object is or is Kamber’s results provide some support for both functional
not art. They found that reasons mentioning the creator’s and institutional theories: more than half of the 2011 study
intentions and aesthetic value were the most popular, but, participants were willing to categorise institutionally
again, the results did not fully comply with any of the recognised but not aesthetically moving objects as art.
common definitions of art. However, other cases included in that study show that
aesthetic value might be an important factor, which suggests
that neither institutional, nor aesthetic theory can fully track
Empirical work relating to the three core folk intuitions. Both institutional and functional factors are
factors likely to be important for categorisation judgments. The latter
hypothesis is supported by the results of a recent study by
Aesthetic value Liao, Meskin, and Knobe (2020). Art, according to these
Pignocchi (2014) hypothesizes that people are willing to use authors, is a dual character concept, i.e. a concept sensitive to
the concept of art for artefacts that have been created with an both descriptive features and the values that these descriptive
intention to fulfil a function that is typical for other artworks. features realise. In art contexts, the descriptive set of criteria
There are two crucial factors in the judgments on whether an is associated with institutional recognition: art is whatever is
artefact belongs to the realm of art: functions (an object must exhibited in a museum or discussed as such by art
fulfil a function that other artworks normally fulfil) and professionals. However, in the evaluative sense, the same
intentions ascribed to the object’s creator. Art can have many object might not be considered art “when you think about
functions, but the most typical one (according to Davies) what art really is,” in other words, when you ask yourself
consists in inducing an aesthetic experience. whether the object realises the set of values that art must
Many studies in psychology have shown that artefacts tend realise. It seems that both aesthetic and institutional factors
to be explained and categorised in terms of their functions matter in judgments on what is art.
and creator’s intentions; under certain conditions, not only
artefacts, but even natural objects tend to be explained in
Intentional creation
terms of their purpose (Boyer & Barrett, 2004; DiYanni & Artworks and other artefacts tend to be interpreted and
Kelemen, 2005; Kelemen, 1999; Kelemen & Rosset, 2009; categorised by making inferences about the mental states of
Kelemen, Rottman, & Seston, 2013; Schachner et al., 2017). their creators. Bloom hypothesizes that our intuitions as to
Kamber and Enoch (2018) found that Beardsley’s aesthetic which objects count as members of a specific artefact type are
definition is more coherent with the intuitions of art determined by whether it was created with the intention to
professionals than other definitions they have tested. Unless belong to that artifactual type (Bloom, 1996), even if there’s
the folk concept of art and the expert concept of art are no direct connection between the intention and the object’s
entirely dissimilar, the folk should see the aesthetic value of appearance or function. If this hypothesis is correct, whether
the work as an important factor. Pelowski et al. (2017) found an object was created with an intention for it to be art must
that the classification of objects as art or not art is strongly have an influence on people’s judgments of its status as art.
correlated with liking them. If people are more likely to Several studies support this view: inferences about
classify an object as art when they like it, this is another creator’s intentions do play an important part in what people
reason to predict the significance of the aesthetic definition categorise as art (Jucker et al., 2014, Newman & Bloom,
of art: it means that categorization may depend on aesthetic 2012) – they might be even more important in the
evaluation. categorisation process than the object’s appearance (Newman
& Smith, 2018). Kamber and Enoch (2018) asked their study
participants to select reasons for their judgments of why

3041
something is or is not art, and among the most often selected, [+] Soon this object gets recognized by art critics, finds its
there were reasons related to the creator being conscious and way into a museum and some years later it appears in art
possessing artistic intentions. However, Mikalonytė and history books.
Kneer (2022) found that an object does not necessarily have [-] This object never gets exhibited in art galleries or
to be created intentionally to be considered art. Thus, the museums, and it never receives any attention from art critics.
exact role of intention remains unclear.
Having read the scenario, participants had to rate to what
extent they agreed with the following claims on a Likert scale
Experiments anchored at 1 with “completely disagree” and 7 with
We explored the extent to which the three most influential “completely agree” (labels in brackets omitted):
definitions of art – intentional, aesthetic, and institutional –
are consistent with folk judgments of art. To this effect, we (1) “The object is art.” [Art]2
manipulated all three features in a between-subjects design, (2) “The object was made by an artist” [Artist]
i.e. (i) whether or not the object was created intentionally, (ii) (3) “The person wanted to make a painting” [Desire]
whether or not it is beautiful, and (iii) whether or not it (4) “The person believed they were making a painting”
received institutional recognition. As a secondary core [Belief]
dependent variable, we explored to what extent people were (5) “The person intentionally made a painting” [Intention]
willing to deem the creator an artist.
Results
Participants. We recruited 1511 participants on Amazon We ran ANOVAs with artistic intention (yes v. no), beauty
Mechanical Turk. The IP address was restricted to the United (yes v. no), and institutional recognition (yes v. no) as factors,
States. In line with the pre-registered criteria,1 participants and also included artistic domain (visual art v. music) as a
who were not native English speakers, failed an attention fourth factor. For judgments as to whether the object is art,
check, or took less than twenty seconds to answer the main beauty had the most pronounced effect (F(1,872)=54.54,
questions (including reading the prompt) were excluded, p<.001, ηp2=.06). Intention (F(1,872)=36.49, p<.001,
leaving a sample of 888 participants (female: 48%; age M=44 ηp2=.02) and recognition (F(1,872)=36.41, p<.001, ηp2=.02)
years, SD=14 years, range: 19–90 years). also proved significant, and so did domain, though its effect
size was marginal (F(1,872)=12.84, p=.029, ηp2=.01).
Methods and Materials. We ran two experiments, one Detailed results can be found in the Appendix on the project’s
focusing on paintings, one on musical works. Each explored OSF page.
people’s concept of art in a between-subjects 2 (intention:
intentional v. accidental creation) x 2 (beauty: beautiful v. not
beautiful) x 2 (institutional recognition: present v. absent).
For each artistic context, there were thus 8 conditions in total,
to one of which participants were randomly assigned. The
painting scenario, to give an example, was composed of the
following elements (labels in bold excluded, stating either the
presence (+) or absence (-) of the key features):

Intention
[+] A person decides to create a painting. She takes an empty
canvas and applies paint onto it.
[-] A person accidentally brushes against some jars of paint
that spill onto an empty canvas.
Beauty
[+] The resulting object looks beautiful, featuring an elegant
interplay of different lines of paint. It captures the viewers'
attention and evokes awe and wonder.
[-] The resulting object looks ordinary and uninteresting. It Figure 1: Mean ratings for art judgments across
leaves the viewers bored and unimpressed. conditions. Error bars denote 95% confidence intervals.
Recognition *p<.05; **p<.01; ***p<.001.

1 2
https://aspredicted.org/33x3i.pdf and Two reviewers noted that our results might have been different
https://aspredicted.org/a4ce4.pdf. For both studies (here analyzed if the participants were asked about an artwork rather than art,
together), the preregistrations, Qualtrics files and data are available which is true. By asking what is art, however, we aim to inform the
on OSF under https://shorturl.at/hxJQX. philosophical discussion on what is art, and follow the methods of
previous studies (e.g. Mikalonytė and Kneer, 2022; Kamber, 2011).
3042
 All interactions were nonsignificant or had very small Table 1: Correlations between primary DVs (artist, art)
effect sizes. Aggregating subsamples revealed close-to-large and secondary DVs. 95% CIs in brackets. * Indicates
effect sizes for intention (Cohen’s d=.79), beauty (d=.78), p < .05, ** indicates p < .01, *** indicates p < .001.
and small effect sizes for recognition (d=.26) and domain
(d=.20). Detailed results, collapsing across domains, are
graphically represented in Figure 1. Except for the two Variable Artist Art Desire Belief
conditions lacking both beauty and intention, mean ratings Art .62***
for all conditions were significantly above the midpoint (one [.56,
sample t-tests, all ps<.001, two-tailed). .68]
As concerns judgments regarding the agent’s status of
being an artist, beauty proved significant (F(1,872)=24.88, Desire .81*** .57***
p<.001, ηp2=.03), so did intention (F(1,872)=24.20, p<.001, [.78, [.51,
ηp2=.03), recognition (F(1,872)=6.03, p=.014, ηp2=.01) and .84] .63]
domain (F(1,872)=6.97, p=.008, ηp2=.01). All interactions
were again either nonsignificant or had very small effect Belief .80*** .59*** .97***
sizes. Aggregating subsamples revealed a large effect size for [.76, [.52, [.96,
intention (d=1.26), medium-sized effects for domain (d=.50) .83] .64] .97]
and beauty (d=.39), and a small effect size for recognition
(d=.17). Detailed results, collapsing across domains, are Intent .76*** .58*** .91*** .94***
graphically represented in Figure 2. Only in the conditions in [.72, [.52, [.90, [.93,
which the agent acted intentionally were mean artist .80] .64] .93] .95]
judgments significantly above the midpoint of the scale (one-
sample t-tests, all ps<.001, two-tailed).
Discussion
Recognition no yes We have explored (1) whether three potential key
accidental intentional
properties of art – intentional creation, aesthetic value,
7 d=.20ns d=.01ns d=.55*** d=.24ns institutional recognition – are seen as necessary for an object
to be art, and (2) whether the folk concept of art is an
6 essentialist one, with individually necessary and jointly
sufficient conditions, or a non-essentialist one, where only
5 one of several conditions must be satisfied.
Regarding our first question, none of the three conditions
4 were seen by the folk as individually necessary. In both visual
art and musical contexts, beauty and intentional creation
3
alone were enough for the ratings of art to be above the
midpoint of the scale. This suggests that each factor was seen
as sufficient for an object to be art. While beauty had a strong
2
effect on ratings in both contexts, the effect of intentional
creation was more pronounced in the second experiment
1
no yes no yes featuring musical work. The third factor, institutional
Beauty
recognition, by contrast, had a much weaker impact on
judgments of art. In the visual context, it was not sufficient
Figure 2: Mean ratings for artist judgments across by itself, although in the musical context, ratings were above
conditions. Error bars denote 95% confidence intervals. the midpoint. We also found an interaction between beauty
*p<.05; **p<.01; ***p<.001. and institutional recognition. For those objects that were not
beautiful, institutional recognition significantly raised the
Aggregating across conditions, the secondary DVs we ratings of art.
tested (belief, desire, and intention) all show pronounced Regarding our second question, the results suggest that the
correlations with the core DV art (all rs>.57, all ps<.001), folk concept of art is not an essentialist one. It seems that the
and, importantly, much higher correlations with the DV artist folk concept of art is a cluster concept, and all three properties
(all rs>.76, all ps<.001). This further demonstrates that the tested are part of the cluster. It is enough for one (or several)
status of being an artist is strongly tied to the creator’s mental properties from the cluster to be present for the folk to
states, whereas the merely mid-sized correlations between recognise an object as art.
mental state and an object’s being art partially challenge the The hypothesis that the folk concept of art is a cluster
intentional-historical definition of art. concept is supported by two findings: context-sensitivity of
the properties, as well as the beauty and institutional

3043
recognition interaction. In different situations, each of the Third, future research would benefit from including non-
three properties has a different impact, which is consistent WEIRD populations (De Block & Kelly, 2022; Henrich,
with the predictions of cluster theories. Across different Heine & Norenzayan, 2010). While some philosophers argue
contexts what constitutes art may depend on different factors. that experimental philosophy findings in many fields are
Unlike a simple disjunctive definition, which requires its stable across cultures (Hannikainen et al. 2019, 2022; Kneer
conditions to be individually sufficient, cluster theories do 2021; Knobe 2019, 2021; Lin et al., 2019; Rose et al., 2019;
not pose this requirement. The latter theory is thus more Sarkissian et al., 2011), in experimental philosophy of
compatible with our results. aesthetics, there are only two cross-cultural studies to date
Judgments concerning the status of being an artist were (Bonard, 2018; Cova et al., 2018). Fourth, more research is
largely consistent with those concerning art, i.e. when the needed to better distinguish between cluster and disjunctive
creator was judged an artist, her creation was judged art. We concepts. Possible directions might include deeper
found one exception in the first experiment with visual art: investigations into context-sensitivity of the concept of art.
beautiful, accidentally created objects were seen as art, but Fifth, although the use of textual vignettes helps to control
the agents who created them were not considered artists. It is the factors being manipulated, it does not allow real aesthetic
surprising that the folk consider objects art that were not experiences. Therefore, future studies should supplement
created by artists and were not even created intentionally. vignettes with visual or aural stimuli (see Puy, 2022;
This finding goes against the standard view in philosophical Weinberg, 2018).
aesthetics, which holds that for any artwork, intentional
creation is a must (Dutton, 2009; Mag Uidhir, 2013). If
artworks are artefacts, like all artefacts, they must be the Conclusion
product of intentional action. As mentioned above, the role of Although it is notably difficult to identify a convincing
intention has been emphasised in the psychological literature definition of art, the question we set out to investigate in our
(Bloom, 1996; Jucker et al., 2014; Kamber & Enoch, 2018; studies principally concerned the kind of theory that we
Newman & Bloom, 2012; Newman & Smith, 2018). Our should be looking for. Must the correct definition specify
results are also surprising because being an artist and being individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions, or a
the source of art-making intentions is tightly related: In disjunction of sufficient conditions? If there is a set of
Christy Mag Uidhir’s words, “if what it is to be an artwork is conditions where at least one of them must be satisfied for an
to be the product of a successful art-attempt, then presumably object to be art, is the set of properties determinate or is it
what it is to be the artist of a particular artwork is to be the open?
source of the intentions directing the actions constitutive of We investigated three properties of art and found out that
the successful art-attempt of which that particular artwork is none of them is seen by the folk as individually necessary.
the product. From this it follows that an artwork must have There are many other potential properties of art that must be
an artist.” (2013: 45). Our findings confirm that being an explored in future studies, such as being intellectually
artist and being the source of creative intentions is tightly challenging or formally complex. It remains a possibility that
related: only in those cases where the agent acted the folk concept of art is an essentialist one, but the necessary
intentionally, the ratings of artist were above the midpoint. and sufficient condition is not among the ones tested in our
However, our results do not support the standard view that studies. However, given that the most promising candidate,
any artwork must be intentionally created by an intentionally that is, intentional creation turned out not to be considered
acting artist. necessary, it seems unlikely that any of the other candidates
Perhaps our findings are less astonishing when we think would be.
about artworks created by AI-equipped robots: although Since the application conditions for the concept of art seem
people refuse to consider AI-creators artists or ascribe artistic to be context-sensitive, the folk concept of art might turn out
intentions to them, their creations are deemed art to a similar to be a cluster concept. It remains an open question to what
extent as human-made artworks (Mikalonytė & Kneer 2022, extent the best definition of art should cohere with folk
also see Demmer et al. 2023). While the latter results might intuitions, but if it must be coherent at least to some extent,
be explained by people’s potential tendency to view human cluster accounts of art appear to be the best option.
developers who create AI-driven systems as the source of
artistic intentions, the results of the present study suggest that
Acknowledgments
people might be open to the idea of art without an artist.
.
Work on this project was supported by a Swiss National
Limitations Science Foundation Ambizione grant (PZ00P1_179912, PI:
Kneer).
Our studies have several limitations. First, they only
concerned paintings and musical works. It would be
interesting to explore other artistic domains, such as literature
or cinema. Second, cluster accounts of art list more than three
properties of art: others remain to be tested in future studies.

3044
 References Collingwood, R. G. (1938). The principles of art. London:
Oxford University Press.
Danto, A. C. (1981). The transfiguration of the
Andow, J. (2016). Qualitative Tools and Experimental
commonplace: A philosophy of art. Cambridge, MA:
Philosophy. Philosophical Psychology, 29, 8, 1128-1141.
Harvard University Press.
Bartel, C. (2017). The ontology of musical works and the role
Davies, D. (2004). Art as performance. Oxford: Blackwell.
of intuitions: An experimental study. European journal of
Davies, S. (2004). The cluster theory of art. The British
philosophy, 26, 1, 348-367.
journal of aesthetics, 44, 3, 297-300.
Beardsley, M. (1982). The aesthetic point of view. Ithaca:
Davies, S. (1991). Definitions of art. Ithaca: Cornell
Cornell University Press.
University Press.
Bell, C. (1987). Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Davies, S. (2015). Defining art and artworlds. Journal of
Black, J. E., & Barnes, J. L. (2017). Measuring the
aesthetics and art criticism, 73, 4, 375-384.
unimaginable: Imaginative resistance to fiction and related
Dean J. T. (2003). The nature of concepts and the definition
constructs. Personality and individual differences, 111, 71-
of art. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 61, 1,
79.
29-35.
Black, J. E., & Barnes, J. L. (2020). Morality and the
De Block, A., & Kelly, D. (2022). Culture and cognitive
imagination: Real-world moral beliefs interfere with
science. Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy.
imagining fictional content. Philosophical psychology, 33,
Demmer, T., Kühnapfel, C., Fingerhut, J., & Pelowski, M.
7, 1018-1044.
(2023). Does an emotional connection to art really require
Bloom, P. (1996). Intention, history, and artifact concepts.
a human artist? Emotion and intentionality responses to AI-
Cognition, 60, 1-29.
versus human-created art and impact on aesthetic
Bonard, C. (2018). Lost in musical translation: A cross-
experience. [Unpublished manuscript].
cultural study of musical grammar and its relation to
Dickie, G. (1974). Art and the aesthetic. Ithaca: Cornell
affective expression in two musical idioms between
University Press.
Chennai and Geneva. In F. Cova & S. Réhault (Eds.),
DiYanni, C., & Kelemen, D. (2005). Time to get a new
Advances in experimental philosophy of aesthetics.
mountain? The role of function in children’s conceptions
London: Bloomsbury.
of natural kinds. Cognition, 97, 3, 327-335.
Bonard, C., Cova, F., & Humbert-Droz, S. (2022). De
Dutton, D. (2009). The art instinct: Beauty, pleasure, and
gustibus est disputandum: An empirical investigation of
human evolution. London: Bloomsbury.
the folk concept of aesthetic taste. In J. Wyatt, J. Zakkou,
Gaut, B. (2000). Art as a cluster concept. In N. Carroll (Ed.),
and D. Zeman (Eds.), Perspectives on taste. London:
Theories of art today. Madison: University of Wisconsin
Routledge.
Press.
Boyer, P., & Barrett, C. (2004). Evolved intuitive ontology:
Hannikainen, I. R., Tobia, K. P., De Almeida, G. D. F.,
Integrating neural, behavioral and developmental aspects
Donelson, R., Dranseika, V., Kneer, M., ... & Struchiner,
of domain-specificity. In D. Buss (Ed.), Handbook of
N. (2021). Are there cross‐cultural legal principles? Modal
evolutionary psychology. Cambridge: MIT Press.
reasoning uncovers procedural constraints on law.
Carroll, N. (1999). Philosophy of art: A contemporary
Cognitive science, 45, 8, e13024.
introduction. London: Routledge.
Hannikainen, I. R., Tobia, K. P., de Almeida, G. D. F.,
Carroll, N. (1993). Historical narratives and the philosophy
Struchiner, N., Kneer, M., Bystranowski, P., ... &
of art. The journal of aesthetics and art criticism, 51, 3,
Żuradzki, T. (2022). Coordination and expertise foster
313-26.
legal textualism. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Cook, R. T. (2013). Art, open-endedness, and indefinite
Sciences, 119, 44, e2206531119.
extensibility. In C. Mag Uidhir (Ed.) Art and abstract
Hazelwood, C. (2021). Practice-centered pluralism and a
objects. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
disjunctive theory of art. The British journal of aesthetics,
Cova, F., Olivola, C. Y., Machery, E., Stich, S., Rose, D.,
61, 2, 213-227.
Alai, M., ... & Zhu, J. (2019). De pulchritudine non est
Henrich, J., Heine, S., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). Most people
disputandum? A cross‐cultural investigation of the alleged
are not WEIRD. Nature, 466, 29.
intersubjective validity of aesthetic judgment. Mind &
Jucker, J.-L., Barrett, J. L., & Wlodarski, R. (2014). “I just
Language, 34, 3, 317-338.
don’t get it”: Perceiver artists’ intentions affect art
Cova, F. (in press). Experimental philosophy of aesthetics.
evaluations. Empirical studies of the arts, 32, 2, 149-182.
In: A. M. Bauer & S. Kornmesser (Eds.) The compact
Kamber, R. (2011). Experimental philosophy of art. The
compendium of experimental Philosophy. Berlin and
journal of aesthetics and art criticism, 69, 2, 197-208.
Boston: Walter de Gruyter.
Kamber, R., & Enoch, T. (2018). Why is that art? In F. Cova
Cova, F., Garcia, A., & Liao, S. (2015). Experimental
& S. Réhault (Eds.), Advances in experimental philosophy
philosophy of aesthetics. Philosophy compass, 10, 12, 927-
of aesthetics. London: Bloomsbury.
939.
Cova, F., & Pain, N. (2012). Can folk aesthetics ground
aesthetic realism? The Monist, 95, 2, 241-263.

3045
Kania, A. (2011). Definition. In: T. Gracyk & A. Kania Mag Uidhir, C. (2013). Art and art-attempts. Oxford: Oxford
(Eds.), The Routledge companion to philosophy of music, University Press.
3-13. Abingdon: Routledge. McCallum, K., Mitchell, S., & Scott-Phillips, T. (2019). The
Kelemen, D. (1999). Function, goals and intention: children’s Art Experience. Review of philosophy and psychology, 11,
teleological reasoning about objects. Trends in cognitive 21-35.
sciences, 3, 12, 461-468. Meskin, A., Robson, J., Ichino, A., Goffin, K., & Monseré,
Kelemen, D., & Rosset, E. (2009). The human function A. (2018). Philosophical aesthetics and cognitive science.
compunction: Teleological explanation in adults, WIREs Cognitive Science, 9, 1, e1445.
Cognition, 111, 1, 138-143. Mikalonytė, E. S. (2022). Intuitions in the ontology of
Kelemen, D., Rottman, J., & Seston, R. (2013). Professional musical works. Review of philosophy and psychology, 13,
physical scientists display tenacious teleological 2, 455–474.
tendencies: Purpose-based reasoning as a cognitive default. Mikalonytė, E. S., & Dranseika, V. (2020). Intuitions on the
Journal of experimental psychology: General, 142, 4, individuation of musical works. An empirical study. The
1074-1083. British journal of aesthetics 60, 3, 253-282.
Kim, H., Kneer, M., & Stuart, M. (2019). The content- Mikalonytė, E. S., & Dranseika, V. (2022). The role of
dependence of imaginative resistance. In F. Cova & S. teleological thinking in judgments of persistence of
Réhault (Eds.), Advances in experimental philosophy of musical works. The journal of aesthetics and art criticism,
aesthetics. London: Bloomsbury. 80, 1, 42-52.
Kneer, M. (2021). Norms of assertion in the United States, Mikalonytė, E. S., & Kneer, M. (2022). Can artificial
Germany, and Japan. Proceedings of the National intelligence make art? Folk intuitions as to whether AI-
Academy of Sciences, 118, 37, e2105365118. driven robots can be viewed as artists and produce art.
Knobe, J. (2019). Philosophical intuitions are surprisingly ACM transactions on human-robot interaction, 11, 4, 1-19.
robust across demographic differences. Epistemology & Monseré, A. (2016). The charge from psychology and art’s
philosophy of science, 56, 2, 29-36. definition. Theoria, 82, 3, 256-273.
Knobe, J. (2021). Philosophical intuitions are surprisingly Newman, G. E., & Bloom, P. (2012). Art and authenticity:
stable across both demographic groups and situations. The importance of originals in judgments of value. Journal
Filozofia nauki 29, 2, 11-76. of experimental psychology, 141, 3, 558-569.
Levinson, J. (1979). Defining art historically. The British Newman, G. E., & Smith, R. K. (2018). Artworks are
journal of aesthetics, 19, 3, 232-250. evaluated as extensions of their creators. In F. Cova & S.
Levinson, J. (2007). Artworks as artifacts. In E. Margolis & Réhault (Eds.), Advances in experimental philosophy of
S. Laurence (Eds.), Creations of the mind: Theories of aesthetics. London: Bloomsbury.
artifacts and their representation. Oxford: Clarendon Pelowski, M., Gerger, G., Chetouani, Y., Markey, P. S., &
Press. Leder, H. (2017). But is it really art? The classification of
Levinson, J. (2006). Artworks as artifacts. In Jerrold images as “art”/ “not art” and correlation with appraisal
Levinson (Ed.), Contemplating art: Essays in aesthetics. and viewer interpersonal differences. Frontiers in
Oxford: OUP. psychology, 8, 1729.
Levinson, J. (1989). Refining art historically. The journal of Pignocchi, A. (2014). The intuitive concept of art.
aesthetics and art criticism, 47, 1, 21-33. Philosophical psychology, 27, 3, 425-444.
Levinson, J. (1993). Extending art historically. The journal of Puy, N. G. C. (2022). Methodological worries on recent
aesthetics and art criticism, 51, 3, 411-423. experimental philosophy of music. Philosophical
Levinson, J. (2002). The irreducible historicality of the psychology, 35, 5, 410–441.
concept of art. The British journal of aesthetics, 42, 4, 367- Rabb, N., Han, A., Nebeker, L., & Winner, E. (2020).
379. Expressivist to the core: metaaesthetic subjectivism is
Levinson, J. (2006). Artworks as artifacts. In J. Levinson stable and robust. New ideas in psychology, 57, 100760.
(Ed.), Contemplating art: Essays in aesthetics. Oxford: Rose D., Machery E., Stich S., Alai M., Angelucci A.,
Oxford University Press. Berniūnas R., ..., & Cohnitz D. (2019). Nothing at stake in
Liao, S., Meskin, A., & Knobe, J. (2020). Dual character art knowledge. Noûs 53, 224-247.
concepts. Pacific philosophical quarterly, 101, 1, 102-128. Schachner, A., Zhu, L., Li, J., & Kelemen, D. (2017). Is the
Liao, S. Y., Strohminger, N., & Sripada, C. S. (2014). bias for function-based explanations culturally universal?
Empirically investigating imaginative resistance. The Children from China endorse teleological explanations of
British journal of aesthetics, 54, 3, 339-355. natural phenomena. Journal of experimental child
Lin, Z., Yu, J., & Zhu, L. (2019). Norm status, rather than psychology, 157, 29–48.
norm type or blameworthiness, results in the side‐effect Sarkissian H., Chatterjee A., De Brigard F., Knobe J., Nichols
effect. PsyCh Journal, 8, 4, 513-519. S., & Sirker S. (2010). Is belief in free will a cultural
Longworth, W., & Scarantino, A. (2010). The disjunctive universal? Mind & language, 25, 346-358.
theory of art: The cluster account reformulated. The British Sperber, D., & Wilson, D. (1986). Relevance:
journal of aesthetics, 50, 2, 151-167. communication and cognition. Oxford: Blackwell.

3046
Stecker, R. (1994). Historical functionalism or the four factor
theory. The British journal of aesthetics, 34, 255-265.
Stecker, R. (2000). Is it reasonable to attempt to define art?
In: Carroll, N., Theories of art today, 45-64. Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press.
Stich, S., & Machery, E. (2022). Demographic differences in
philosophical intuition: A reply to Joshua Knobe. Review
of philosophy and psychology.
Weinberg, J. (2018). Are aestheticians’ intuitions sitting
pretty? In F. Cova & S. Réhault (Eds.), Advances in
experimental philosophy of aesthetics. London:
Bloomsbury Academic.
Weitz, M. (1956). The role of theory in aesthetics. The
journal of aesthetics and art criticism, 15, 27-35.
Wittgenstein, L., Anscombe, G. E. M., Hacker, P. M. S., &
Schulte, J. (2009). Philosophische Untersuchungen =:
Philosophical investigations (Rev. 4th ed.). Wiley-
Blackwell.
Ziff, P. (1953). The task of defining a work of art. The
philosophical review, 62, 58-78.

3047