ABSTRACT
The relations between art and knowledge are addressed in contemporary philosophical debate in several interesting ways. The question of whether and how art can be a source of knowledge is a persistent and central concern; there are also trends that fall under three other headings: art and our capacities as knowers, art as serving cognitive values other than knowledge, and art as a contributor to theorybuilding. While literature remains the focus of many discussions addressing art and knowledge, other art forms are increasingly considered as well. While this chapter cannot adequately survey all of these developments, I will highlight some of the promising work in this area. Even if one does not hold that art is a source of knowledge, one can recognize art practices as important to practical and theoretical interests in knowledge. I will use “art” to refer to practices and the products of those practices commonly
recognized as art. “Knowledge” is the term that will count as more contentious here, primarily as a way of containing the issues. I begin with a loose specification of knowledge and some of the values embedded in that notion. We need a notion to work with that does not immediately settle questions up for debate. Knowledge is, at a minimum, a reliable, content-bearing resource that is available for use by conscious agents and that meets a success condition appropriate to that content. That it is “content-bearing” is intended to capture the demand that knowledge be of something, whether it be knowledge of how to do X or knowledge of a proposition or an experiential property. That it is a resource for conscious agents means that this content can be deliberately drawn on by a being that is aware of itself and its actions. These conditions, broad as they are, still allow us to distinguish knowledge from other resources: though I might say casually that plants know how to photosynthesize or that I know how to digest food or that Google knows I have searched for trains to Ardrossan, those resources are not contents available for an agent in the way that counts for knowledge. The notion of knowledge further builds in normative demands, for content-appropriate success – such as achievement of truth, practical ends and experiential access – and for reliability, as knowledge is contrasted with accidental or lucky success in those achievements. For example, the conception of knowledge as true, justified belief, targeting knowledge of propositions, identifies belief as the status held by an appropriately available resource, and uses truth and justification to identify the demands for success and reliability.
