Method and Metaphysics in the Philosophy of Art

This article is concerned with the question of the proper place of substantial general metaphysics in aesthetics and the philosophy of art. For reasons articulated in writings from the 1950s, analytic aesthetics denies that there is any relation of dependence and regards the intrusion of metaphysics into reflection on art as not merely superfluous but also methodologically inappropriate. Against this I argue (1) that analytic aesthetics in its circumscription of the bounds of the discipline is not metaphysically neutral, (2) that it is vulnerable to the challenge of scientific naturalism, and (3) that a case for the necessity of metaphysics in aesthetics and the philosophy of art can be made on the grounds of the constitutive opacity of art and the aesthetic from the standpoint of ordinary consciousness. The analytic reception of Kant’s aesthetic theory, I argue, supports this conclusion.