The Work on Oneself: musings on Wittgenstein’s legacy for philosophy of art and art education

Abstract

The present text discusses Wittgenstein’s later works. We attempt to establish the following: (A) Wittgenstein’s later philosophy was first understood by Morris Weitz as an opportunity to develop new ideas on aesthetics and philosophy of art, although Wittgenstein himself haven’t made those developments. (B) Weitz’s interpretation of Wittgenstein jumpstarts a debate concerned with definitional aspects within these fields. (C) This debate is vividly ongoing and one of its most recent figures is Noël Carroll. (D) Carroll’s methodological account for art identification without essential definitions is a relevant response to other accounts within the field, especially to Weitz. (E) Because Carroll’s account evokes art identification as something oriented by language, critique and narrative making, contact with others, etc., his account seems to be a truly return to some of Wittgenstein original ideas; specially on art criticism as something entirely dependent of art appreciation and of learning to “work on oneself” - in the sense that art appreciation requires a work on one’s own perception and beliefs. Finally, it is our opinion that this return to Wittgenstein through Carroll’s account evokes the idea that art education is a process of revisiting one’s own perceptions and beliefs by means of an encounter with history of art, culture, concrete contexts of language usage, etc.; things that represent the instance of a radical otherness.