Richard Wollheim threatened George Dickie's institutional definition of art with a dilemma which entailed that the theory is either redundant or incomprehensible and useless. This article modifies the definition to avoid such criticism. First, it shows that the definition's concept of the artworld is not vague when understood as a conventional system of beliefs and practices. Then, based on Gaut's cluster theory, it provides an account of reasons artworld members have to confer the status of a candidate for appreciation. An (...) authorised member of an artworld has a good reason to confer the status on an object if it satisfies a subset of criteria respected as sufficient within this artworld. The first horn of the dilemma is averted because explaining the reasons behind conferral cannot eliminate references to the institution, and the second loses its sharpness, as accepting partial arbitrariness of the conferral does not deprive the theory of its explanatory power. (shrink)

Šiuolaikinėje analitinėje meno filosofijoje viena pagrindinių problemų – ar įmanoma ir kaip įmanoma apibrėžti meną? Straipsnyje analizuojamas George’o Dickie’o institucinis meno apibrėžimas. Parodoma, kaip jis atsako į antiesencialistų argumentus, neigiančius meno apibrėžimo galimybę. Teigiama, kad meno apibrėžimą Dickie’s įrodinėja pasitelkdamas ekstensionalistinę metodologiją, kuria remdamasis meno ir ne-meno atskyrimo kriterijus aiškina kaip semantinius eksternalistinius, episteminius eksternalistinius ir normatyviai neutralius. Tvirtinama, kad Dickie’o suformuluotas institucinis meno apibrėžimas negali būti laikomas meno apibrėžimu, nes jis remiasi ydingo loginio rato principu. Iš to daroma išvada, (...) kad Dickie’s nepagrindžia meno apibrėžimo galimybės, bet pasiūlo ekstensionalistinę institucinę meno sampratą. (shrink)

The topic of the article is George Dickie’s institutional theory of art as one of contemporary art theories which purport to answer the “what is art?” question by defining the concept of art in terms of its necessary and sufficient conditions. Introductory part of the article brings a brief review of so-called functionalist theories, as well as of their shortcomings when compared to theories to which institutional theory belongs. Also included is a short survey of theories and arguments that significantly (...) influenced institutional theory, e.g. Danto’s “theory of meaning”. Next are presented the basics of the institutional theory. It is shown that advantages of this theory over other functionalist theories became especially visible after the appearance of art practices of the 20th century which rendered the difference between artistic and non-artistic objects extremely complex. (shrink)