Abstract

How can pictorial and narrative arts be compared? What in principle can or cannot be communicated in such different media? Why does it seem that, at its best, artistic communication goes beyond the limitations of its own medium - seeming to think and to communicate the uncommunicatable? In Philosophy and the Arts Andrew Harrison explores these questions. He finds that an understanding of art leads to a richer understanding of what it is to be human. Much of what misleads or baffles us in the arts is what puzzles us about ourselves - the issues raised by art are thus central to philosophy.