Morris Weitz
Encyclopedia
Morris Weitz was an American aesthetician. He received his doctorate from the University of Michigan. During the course of his career he taught at Vassar College
, at Ohio State University
and at Brandeis University
. Weitz' groundbreaking publication is titled "The Role of Theory in Aesthetics." This work arguably spurred much debate within the philosophy of art and is part of a larger movement known as anti-essentialism. This movement was popular in the 1950s and is similarly defended by W.B. Gallie, W.E. Kennick and Paul Ziff. Weitz's piece, however, is arguably the most popular anti-essentialist pieces, as well as one of the most debated pieces in twentieth century aesthetics. Weitz argued against the traditional essentialist methodology and proposed using Wittgenstein's family resemblance
argument as an alternate method for identifying art objects. Weitz proposed that in asking "what is art?" aestheticians were really asking the wrong question altogether. The question he believed needed to be fundamentally addressed instead was "what kind of concept is 'art'?" Weitz used this question to propel both his defense of Wittgensteinian family resemblances, as well as his defense of art as an 'open concept.' Weitz is widely considered to have renewed interest within the analytical philosophy for aesthetics, where his claims have been challenged for over fifty years, most famously by Maurice Mandelbaum in the 1965 piece "Family Resemblances and Generalizations Concerning the Arts." Weitz later developed a philosophy of criticism, in which the critic must describe, interpret, evaluate, and finally theorize about the work in question.
Vassar College
Vassar College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, in the United States. The Vassar campus comprises over and more than 100 buildings, including four National Historic Landmarks, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International,...
, at Ohio State University
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...
and at Brandeis University
Brandeis University
Brandeis University is an American private research university with a liberal arts focus. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, Massachusetts, nine miles west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students. In 2011, it...
. Weitz' groundbreaking publication is titled "The Role of Theory in Aesthetics." This work arguably spurred much debate within the philosophy of art and is part of a larger movement known as anti-essentialism. This movement was popular in the 1950s and is similarly defended by W.B. Gallie, W.E. Kennick and Paul Ziff. Weitz's piece, however, is arguably the most popular anti-essentialist pieces, as well as one of the most debated pieces in twentieth century aesthetics. Weitz argued against the traditional essentialist methodology and proposed using Wittgenstein's family resemblance
Family resemblance
Family resemblance is a philosophical idea made popular by Ludwig Wittgenstein, with the best known exposition being given in the posthumously published book Philosophical Investigations It has been suggested that Wittgenstein picked the idea and the term from Nietzsche, who had been using it,...
argument as an alternate method for identifying art objects. Weitz proposed that in asking "what is art?" aestheticians were really asking the wrong question altogether. The question he believed needed to be fundamentally addressed instead was "what kind of concept is 'art'?" Weitz used this question to propel both his defense of Wittgensteinian family resemblances, as well as his defense of art as an 'open concept.' Weitz is widely considered to have renewed interest within the analytical philosophy for aesthetics, where his claims have been challenged for over fifty years, most famously by Maurice Mandelbaum in the 1965 piece "Family Resemblances and Generalizations Concerning the Arts." Weitz later developed a philosophy of criticism, in which the critic must describe, interpret, evaluate, and finally theorize about the work in question.
Works
- Philosophy of the Arts, 1950
- The Role of Theory in Aesthetics, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 15 (1956), pp. 27–35; reprinted in P. Lamarque and S. H. Olsen (eds), Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art: The Analytic Tradition, (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), pp. 12–18.
- Philosophy in literature, 1963
- Philosophy of the arts, 1964
- HamletHamletThe Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
and the philosophy of literary criticismLiterary criticismLiterary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...
, 1964 - editor of "Problems in aesthetics", 1959, 21970