 Reality and the Arts. A Philosophical Guide. Chapter 1. Why Philosophy? When we enter the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, we're guided in several ways. We find a map, showing where the various galleries are located and what they contain. Thanks to modern technology, we can use audio and video programs that provide information about specific works and exhibits. If we go to the theatre, we're handed a program naming the cast, the director, the set designer and a variety of others who stage the play we're about to see. Sometimes the program includes comments about the work, but they seldom help us understand what it means. Post-performance discussions of the production usually fail to get beyond the surface. When we attend a symphony concert, the program says what's being performed, but it does not help us understand why we should listen to contemporary works that sound more like noise than music. If that performance takes place at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, an avant-garde piece of architecture by Frank Gehry confronts us with a challenging set of artistic values. What sense can we make of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot? Werner Herzog's film Fitzcarraldo, Pablo Neruda's epic poem Canto General, or a piece of music composed by Elliot Carter. The 20th century brought turmoil to the entire world of the arts, leaving many people confused and disgusted by artworks and performances that assault their senses and violate their expectations. Ugly and repulsive objects and performances greeted those who sought beauty, and abstract symbols replaced recognizable images. In 1906 Pablo Picasso finished a portrait of Gertrude Stein that did not look like her. In 1913 the premier of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring caused a riot in Paris. In 1917 Marcel Duchamp anonymously submitted a piece for exhibit by the Society of Independent Artists called Fountain. It seemed to be a piece of sculpture, but it was actually a urinal. In 1966 Peter Hanke first presented Offending the Audience, a play that is not a play. In 1989 an exhibit at the Corcoran Museum of Art in Washington, D.C., by the photographer Robert Maplethorpe, was cancelled because of the erotic content of his works. Cold and austere buildings replaced the grand and holy structures that had been designed for kings and bishops. Popular culture joined high art in a single section of the New York Times, blurring the distinction between art and entertainment. Two American dancers, Merce Cunningham and Michael Jackson, died in the summer of 2009. Were they both artists? What criteria or what definition of art can guide us in answering that question? My purpose in this book is to offer a philosophical guide to the arts. There are three main reasons why the guide must be philosophical. Philosophy offers a perspective on the arts that is able to transcend the diverse art forms, treating what is common to visual art, music, literature, architecture, dance, theater, and film. Philosophy provides criteria by which art can be distinguished from activities and objects that resemble but are not works of art. There are fundamental differences between art and craft, art and entertainment, and art and propaganda. We need philosophical analysis to explain those differences. Studying the nature of reality, whether alone or in conjunction with another subject, requires philosophy. That is philosophy. In the ancient Greek language, philosophy Sample complete. Ready to continue?