Argumenta – Journal of Analytic Philosophy

This paper rejects the autonomy myth that treats works of art as self-contained worlds and instead situates them within nature. Following Murray Smith’s “Third Culture” program, I retain triangulation—structure, function, and appearance—as necessary to explain how artworks affect perceivers: material structures impinge on perceivers’ brains, recruit psychological functions, and yield phenomenal experience. But triangulation is incomplete. I propose a fourth vertex—normativity—thus “squaring the triangle.” Normativity explains why works of art can and should be experienced in a certain way. Works of art are artifacts whose functions are stabilized by communities…