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p The representatives of “ analytical aesthetics" are characterized above all by their high estimation of the philosophical views of Wittgenstein in his later period. Thus, to quote one of the leaders of this aesthetics, Morris Weitz, these ideas have “furnished contemporary aesthetics with a starting point for any future progress" (4, 30). Of course, by “modern aesthetics" Weitz understands “ analytical aesthetics".  [54•1 

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p Weitz states the programme of “analytical aesthetics" as follows. The primary aim of easthetics is not to seek new definitions of those basic concepts which are used in discussions about art, but to elucidate the use or employment of these concepts. As Wittgenstein stated: “Don’t ask for the meaning, ask for the use" (20, 80). Instead of asking what “art”, “artistic creation”, “expression” and “form” are, in the hope of receiving real definitions of these concepts, the analysts explain the logical nature of those terms which are actually used in the discussion of artistic matters (20, 80).   [55•1 

p This programme was given a more developed justification by M. Weitz in his article “The Role of Theory in Aesthetics”. He correctly states that the problems of the theory of art, .questions about the nature of art and its definition were always the central issue of aesthetics and characterized it as a philosophy of art. As an analyst Weitz is unhappy with the “traditional” approach to aesthetics. He asks whether a theory of art is in general, or in principle, possible which is understood as art’s true definition, embracing a range of necessary and sufficient properties of art. No, answers the “analyst”, a theory of art is logically impossible, for art does not and cannot have a system of necessary and sufficient properties. In his justification of this assertion the author bases his arguments on Wittgenstein’s ideas, developed in the Philosophical Investigations. In contrast to the “closed” concepts of logics and mathematics, the concept of “art” (like other empirico-descriptive and normative concepts) is “open”. This means that it is impossible to identify some of art’s necessary properties because of the emergence of new forms of art, that the conditions of the application of this concept are changeable, etc.

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p From what has been said it is easy to identify the problem which is posed and examined by the analytical aestheticians, as well as the metaphysical and idealistic means of resolving it which they propose. There can be no doubt that art as an object of aesthetics changes with time. Many of the theoretical premises which claim to be “universal”, inherent in “art as a whole”, are in actual fact historically transient. MarxistLeninist aesthetics as a historically developing science, does not, in principle, place restrictions on the possibility of further changing the object of aesthetics. It can subsequently be extended or narrowed.

p On the basis of the fact that art develops and, consequently, its definitions change and develop, Weitz and other analysts quite unjustifiably reject any possibility of true definitions and theories of art. They entirely discount the dialectics of the relative and absolute in the cognition of art. In their campaign against “metaphysics” in aesthetics they are themselves to all intents and purposes proceeding from a metaphysical notion of the “theory” of art, interpreted by them not as a process but as absolute, completed cognition. For this reason, when they see a collision of different theories and a certain move backwards in the history of aesthetics this leads to the sceptical conclusion that modern theories of art have no closer a relation to the truth than the theories of Plato’s time, and that, in general, theory in the required “classical” sense will never be achieved (4, 27). M. Weitz and the other analysts are in fact declaring, in the guise of a criticism of “traditional theories”, that the essence of art is unknowable.

p So what does Weitz propose? We should not start with the question “what is art?" but with the question “what is the concept of ‘art’ like?" The main problem of aesthetics is to explain the relations beween the use of certain types of concept and the conditions in which they can be properly applied.

p The programme set out above fixed the results of work already carried out by the analysts in applying the methods of linguistic philosophy to aesthetics. These results are best 57 represented in two collections: Aesthetics and Language (1954)  [57•1  and Problems in Aesthetics (1959) (See 7; 10; 14; 18; 19).

p The authors of these works are primarily aiming at a “ diagnosis" and explanation of the incorrect application of concepts in aesthetics, of the confusion which is mainly of linguistic origin. They oppose the “traps of generalization”. John Passmore sees one of these “traps” in the very concept of “aesthetics” and the concept of “aesthetic experiences”. Perhaps, he asks, the truth lies in the assertion that there is no aesthetics, but there are principles of literary, music etc. criticism? Perhaps it is better to concentrate on the real differences between the actual works of art, on the specific features of the different arts, than to operate with the concept of “aesthetic experiences"? The analysts maintain that superficial generalizations have led to irregular assimilations of differences, and to reductionism. The word “art”, writes W. B. Gallic, cannot be reduced to a single thing, as the idealists propose. It is reducible neither to naturalistic elements (H. Taine) nor to imagination and expression (Croce and Collingwood), nor to handiwork nor to illusion. Art is a plurality. A tendency to make incorrect generalizations, claims Gallic, has led to a predisposition to “essentialism”, inherent in idealistic aesthetics, for example in Collingwood and Croce. The idealists are looking for the special “essence” of art, its ultimate nature, and that using methods which differ from the empirical and mathematical, from the methods of “common sense”. Incorrect analogies constitute another source of the confusion. Expressions of the type “music of poetry”, “the logic of music”, etc. lead to the accent in such cases being placed on the general and trivial and not on the unique, on what is specific to art. Beryl Lake traces the tautologies and a priori nature of theories of art on the example of Croce and Clive Bell. In addition to establishing the criterion for the correct use of the word “art”, a number of studies examine the use 58 of the concepts “expression”, “feeling”, “truth” (27) and “meaning” on the basis of a critical analysis of different theories.

p In accordance with the orientation of linguistic philosophy the followers of this school investigate the various ways in which language is used in criticism (in “descriptions”, “ interpretations" and “evaluations”), and such terms as “value”, and show how criticism differs from science. The critic does not prove: he merely gives information about the work of art, like a pianist who demonstrates the value of a sonata when he plays it. There are no arguments which can support aesthetic evaluations. It is not the critic’s task to justify anything. It is precisely in this sort of criticism that the analytical aestheticians see the important problems of the philosophy of art to lie.

p The analysts therefore see the task of aesthetics, like the task of philosophy, to consist in the elucidation of the criteria for the correct use of concepts. Aesthetics, in their opinion, should be concerned with nothing else (20, 80). Even after such a brief look at the main problems which analysts tackle in the field of aesthetics it can be seen that they keep strictly to the programme worked out by linguistic philosophy.

p Analytical aesthetics and linguistic philosophy have the same epistemological roots, connected with the objective requirement for scientific study, including philosophical and aesthetic, to elaborate linguistic and logical means of analysing the very methodology of research, and in particular of analysing the different use of words in aesthetic studies. The elaboration of such means being the most important task of aesthetics that acts as a metatheory in this case, will, of course, also assist a more exact and non-ambiguous use of terms and the avoidance of verbal confusion (ambiguity, false analogies, categorial errors etc.). For this reason it would be wrong to think that the writings of the analytical aestheticians contain nothing of note as far as the elaboration of special “technical” means of such an analysis goes, although on the whole the results of their work are very modest. And one of the main reasons for this lies in the misleading idealistic principles behind their methodology.

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p Thus the analysts reject any notion of aesthetics as a science assisting a correct understanding of art itself, of its essence, the laws of its development, or its social role, and instead reduce its purpose to the correct use of words “about art" (taking, moreover, as their definitive criterion for such use instead of the “immediate datum" of the Vienna Circle the no less metaphysical notion “everyday usage”). While criticizing false theories of art the analysts did not endeavour to work out the principles of a consistent, materialistic, scientific theory of art, considering a justification of any theory to be in principle metaphysics and suggesting nothing more than a “cure” or “therapeutics” for these theories.

p Criticizing the idealism of the Young Hegelians Marx and Engels showed in their German Ideology that all the forms and products of consciousness cannot be dissolved by mental criticism (by transformation into “apparitions”, “spectres”, “whimsies”) and theoretical deduction. In fact the critical stance of the analysts with regard to what they see as erroneous aesthetic theories is analogous to the critical zeal of the Young Hegelians and Proudhon. Slightly paraphrasing Marx’s ironic characteristic of the latter we can say that the representatives of analytical aesthetics worked with the following theory: if aesthetics wants to “eliminate all the drawbacks" from which it suffers it has only to alter its language and abandon certain incorrect terms. To do this it must apply to the analysts, to their model of analytical procedure with the language of aesthetics.

p “The course taken by the linguistic philosophers was unsuitable either for a correct study of the philosophical problems of language, or for the resolution of traditional philosophical problems" (5, 108; 16). This conclusion applies fully to analytical aesthetics, which has proved insubstantial for the solution of the radical problems of aesthetics.

p It should be stated that many of the representatives of bourgeois aesthetics themselves are sceptical about the socalled achievements of analytical aesthetics, often pinpointing its shortcomings. Such, for example, is the estimation of analytical aesthetics given by Thomas Munro, a highly respected scholar in bourgeois aesthetics. No one would 60 disagree, he writes, that aesthetics needs its concepts and misleading notions cleared up. But Munro feels, along with, in his opinion, a lot of other scholars, that “analytical philosophy seldom clarifies anything”. Analytical aestheticians commonly display undue scepticism towards all positive generalizations in aesthetics. The difficulty of defining notions like “beauty” and “aesthetics” have led them to reject any objective “referent” of these terms. They pay little attention to the arts, the history of culture, psychology or sociology. They limit the role of philosophy and aesthetics to a minimum and deny that art is a factor of progress in improving human conditions.

p Similar arguments were adduced against the analysts by the American aesthetician Maurice Mandelbaum in his article “Family Resemblances and Generalization Concerning the Arts" and in his paper “Linguistic Analysis and Aesthetic Theory" at the plenary session of 5th International Congress of Aesthetics. Noting that the method of linguistic analysis has had a palpable influence on aesthetic theory, Mandelbaum expressed his conviction that a number of the partis pris of analytical philosophy are prejudicial to the study of art. The author justly criticizes the analysts’ claims that traditional attemps to make generalizations about art and its essence are in principle misguided, and correctly establishes a connection between these claims and Wittgenstein’s neopositivist doctrine of the “family resemblances".

p In October 1962, at the annual meeting of the American Society for Aesthetics a symposium was held on the theme: “Analytical Philosophy and Aesthetics”. During this forum a number of serious criticisms were levelled at analytical aesthetics. Thus Jerome Stolnitz pointed to the insubstantiality of the analysts’ claims that their definitions and clarification of concepts could be of help to art criticism. It is impossible to achieve this end while ignoring extra-linguistic contexts, which is precisely what the analysts are attempting to do. The investigations made by analytical aestheticians, in his opinion, can at best play an auxiliary, tactical, heuristic role (23). In his paper another speaker, Bertram Jessup, who has some affinity with the analytical movement, made the 61 traditional disclaimer that the analysts were not united by any common principles and that analytism is merely an activity, etc. Nevertheless, he correctly noted the eclecticism of this direction in the semantic philosophy of art. He takes a more sober view of the analysts’ claims to be bringing about a “revolution” in philosophy and aesthetics, which is supposed to consist in a total rejection of theoretical generalizations. Jessup shows that in practice the analysts inevitably also have recourse to generalizations, like those whom they criticize. For this reason the “revolution” is not as momentous as the analysts would wish it to be thought (9). Along with Black, he believes that analytism could best be described as a sound working method and even then none too effective in a positive role.

The criticism of analytical aesthetics by Munro, Mandelbaum and other bourgeois aestheticians (22) has the substantial shortcoming that it fails to reveal the social significance of this tendency in bourgeois aesthetic thought. This significance can be seen, in particular, in the fact that analytical aesthetics to all intents and purposes-though it does not directly investigate the problems of art itself-by insisting in principle that the aesthetician and critic do not concern themselves with the approval or disapproval of aesthetic theories or even works of art, provides justification for every theory and practice of modernistic art.