This essay discusses an interdisciplinary art history/philosophy course cotaught by a professor from each discipline. Fundamental questions about how we experience, understand, and communicate about art can be answered more effectively through such interdisciplinary collaboration than through each discipline alone. Students in the course tended to think of art either in purely subjective terms, in which art was simply an expression of personal taste, or entirely essentialist ones, in which the artness of a work resided completely within the object. Readings and class discussions helped students articulate these extreme viewpoints and challenge them. As a result, many of the students developed more sophisticated understandings of art and the experiences of art that avoided the pitfalls of subjectivism and essentialism. Insights from selected student papers are presented to demonstrate the kinds of thinking fostered by the course. In sum, the essay argues for the importance and success of interdisciplinary approaches to teaching art, art history, and the philosophy of art.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.