# Do_We_Need_a_POAH_1  ## Metadata - Author: [[Gaia Penna]] - Full Title: Do_We_Need_a_POAH_1 - Category: #articles - Summary: insert summary - My notes: - Summary: The paper discusses the need for a Philosophy of Art History (POAH) to analyze its unique methodologies and purposes. It highlights how art history's selective nature shapes its narratives and focuses on the significance of the artwork itself. The author argues that a philosophical exploration of art history is important to understand its evaluative and narrative functions. - URL: https://readwise.io/reader/document_raw_content/247732455 ## LLM Chats ## NotebookLM ## LLM Audio ## Highlights > It is important not to confuse the two: I am not suggesting that a philosophy of the history of art does not exist: it certainly does, and it is a prolific field. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jenkez10ny57yfz5kwtrr10d)) - Note: I understand the distinciton you are making but is it really true that philosophy of history art is a prolifict field? I suggest giving some references as to what you have in mind as this will help the reader understand the topic you are focussing on. > These works, while valuable, typically emerge from particular contexts and aim to address internal disciplinary needs. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jenkm4sw8mpr6jjep9rwvj6g)) - Note: I think what you mean here needs to be clearer. > There are a few examples of works that approach what I mean here, and they are from art historians: Erwin Panofsky’s analyses of humanistic disciplines (Panofsky 1940), George Kubler’s concept of a history of things (Kubler 1962) and Arnold Hauser’s The Philosophy of Art History. The latest really wanted to be “faithful to the principles that guided me in The Social History of Art”, so he offered his sociological interpretation of the field (Hauser 1959). Other examples of similar attempt include publications, again by art historians, responding to specific ‘crises’ within the discipline with theoretical interventions. For instance, the 1990s saw a series of such publications (e.g., Lavin 1996). These works, while valuable, typically emerge from particular contexts and aim to address internal disciplinary needs. What I want to talk about here is different: a systematic and philosophically rigorous analysis of the discipline of art history itself, undertaken for reasons that go beyond the immediate concerns of art historians themselves and engage with broader philosophical questions about the nature of our knowledge and our representation of art. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jenkjms84m2wgew2hbrp68f5)) - Note: ok so kubler and hauser etc. are meant to be examples of 'philosophy of art history' I am not sure this is super clear in the text though. > rt. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jenkmz0be9rk4xc0b62pewgg)) > What I want to talk about here is different: a systematic and philosophically rigorous analysis of the discipline of art history itself, undertaken for reasons that go beyond the immediate concerns of art historians themselves and engage with broader philosophical questions about the nature of our knowledge and our representation of art. > Now that the terminology and the claim are cleared, let’s go back to my starting question: do we need a philosophy of art history? ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jenkn2s5hetms94x1gxmp4hy)) - Note: I think you need to make the distinction clearer before you move onto whether we need a PoAH > – it might be for two possible reasons. The first is the idea that the discipline of art history is not an interesting subject from a philosophical perspective. However, this answer is clearly unacceptable: anything can serve as an interesting philosophical object of study. Therefore, I will focus on analizing the second possible answer to the question, w ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jenkq70f9fcpstehrm9jw74g)) - Note: i don't think you need to bother with the first one. just talk about the second. > Before starting this discussion, it is worth mentioning another potential substitute for POAH: the philosophy of the history of technical object – or POHOTA. However, the inadequacy of POHOTA as a substitute for POAH is even more evident than in the previous cases, so I will limit my discussion of it to the following sentences, without a full dedicated section. In fact, even though artworks are notoriously difficult to define, the main alleged definitions share the idea that artworks possess some peculiarity that distinguish it from technical common object - though much debate surrounds what those differences entail. Moreover, while art history may consider genres, periods, styles, and other ways of grouping artworks by similarity, it also always requires detailed analysis of specific objects in their unique materiality and historical context. Whereas the study of technical artifacts usually emphasizes their function as part of a broader "family" of objects, often with a preference for evolutionary views over intentionalist ones. This is why the historical study of technical artifacts differs significantly from art history, and why POHOTA is clearly not a good candidate to explain the lack of interest in POAH. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jenkt4ehdv1pam6njqqwj7nr)) - Note: i wonder if a reviewer would find this convincing? > Finally, in the third part, I will conclude by asserting the need for a dedicated POAH, trying to answer to the question: why should philosophers engage directly with the discipline of art history? ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jenkw2g5f7h33d1ajf0vwmga)) - Note: does this third part connect up to the previous parts. > First, ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jenkys5h8c2ngpw2pjmdygfv)) - Note: the fact that you are introducing all these charactersitcs makes me think that all of them are going to play a significant role in your philosophical argument > e stronger candidate ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jenm3m9wvwhhqd2ezvdseack)) - Note: if you say this you need to say why you think this