The Missing Piece in Nigel Warburton's Art Question: A Response
Dr Warburton, your admirably lucid exploration in "The Art Question" traces the philosophical quest to define art through formalism, expressionism, Wittgensteinian family resemblance, and institutional theory. You conclude, quite reasonably, that art resists simple definition—that there is no single, all-encompassing answer to "What is art?"
But what if the very persistence of this question reveals something more fundamental than the failure of definition? What if our compulsion to ask "Is this art?" points to a basic perceptual mechanism that philosophy of art has yet to recognise?
The Perceptual Foundation Beneath Aesthetic Theory
While your analysis thoroughly examines what we call art and how we justify those designations, it doesn't address why we experience certain objects as possessing an ineffable quality that demands such categorisation in the first place. Whether confronting Bell's “significant form”, Collingwood's “emotional expression”, or Dickie's institutional validation, we're still left wondering: what creates that initial sense of extraordinary significance that makes us pause before a canvas, sculpture, or conceptual work and feel that something special is happening?
This is where hagioptasia theory offers a crucial missing piece. Hagioptasia—our evolved tendency to perceive an illusory sense of extraordinary ‘specialness’ in certain aspects of our environment—explains not just what art is, but why art matters to us at the most fundamental perceptual level (Johnson & Laidler, 2020).
Beyond the Institutional Frame
Institutional theory suggests that art becomes art through the sanction of the artworld—curators, critics, galleries, and academia. But this explanation, while sociologically accurate, sidesteps the psychological mystery: why do these institutions have the power to transform our perception in the first place?
Hagioptasia provides the answer. Museums function as modern temples precisely because they can activate our innate tendency to perceive profound ‘specialness’ in contextually framed objects. The hushed reverence, the careful lighting, the authoritative labels—these aren't merely social conventions but sophisticated exploitations of a deep perceptual bias. The institutional framework works because it triggers hagioptasia, not the other way around.
The Peacock Paradox Resolved
Your opening example of Francis Alÿs sending a live peacock to the Venice Biennale crystallises the modern dilemma: we find ourselves asking “Is this art?” because we sense something significant is supposed to be happening, yet we can't rationally justify that significance.
Hagioptasia theory dissolves this paradox. The peacock becomes "art" not through any essential property or institutional magic, but because the context activates our perceptual tendency to experience specialness. Those who feel moved by it aren't responding to inherent artistic qualities—they're experiencing hagioptasia triggered by the prestige of the venue, the artist's reputation, and the cultural expectation that something profound should be occurring.
Why Definitions Fail—And Why That's Illuminating
Your conclusion that art resists definition isn't a failure of philosophical inquiry—it's a profound insight into human psychology. Art can't be defined because it isn't really a category of objects at all. It's a perceptual experience, a way of seeing ordinary things as extraordinary.
This explains why aesthetic theories consistently break down when confronted with edge cases. Formalism fails because hagioptasia can be triggered by anything contextually framed as ‘special’. Expressionism stumbles because we can perceive profound significance in works that express nothing. Even institutional theory reaches its limits because the institutions themselves depend on our psychological susceptibility to perceive specialness.
The Democratic Implication
Perhaps most importantly, recognising hagioptasia democratises aesthetic experience in a way that resolves the tension between expert authority and personal response. When you note that art cannot be generalised, you're pointing toward something even more radical: if aesthetic significance emerges from our individual perceptual biographies rather than objective properties, then each person's experience of art is equally valid.
The factory worker who sees industrial machinery in Mike Nelson's sculptures rather than profound commentary on Britain's industrial past isn't missing something—they're simply experiencing different hagioptasic triggers based on their lived experience. Their response is as authentic and valuable as any critic's interpretation.
A New Framework for Old Questions
Hagioptasia theory doesn't diminish art—it explains its power. Understanding that our sense of deep aesthetic ‘specialness’ emerges from evolved perceptual mechanisms doesn't make the experience less real or meaningful. Instead, it provides a framework for navigating aesthetic experience more skillfully, distinguishing between more ‘authentic’ encounters with art and manufactured specialness, designed to manipulate our perceptual biases.
Your question "What is art?" may indeed resist simple answers—but perhaps that's because we've been asking the wrong question. The deeper inquiry might be: "Why do we perceive such extraordinary specialness?" Once we understand that, the art question becomes not a philosophical puzzle to solve, but a human capacity to celebrate and cultivate wisely.
The Romans called it numen—the sense of divine presence in temples, leaders, and sacred places. We can now understand it as hagioptasia—the perceptual mechanism that allows ordinary objects to become extraordinary through the alchemy of human attention. Art isn't what we call certain objects; it's what we experience when hagioptasia transforms our perception of the world around us.
Daniel Laidler developed hagioptasia theory and co-authored the peer-reviewed research establishing it as a measurable psychological construct. He writes about the intersections of psychology, art, and human perception.
https://hagioptasia.wordpress.com/
References
Johnson, J. A., & Laidler, D. (2020). Measuring hagioptasia: A case study in theory-testing through Internet-based personality scale development. Personality and Individual Differences, 159, 109919.
Vessel, E. A., Starr, G. G., & Rubin, N. (2012). The brain on art: Intense aesthetic experience activates the default mode network. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 6, 66.
Warburton, N. (2003). The Art Question. Routledge.
Zink, C. F., et al. (2008). Know your place: Neural processing of social hierarchy in humans. Neuroscience, 28(16), 4114–4120.