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Australasian Journal of Philosophy
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Failed-Art and Failed Art-Theory
Christopher Mag Uidhir
aa
 City College of New YorkAvailable online: 24 Sep 2009
To cite this article:
 Christopher Mag Uidhir (2010): Failed-Art and Failed Art-Theory,Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 88:3, 381-400
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FAILED-ART AND FAILED ART-THEORY
Christopher Mag Uidhir
An object being non-art appears only trivially informative. Some non-artobjects, however, could be saliently ‘almost’ art, and therefore objects forwhich being non-art is non-trivially informative. I call these kinds of non-artobjects ‘failed-art’ objects—non-art objects aetiologically similar to art-objects, diverging only in virtue of some relevant failure. I take failed-art tobe the right sort of thing, to result from the right sort of action, and to have theright sort of history required to be art, but to be non-art by having failurewhere being art requires success. I assume that for something to be art thatthing must be the product of intention-directed action. I then offer an accountof attempts that captures the success conditions governing the relationshipbetween intention-directed actions and their products. From this, I claim thatto be failed-art is to be the product of a failed art-attempt, i.e., to be non-art asthe result of the particular way in which that art-attempt failed. An art-attempt I take to be an attempt with success conditions, that, if satisfied, entailthe satisfaction of the conditions for being art—whatever those may be. To beart, then, is to be the product of a successful art-attempt. As such, any arttheory incompatible with my account of failed-art is an art theory for whichthe notions of success and failure do not matter, and therefore an art theoryfor which being art needn’t be substantively intention-dependent. So, anytheory of art unable to accommodate my account of failed-art is
 ipso facto
false.
I certainly do not fancy myself an artist; as far as I know, I have neithermade nor attempted to make an artwork. As a consolation of sorts, I doseem to be rather good at making non-art objects, everything frombookshelves and sandwiches to more esoteric and conceptual non-artobjects such as low-cholesterol recipes and exercise routines. Unfortunately,something’s being non-art is about as informative as something’s being anon-car, a non-zebra, or a non-pudding. Despite this, here I argue for aninformative kind of non-art, what I call ‘failed-art’—not artworks that failto meet some standard for artwork evaluation but non-art objectsaetiologically similar to art-objects, diverging only in virtue of some failure(‘almost’ art).
Failed-art
 I take to be a robust and meaningful subclass of non-art,comprising objects for which being non-art is the substantive result of somerelevant failure, and thereby objects for which being non-art is non-triviallyinformative. Failed-art on my account isn’t merely an informative butultimately disposable accoutrement for art theory (e.g., better off if entailedbut otherwise no worse off if not entailed); it is instead a forceful
Australasian Journal of Philosophy
Vol. 88, No. 3, pp. 381–400; September 2010
Australasian Journal of Philosophy
ISSN 0004-8402 print/ISSN 1471-6828 online
 
 2010 Australasian Association of Philosophyhttp://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/00048400903194559
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art-theoretic constraint predicated on the basic working assumption thatsomething’s being art must be substantively intention-dependent. I claimthat the minimal structure of failed-art is entailed by the minimal structureto which any art theory must square to be even
 prima facie
 viable, such that,a
ny art theory unable to entail my account of failed-art is ipso facto false.
1. Informative Failure: An Instructive Example
Suppose we carve the world into lawyers and non-lawyers. For simplicity’ssake, let’s assume that passing the bar exam is both necessary and sufficientfor being a lawyer.
Lawyer:
 a thing that has passed the bar exam (e.g. Hilary Clinton, ClarenceDarrow).
Non-Lawyer:
 either a thing incapable of taking the bar or a thing capable of taking the bar exam that either has not taken the bar exam orhas taken the bar exam but did not pass the bar exam (e.g.,Pigeon the cat, ferns, the number five).
Compared to something’s being a lawyer, a thing’s being a non-lawyer
simpliciter
 looks to be starkly uninformative about that thing—it could bePigeon the cat, Renoir’s
 Diana the Huntress
, or an isosceles triangle. What Iam after, however, are
 failed-lawyers
 —a subclass of non-lawyers for which athing’s being a non-lawyer is non-trivially informative about that thing.
1
To begin, we can suppose that a failed-lawyer must at least be a thingcapable of being a lawyer, perhaps a thing that intended to be a lawyer but isnot a lawyer. Gym socks can’t be failed-lawyers because gym socks areincapable of intending
 simpliciter
. I, however, could be a failed-lawyerbecause I am capable of forming such intentions. This is far too broad.Should I form the intention to be a lawyer only to be immediately andfatally struck by bus, I’m not thereby a failed-lawyer. Failed-lawyers, then,might be non-lawyers who were almost lawyers, perhaps those non-lawyerssharing at some point a variety of relevant things in common with lawyers,namely the lawyer-relevant sorts of goals, beliefs about how to achieve thosegoals, and actions directed by intentions informed by those beliefs. That is,failed-lawyers and lawyers both
 attempted 
 to be lawyers, the difference beingthat the former failed and the latter succeeded.Of course, such attempts must be of the appropriate sort. If I attempt tobe a lawyer by clicking my heels together three times, my remaining a non-lawyer doesn’t thereby entail that I am now also a failed-lawyer. Being afailed-lawyer must be about attempting to be a lawyer
 in the right sort of way
 —call these attempts
 lawyer-attempts
 —but having that attempt fail.What counts as a lawyer-attempt is determined by what it is for somethingto be a lawyer. So, lawyer-attempts are those attempts in the relevant classof attempts for being a lawyer, i.e., attempts having success conditions that,
1
Distinct from lawyers who fail to achieve the minimum standard for being a good lawyer.382
 Christopher Mag Uidhir
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