Using Philosophy of Technology to Talk About Art

In this paper I will demonstrate how methods drawn from the philosophy of technology can be used to speak meaningfully about the ‘cognitive functions’ of artworks: that is, how artworks mean things. In particular, I argue that the idea of affordances (drawn from philosophy of technology and, ultimately, psychology) can be used to cash out the claim that artworks possess cognitive functions. In doing so, it is built upon two foundational claims. First, that philosophy of technology and philosophy of art share a number of foundational questions and concerns. Second, that there is analytical utility in sharing the hitherto domain-specific methods and schemas that have been developed to address those questions and concerns.