We’ve figured it out, the age old question. It’s actually solvable, same vibe as David Bessis’s claim here:
“We’ve been wrong about math for 2300 years & I’m here to fix it” David Bessis claims we can resolve a thousand year philosophical conundrum, and I think that’s awesome! More of this please https://defenderofthebasic.substack.com/p/weve-been-wrong-about-math-for-2300
The trick is to recognize that what makes art is relational. If you look at something and argue “this is art” and someone else argues “it’s definitely not art” and you despair because there’s no way to have consensus on an objective definition, you’re doing it wrong.
If you declare, well, it’s not objective, anything can be art, up to you, no way to reconcile, agree to disagree, that’s ALSO wrong. We can look at someone’s judgement and say “actually no you’re wrong, here’s why” AND either he will go, “oh shit you’re RIGHT” OR you will change your mind.
Ok, so how do you do that? Very simply, art is defined by what it DOES. Like imagine looking at a key and saying “is this the right key?” → the question is undefined. The answer is “it depends”, and the answer to THAT isn’t “no one knows”, it’s, it depends on what door you’re looking at.
The human