Arts And Personal Knowledge

“I think we have a stray dog,” I explain while he refills the dog’s bowls. “Can you check under the deck?” “How would an entire dog get underneath our deck?” he asked condescendingly. “I’m not sure! Just believe me, something is under there,” I exclaim pointing at the deck. Despite investigating for a solid thirty minutes, my father returns with no news of seeing a stray dog. While the howling is too loud for me, he sleeps through the night without hearing anything. However, because neither of us has seen the dog, there is no conclusive evidence of any dog, besides our own, being beneath our deck. Therefore, is saying that “I know there is a stray dog” accurate, or is this just a strong belief? While searching for certainty in situations …show more content…
The ways of knowing primarily utilized within the Arts are emotion, imagination, and sense perception, while specific pieces can also be based off of memory and faith in order for the audience to pull more from the emotional aspect of the piece. Like mathematics, shared and personal knowledge do not play equal roles in the Arts. Conversely, within the Arts, personal knowledge has a larger role because of the extra emphasis placed on the artist’s story behind the piece and the emotions and beliefs embedded within it. Shared knowledge plays only a small role within the Arts because, like Mathematics, it is a fluid entity that is always changing, yet it is never standardized to one style or one piece. Unlike Mathematics which unifies through its standard formulas and proven theorems, Arts unify through their subjectivity. Because of the subjective nature of Art, I believe that this area of knowledge requires minimal proof being only: receiving a reaction (even if that is no reaction at all) and the possibility of being analyzed by the artist and others for a deeper, meaningful concept. However, problems within my argument arise in genres like abstract art where the subjective nature may lead to believe that many pieces are not Art at all. This problem also raises the questions of what is Art, and can we have a standard definition for this area of knowledge? I personally believe that because of the immense role personal knowledge plays that we can never truly have one standardized definition of Art, and there are going to be instances where, because minimal proof is needed, certain pieces will never be considered shared knowledge within society because of the subjectivity of the area of