Two Originals, One Artwork: On the Ontology of Originals and Improvisations
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RESEARCH ARTICLE Two Originals, One Artwork: On the Ontology of Originals and Improvisations Raphael van Riel University of Duisburg-Essen, DE ABSTRACT There is disagreement as to the ontological status of works associated with an original. Some hold that works like paintings are identical to the concrete particular the artist worked on while creating the artwork. Others suggest that works of this sort cannot be instantiated more than once. In this paper, it is argued that, even if artworks like paintings cannot be instantiated in reproductions, they are nevertheless possibly instantiated more than once. Moreover, it is tentatively suggested that the same holds for improvisations in music. Therefore, even the best candidates on offer do not allow for an identification of the work with a particular or for an identification of the work with a type that is instantiated maximally once. The argument rests on thought experiments, and an inference to the ‘best’ explanation. This inference is, of course, defeasible. Four alternatives, three of which are potentially fruitful, will be identified, and it will be argued that, on balance, these alternatives should be dismissed. CORRESPONDING AUTHOR: Raphael van Riel University of DuisburgEssen, DE raphael.v[email protected] KEYWORDS: ontology of artworks; identity; original; improvisation; music; painting; autographic; allographic TO CITE THIS ARTICLE: van Riel, Raphael. ‘Two Originals, One Artwork: On the Ontology of Originals and Improvisations.’ Estetika: The European Journal of Aesthetics LIX/XV, no. 2 (2022): pp. 119–134. DOI: https:// doi.org/10.33134/eeja.298
120van Riel Estetika DOI: 10.33134/eeja.298 I. INTRODUCTION Peter Strawson and others have argued that perfect reproductions of an original should be regarded as instances of the work the original is an instance of.1 Others have resisted this idea and argued the opposite2 or, more radically, have tried to show that at least some originals are identical to the artwork they are associated with.3 We can thus distinguish between two positions regarding the ontological status of works that have an original. Strawson and his supporters deny that originals play an important ontological role. Strawson explicitly argues that we identify originals with the work by virtue of ‘the empirical deficiencies of reproductive techniques’.4 I take this to imply that we would not (and should not) do so if the reproductive techniques were less deficient; the actual deficiencies are contingent (empirical) and, thus, misleading when we consider metaphysical possibilities. So, Strawson seems to embrace at least this weak claim: it is metaphysically possible that some reproduction of an original is an instance of the work the original is an instance of. It is weak in the sense that it does not imply that any actual original could have or could have had reproductions instantiating the same work the original is an instance of. Nelson Goodman, who assumes that the criteria for an adequate definition of a certain kind of art depend on social practice, regards this practice as grounding the special ontological status that originals have according to this practice. Moreover, he opposes the Strawsonian view, stating that ‘the difficulty of making perfect reproductions of a painting [does not] have anything to do with confinement of the work to the unique original’.5 Rather, it is the fact that the work belongs to the kind of work that allows for forgeries – it is autographic rather than allographic. Peter Lamarque seems to embrace this view given that he takes the original to be identical to the work, because it plays a distinguished aesthetic role.6 1 Maria E. Reicher, Zur Metaphysik der Kunst: Eine logisch-ontologische Untersuchung des Werkbegriffs (Stuttgart: dbv, 1998), 30; Eddy Zemach, ‘No Identification without Evaluation’, British Journal of Aesthetics 26 (1986): 239–351; ‘How Paintings Are’, British Journal of Aesthetics 29 (1989): 65–71; ‘Art and Identity’, British Journal of Aesthetics 31 (1991): 363–68; Günther Patzig, ‘Über den ontologischen Status von Kunstwerken’, in Identität und Existenz, ed. Reinold Schmücker (Paderborn: mentis, 2003), 114–15; Anthony Ralls, ‘The Uniqueness and Reproducibility of a Work of Art: A Critique of Goodman’s Theory’, Philosophical Quarterly 22 (1972): 1–18; Peter Strawson, Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics (London: Methuen, 1959), 231. 2 Robert Hopkins, ‘Aesthetics, Experience, and Discrimination’, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 63 (2005): 119–33; Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969). In the case of Goodman, things are less clear. As Hopkins conclusively argues, Goodman should have accepted that perfect reproductions do not differ aesthetically from the originals they are reproductions of. Roughly, Hopkins suggests that Goodman allows for two objects to differ aesthetically only if, at least in principle, one could come to learn to distinguish these objects (based on perceptual information alone). For perfect reproductions, this is impossible. 3 Peter Lamarque, ‘Work and Object’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 102 (2002): 141–62; Steven Farrelly-Jackson, ‘Fetishism and the Identity of Art’, British Journal of Aesthetics 37 (1992): 138–54; Nicholas Wolterstorff, ‘Toward an Ontology of Art Works’, Noûs 9 (1975): 115–42; Works and Worlds of Art (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980). 4 Strawson, Individuals, 231. 5 Goodman, Languages of Art, 196. See, however, note 2. 6 Lamarque, ‘Work and Object’, 144; see also Farrelly-Jackson, ‘Fetishism and the Identity of Art’.
121van Riel Estetika DOI: 10.33134/eeja.298 These views reflect different considerations about what is relevant for the status of an original. Roughly, one will embrace the claim that originals are essentially the sole instances of the work only if one believes them to have relevant – perhaps aesthetically relevant, though I will not discuss that question here – properties their reproductions necessarily (and not only contingently) lack. Such properties may include perceptually or experientially relevant properties, being produced in a certain era, being an original, or originating from a particular person. If one assumes that reproductions may count as instances of the work, one will do so because one denies that there is an important aesthetic difference between original and (perfect) reproduction, presumably because one assumes that what is aesthetically relevant can be shared by an original and at least one appropriate reproduction. Note that positions like the one embraced by Goodman somehow lie in the middle. On the one hand, Goodman argues that paintings are instantiated maximally once. On the other hand, he acknowledges that there might be many originals for one work, as in the case of etching. Hence, being instantiated maximally once turns out to be an ‘accidental’ feature of paintings. According to Goodman, it is a feature that does not derive from paintings’ belonging to the category of autographic arts. As Lee Brown puts it, ‘[o]n Goodman’s account, there is nothing inherent about autographic art that requires works of that kind to be either singly or multiply instanced’.7 So it is not the case that pictures are instantiated maximally once because they are autographic. Rather, they are instantiated maximally once because they are produced in the way they are produced. This paper is an elaboration on this point. In Section II, I argue that, even if a picture cannot be instantiated in reproductions, it is nevertheless possibly instantiated more than once. Accordingly, those who take the status of an original to be relevant need not be committed to the view that works like paintings are either identical to the original or instantiated maximally once. In Section III, I suggest that the same holds for improvisations. The argument rests on a thought experiment, and an inference to the ‘best’ explanation. This inference is, of course, defeasible. Four alternatives to the view defended here will be identified, three of which deserve closer attention. It will be argued that, on balance, these alternatives should be dismissed. For the sake of simplicity, I will assume that work-identity hinges only on aesthetically relevant properties. In order to exclude reproductions produced by the original author, I take the relation between the object and the author as well as the properties defining the context of production to be aesthetically relevant properties. I thus cover simultaneously two vastly different positions. Lamarque suggests that [a]ll works are reproducible, through copies, replicas, photographic reproductions, and in other ways, and the question of work identity rests to a considerable degree on the status and value given to these reproductions. With many paintings seeing even a good reproduction seems (and is) something less than seeing the original of which it is a copy.8 7 Lee B. Brown, ‘Musical Works, Improvisation, and the Principle of Continuity’, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 54 (1996): 357. 8 Lamarque, ‘Work and Object’, 144.
122van Riel Estetika DOI: 10.33134/eeja.298 The observation that seeing a good reproduction is less than seeing the original is said to be relevant for the question of work-identity because there is an alleged difference in ‘status and value’ between original and (good) reproduction. On one reading, being an original – and, hence, bearing a particular relation to the author – is aesthetically relevant, though perhaps not itself an aesthetic property. The opposite view is explicitly endorsed by Eddy Zemach and at least suggested by Jerrold Levinson.9 Here, properties from which aesthetic properties are said to emerge10 include what can intuitively be described as intrinsic or qualitative properties, together with structural properties, such as properties of form and colour.11 Artistic properties, in turn, are those not directly perceivable but, rather, contextual (involving, for instance, the position of an artwork within a tradition).12 Both conceptions of aesthetically relevant properties are compatible with the view that works associated with an original are particulars. While different, these positions do not differ on the properties that ultimately determine work-identity. However, they do differ on the aesthetic relevance of these properties and, hence, on the aesthetic relevance of being an original. But questions pertaining to the aesthetic relevance of different types of properties are orthogonal to the questions posed here. So, for the discussion to follow, you may simply pick the criterion you prefer, and either interpret the notion of an aesthetically relevant property literally or as short for ‘aesthetically relevant, artistic, contextual […] property’. A final note on methodology. The overall goal of this paper is to explore one part – a crucial one – of our aesthetic practice – namely, the conceptual apparatus we employ when considering questions of work-identity and the metaphysical status of artworks. Our practice is more complex. It is partly determined by the actual techniques of production and reproduction, institutions, and customs. In Section II.2.4 I will return to the potential limitations of the argument and related methodological questions later, when the main argument has been spelled out. II. TWO CANVASES, ONE WORK Types of artworks, which actually have one unique original (for example, pictures or sculptures) could be instantiated more than once even if reproductions were not counted as instances of the work. Intuitively, there could be two originals of the same painting, in some ways similar to the case of printing.13 If this is correct, we can keep the intuition that originals play a privileged aesthetic or ontic role but deny that for a work like a painting to have an 9 Zemach, ‘No Identification without Evaluation’; Jerrold Levinson, ‘Aesthetic Properties’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 79 (2005): 191–227; see also FarrellyJackson, ‘Fetishism and the Identity of Art’. 10 Levinson, ‘Aesthetic Properties’, 218. 11 Ibid., 223–26. 12 Jerrold Levinson, Music, Art and Metaphysics: Essays in Philosophical Aesthetics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). 13 Schmücker considered a case of computer realization of two pictures at the same time on two screens. See Reinold Schmücker, ‘Kunstwerke als intersubjektiv-instantiale Entitäten’, in Schmücker, Identität und Existenz, 161. Computer art poses special ontological problems, and one may doubt that concepts like the concept of an original are applicable in this realm without transformation of sense.
123van Riel Estetika DOI: 10.33134/eeja.298 original makes it ontologically distinct from artworks belonging to other kinds of art. The argument is designed to persuade (i) philosophers like Goodman who assume that the uniqueness of the original in the case of painting and sculpture is only a ‘contingent’ feature, depending on the specific way the work is created only, and philosophers like Steven Farrelly-Jackson and Lamarque who identify the work with the original. In the following, I will first describe a conceivable situation that, prima facie, leads to the conclusion that there can be two originals of one work (II.1). I will then address a set of possible alternative interpretations of this situation and argue that they seem to fail to adequately describe the example, so that we can shift the burden of proof (II.2). II.1. THE ARGUMENT Consider the following claim: ‘paintings are singly instanced simply because of the physical process by which they are made’.14 The idea is that paintings are instantiated maximally once because they are painted rather than being created by a technique that allows for more than one token. But couldn’t there be a way of producing two originals of the same picture or sculpture? There could. Assume that Jacques-Louis David were asked to prepare some sketches for a painting of Napoleon. Napoleon is so impressed by one of David’s suggestions that he asks David to paint it twice. Since Napoleon wants originals, and since he knows that our fictional David is capable of painting two pictures simultaneously, one with the left hand, the other with the right, he asks David to produce two maximally similar paintings simultaneously – maximally similar in the sense that they are similar in every logically possible respect. While they will naturally differ with respect to the material used and the specific location in space during the simultaneous production process, they will not differ with respect to perceptual properties, intrinsic physical features, many relational features, and so on. David sets out to produce two instances of one and the same work and succeeds in producing two maximally similar paintings.15 Some comments are in place. Note that we should construe maximal similarity independent of any decision on the issue of work-identity. Otherwise the argument will beg the question. We should thus assume that the paintings are maximally similar in every logically possible respect, and in order to judge whether they instantiate the same work we should consider any relevant truth about the similarity except truths about whether these particulars instantiate the same work. These truths will include a whole range from truths about distribution of colour to truths about the virtuosity of the brushwork. Given that the conceivability of a logically consistent situation is sufficient for metaphysical possibility (and given that our scenario seems to be innocent in this respect), there remains one open question: is the goal of producing two originals of one and same work accomplished by producing two maximally similar paintings? My argument hinges upon the assumption that, if two objects do not differ in any aesthetically relevant respect (including author-identity and identity of context of 14 Brown, ‘Musical Works’, 357. 15 A more realistic, though logically distinct scenario would involve David moving back and forth between the two canvases. This version of a scenario has been suggested by an anonymous reviewer. I tend to think that the scenario does the trick. But the fact that it is more realistic comes at a price: it is unclear whether the extent to which copying is involved here relevantly changes the situation (it probably will).
124van Riel Estetika DOI: 10.33134/eeja.298 production), then they instantiate the same aesthetic object, for example an artwork. Building on this idea, we can now argue that the two paintings of David’s do not differ aesthetically. This partial condition on work-identity is met on both readings of an aesthetically relevant property mentioned above, given that we have already stipulated that they have the same context of production and the same author. This move depends on giving an extremely broad interpretation of what aesthetic differences might depend on and by showing that the two originals do not differ in these respects. So, where might possible differences in aesthetic status stem from? Let us focus on works of music to sharpen our intuitions. To decide whether two performances instantiate the same work of music, the following facts should be more than sufficient: – composer-identity (correct causal link to the same author),16 − history of production-identity (the instances must bear a correct contextual or historical link to the process of creation of the work), and − identity of intrinsic features of the instances. I think that we are safe to apply this interpretation to the case of originals. In the example, the three conditions are met. We have author-identity, the works to which the canvases give access are produced at the same time and in the same context, the process of production has been guided by one and the same intention of the same author, and it has been executed analogously in both cases. Accordingly, no aesthetic difference between the works the canvases give access to could possibly stem from relevant contextual factors. Finally, the works to which the canvases give access are intrinsically type-identical, mirrored by the fact that the canvases are exact physical doubles. Given that these criteria form a sufficient condition for being aesthetically equivalent in the stipulated sense, the originals give access to works that are aesthetically equivalent. Hence, if being aesthetically equivalent is sufficient for work-identity, then the originals are instances of the same artwork – they do not give access to artworks in the plural, but rather to one artwork. What distinguishes the canvases is merely a set of arbitrary features like position in space or the material used during the process of production. Features like location in space and time seem to be irrelevant in the case of instances of composed musical works, plays, or etchings, and, moreover, it seems implausible to assume that such things matter in any relevant respect for our aesthetic practice or judgements about work-identity. These considerations entail that David has succeeded in producing two originals of the same work. If this is correct, such works are possibly instantiated more than once, even if reproductions do not count as instances of works which have an original. It now is the opponent’s duty to explain the difference in work-identity based on the seemingly arbitrary differences between the two canvases. One might feel dissatisfied with this result and hope for a tenable alternative or simply deny that aesthetic equivalence (including authorand context-of-production identity) is sufficient for work-identity. I will thus move to the second part of the argument and consider alternative interpretations of the scenario. 16 That this link is necessary is, for example, defended in Wolfgang Künne, Abstrakte Gegenstände: Semantik und Ontologie (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1983), 240–44.
125van Riel Estetika DOI: 10.33134/eeja.298 II.2. ALTERNATIVES DISMISSED To resist the conclusion that David’s work has two originals, one must accept one of four alternative explanations of our example. I will argue that each of them fails. They are either obviously problematic or the arguments one needs to evoke to defend them are not persuasive. According to the alternative explanations, (i) the paintings are two originals of two distinct artworks, (ii) they are constituent parts of one original, (iii) neither of them is an original, or (iv) just one of them is the original. The last alternative can easily be dismissed. The paintings do not differ in any important respect. The assumption that facts about whether objects of this sort are originals are simply fundamental or, alternatively, indeterminate seems unacceptable. Interpretations (i), (ii), and (iii) are more promising. Let us consider (iii) first. II.2.1. Neither Painting Is an Original An anonymous reviewer brought to my attention that there are occasions on which we would refrain from describing one object as an original simply because another object was created or discovered at the same time by another person. We have such cases of independent discoveries or creations in science and inventions.17 And at least in the case of inventions – the case mentioned by the reviewer – we may speak of originals. If two inventions of the same object, A and B, were to occur simultaneously and independently, we would perhaps refrain from describing any of the two inventions as an original. The case of the two paintings may be similar. This is an interesting observation, which reveals an ambiguity in our notion of an original. Assume that, contrary to the facts, crossbows had been invented simultaneously in China and in Greece. Which one is the original invention? Perhaps neither. But note that this verdict seems felicitous only when applied to inventions. It does not seem to contradict possible verdicts concerning the corresponding particulars – namely, the individual (first) crossbows in China and Greece, respectively. The tentative conclusion one may want to draw is that the application of the concept of an original to types, or events of creating or discovering types, is sensitive to things like simultaneous discoveries or inventions and, perhaps, to the entire history. In the case of the crossbow, it may not make sense to say that the Chinese invention of the crossbow is the original one, simply because it has been invented again independently later in Greece. Not so in the case of particulars. The first Chinese crossbow was an original and, if I am not mistaken, nothing that happened simultaneously, later or earlier, bears on this question. After all, neither the first crossbow in China nor the first crossbow in Greece was a copy of some other particular. This last observation points to the source of the ambiguity. We can use the term ‘original’ in a way that implies that the object so classified is not a copy of something else. When applied to inventions, we indicate that some person or group came up with an idea about a type of object first (or perhaps filed a patent application first). But the question of a copy simply does not arise here. Inventions are things that may have instances. And these instances can be copied. But the type itself cannot be copied. It can be rediscovered, or the action leading to its discovery (or creation) can be 17 Robert K. Merton, ‘Resistance to the Systematic Study of Multiple Discoveries in Science’, European Journal of Sociology 4 (1963): 237–82.
126van Riel Estetika DOI: 10.33134/eeja.298 repeated.18 Likewise, particulars can be forged,19 whereas types can be appropriated or plagiarized.20 The observation that the following two claims are felicitous seems to be backed by a structural difference: 1. If the crossbow was invented in China and Greece simultaneously, neither of the two is an original invention. 2. The truth of (1) does not contradict the idea that there may have been an original Chinese crossbow and an original Greek crossbow. The structural difference mirrors the difference between copies and forgeries as opposed to original particulars on the one hand, and rediscoveries, appropriations, and plagiarism as opposed to original inventions on the other. But, even if this diagnosis is on the wrong track, the difference in application conditions for the term ‘original’ in the case of particulars as opposed to inventions remain relevant. These observations tell us something important about the concept of an original. Moreover, they show why the example of two simultaneous inventions does not contradict the idea that, in our example, we have two originals. Both paintings are produced by the artist. Neither extrinsic nor intrinsic features distinguish either one from their counterparts in worlds where just one canvas was produced and which, in this counterfactual world, would count as the original. Compare the case to the particular crossbows: no reinvention or simultaneous invention would bear on the question whether a particular crossbow is an original. Therefore, to argue that neither canvas is an original, one would have to provide some independent reason for accepting (iii) or argue that the observation regarding things like original inventions apply to originals that are particulars as well – despite appearance to the contrary. I will thus turn to alternative (ii). II.2.2. Both Paintings Are Constituents of One Complex Original Why not simply accept that David has produced a painting that consists of two constituent parts? There is some prima facie evidence against this interpretation. First, Napoleon ordered one painting twice. This order seems to be perfectly coherent. If so, and if David succeeded, a coherent description of the result of David’s actions would count each individual painting not as part of one complex painting. Moreover, there appears to be an important difference between someone who saw one third of a triptych and someone who saw just one of the canvases: the former does not know the entire artwork, while the latter does. You may conceive of the situation as 18 For an interesting discussion, see Darren Hudson Hick, ‘Ontology and the Challenge of Literary Appropriation’, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 71 (2013): 155–65. 19 Identifying crossbows (plural!) as original Greek or Chinese crossbows indicates that they are neither forgeries nor non-Greek or non-Chinese copies, although they may be copies from the first original Greek or Chinese crossbow. 20 This observation echoes one of the ideas Goodman discusses under the labels ‘autographic’ versus ‘allographic’ arts. Levinson would disagree, suggesting that what I describe as plagiarism or appropriation could adequately be called ‘forgery’. See Jerrold Levinson, ‘Autographic and Allographic Art Revisited’, Philosophical Studies 38 (1980): 367–83. But, even if some cases of plagiarism are covered by some concept of forgery, it seems plainly obvious that the mechanism of copying, which is involved in some forgeries but perhaps not in all forgeries, enables us to make the relevant distinction: originals that are particulars can be copied. Original inventions cannot. A fortiori, they cannot be forged by being copied.
127van Riel Estetika DOI: 10.33134/eeja.298 follows: one of the paintings is for public display; the other is to be found in Napoleon’s private rooms, to be seen by people close to him only. We could thus assume an established practice, which, I submit, is continuous with our actual practice, which places each painting in a particular context, completely insulated from each other (think, for example, of original, type-identical prints in museums and in private rooms). I thus think the burden of proof rests with those who would want to embrace option (ii). They would be required to explain away the idea that Napoleon’s request is coherent, on a literal understanding. And they would be required to explain why, despite appearances to the contrary, the case resembles, in relevant respects (though obviously not in all respects), the case of a triptych.21 II.2.3. The Paintings Are Associated with Two Distinct Artworks What about alternative (i) – namely, the idea that the two paintings are or instantiate two artworks? To endorse this alternative, we would need independent reason to assume that works of art associated with paintings are identical to these paintings. However, we cannot simply help ourselves to this assumption without begging the question. One argument in favour of the claim that the two paintings are associated with two artworks could turn to Nicholas Wolterstorff’s theory of norm-kinds.22 The basic idea is that, if there is no set of criteria fixing what counts as an instance of a work, then the work is a particular. Wolterstorff famously argued that paintings are different from norm-kinds. They are instantiable entities that can have correct as well as incorrect instances. He writes: 21 There might be an additional aesthetic object – the composite object consisting of both canvases. But, from this fact, we should not conclude that the individual paintings which together compose this complex aesthetic object fail to have the status as complete originals of one work individually. 22 There is another argument developed by Rohrbaugh to the effect that artworks of various kinds cannot be identified with types, since our best conception of types is incompatible with our best conception of artworks. See Guy Rohrbaugh, ‘Artworks as Historical Individuals’, European Journal of Philosophy 11 (2003): 177–205. Rohrbaugh argues that the only viable theories of types cannot accommodate the view that paradigmatic artworks belong to this category. Others, like Ingarden, seem to suggest that our practice commits us to the existence of types, which turn out to differ radically from types as conceived of by Rohrbaugh. See Roman Ingarden, Das Literarische Kunstwerk (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1931); see also Amie Thomasson, Fictional Objects (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). The study of our conceptual apparatus concerning artworks provides valuable input for a general metaphysical theory of types. If it contradicts our best theory of types, so much the worse for our conceptual apparatus – if you are interested in something like fundamental metaphysics. But if you are after something like descriptive metaphysics, this observation may simply be beside the point. Rohrbaugh also criticizes an argument proposed by Currie about a Twin Earth scenario where two numerically distinct individuals create two aesthetically equivalent artworks (assuming that author-identity is not aesthetically relevant). See Gregory Currie, An Ontology of Art (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989). Rohrbaugh suggests that these artworks might change differently over time and have different modal properties and are, therefore, distinct. The details of the argument and a potential application to the case of David deserve attention. For reasons of space, I cannot go into the details here. Yet a quick comparison to the case of etching will reveal that it does not follow, either from the assumption that two originals can change over time (different prints can) or from the assumption that two originals have different modal properties, in the sense that they could have been vastly different although they are in fact similar (different prints do have these modal features), that the originals in question are originals of distinct works. This does not settle the matter. But it shows that Rohrbaugh’s considerations do not constitute a knock-down argument against the view defended here.
134van Riel Estetika DOI: 10.33134/eeja.298 TO CITE THIS ARTICLE: van Riel, Raphael. ‘Two Originals, One Artwork: On the Ontology of Originals and Improvisations.’ Estetika: The European Journal of Aesthetics LIX/XV, no. 2 (2022): pp. 119–134. DOI: https:// doi.org/10.33134/eeja.298 Submitted: 29 September 2021 Accepted: 11 August 2022 Published: 15 September 2022 COPYRIGHT: © 2022 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. See http:// creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/. Estetika: The European Journal of Aesthetics is a peer-reviewed open access journal published by Helsinki University Press in cooperation with the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague. ––––––. Music, Art and Metaphysics: Essays in Philosophical Aesthetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Merton, Robert K. ‘Resistance to the Systematic Study of Multiple Discoveries in Science.’ European Journal of Sociology 4 (1963): 237–82. DOI: https://doi. org/10.1017/S0003975600000801 Patzig, Günther. ‘Über den ontologischen Status von Kunstwerken.’ In Schmücker, Identität und Existenz, 107–20. Ralls, Anthony. ‘The Uniqueness and Reproducibility of a Work of Art: A Critique of Goodman’s Theory.’ Philosophical Quarterly 22 (1972): 1–18. DOI: https://doi. org/10.2307/2218587 Reicher, Maria E. Zur Metaphysik der Kunst: Eine logisch-ontologische Untersuchung des Werkbegriffs. Stuttgart: dbv, 1998. Rohrbaugh, Guy. ‘Artworks as Historical Individuals.’ European Journal of Philosophy 11 (2003): 177–205. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0378.00182 Schmücker, Reinold. ‘Kunstwerke als intersubjektiv-instantiale Entitäten.’ In Schmücker, Identität und Existenz, 149–79. ––––––, ed. Identität und Existenz: Studien zur Ontologie der Kunst. Paderborn: mentis, 2003. Strawson, Peter. Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics. London: Methuen, 1959. Thomasson, Amie. Fictional Objects. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Wolterstorff, Nicholas. ‘Toward an Ontology of Art Works.’ Noûs 9 (1975): 115–42. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2214597 ––––––. Works and Worlds of Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980. Zemach, Eddy. ‘Art and Identity.’ British Journal of Aesthetics 31 (1991): 363–68. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/bjaesthetics/31.4.363 ––––––. ‘How Paintings Are.’ British Journal of Aesthetics 29 (1989): 65–71. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/bjaesthetics/29.1.65 ––––––. ‘No Identification Without Evaluation.’ British Journal of Aesthetics 26 (1986): 239–351. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/bjaesthetics/26.3.239