The+arts+and+knowledge+claims

IB TOK > The Arts =The arts and knowledge claims=

• Does familiarity with art itself provide knowledge and, if so, of what kind? Knowledge of facts? Of the creator of the art form? Of the conventions of the form or tradition? Of psychology or cultural history? Of oneself?

• Does art, or can art, tell the truth? If so, is artistic truth the same as truth in the context of the natural sciences, the human sciences, or history? How might the knowledge claims of art be verified or falsified?

• In science the idea of progress is dominant: new knowledge builds on what is already known; knowledge once discovered cannot be “unlearned”. Is the same true in the arts?

• What do artists do to exercise “critical control” over the imagination, in Popper’s phrase?

//Far from being engaged in opposing or incompatible activities, scientists and artists are both trying to extend our understanding of experience by the use of creative imagination subjected to critical control, and so both are using irrational as well as rational faculties. Both are explaining the unknown and trying to articulate the search and its findings. Both are seekers after truth who make indispensable use of intuition.
 * Karl Popper**//

• Is explanation a goal of the arts? How do the arts compare in this regard with other areas of knowledge?

• What did Frank Zappa mean when he claimed that “Talking about music is like dancing about architecture”?