One of the most prominent questions in aesthetics is „What is art?“ Answering to this question deserves a central place in any theory of art, or so it seems. Dominic McIver Lopes challenges this common assumption in his book “Beyond Art” (2013) in an extremely clear an d original manner and develops a so far unexplored alternative. The upshot of this view is that we do not need a theory of art, but theories of the arts. We are going to discuss his new approach with Dom Lopes on the basis of this work.

Dominic McIver Lopes is Distinguished University Scholar and Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia.