From "What Is Art" To "When Is Art" - Nelson Goodman 's Aesthetic Turn

The reason why Nelson Goodman’s Aesthetics are tricky is that his aesthetic theory blend of many concepts of modern Western philosophy. His research on aesthetic issues based on the basis of his philosophy of logic, which incorporates the basic idea of structuralism. His aesthetic attitudes inherited from the analysis of the Western aesthetic tradition buthis method uses the symbol theory. In order to understand the Goodman’s aesthetics ’ characters, in this paper, I will start with the conversion of the question of essence of art—“What is Art” into the question of “When is Art”. Then analyze how these two questions transform and the foundation of the transformation. Throughthe analysis of "what is art" inner basis to understand Goodman’s turn in aesthetics.Through discussion and combingof his aesthetic concept, I found the understanding of the relationship between symbols and works is the key to "what is art" convertsto "when is art". Goodman thinks symbol is work, work equals to symbol. Symbol has the feature of symbolic, so art work itself is symbolical.After grasp the key of the problem,with the deeply read of Goodman’s semiotic theory, we can know that How the artwork as a symbol for the represent and express,and only the object meet the five symptoms of the aesthetic can it be called Art, which is the answer of the question of “When is Art”. However, can this method of changing the way to ask solve the problems of the essence of Art? Goodman himself admitted that it does not solve the original problem, he just set the issue aside. But at least everyone’s attention from the essence of art back to the art itself, namely, symbol.The changing of two questions also shows Goodman’s diversion of the aesthetic research. First is the diverse in Aesthetic research methods, Goodman has taken a broader theory of symbol aesthetics. Secondly, the diversion shows his aesthetic epistemological turn. Goodman compared to just art and science, he thought both Art and science have cognitive function. Naturally,The implementation of cognitive function relies on symbols symbolic function and aesthetic subjects see works of art as the symbol, then do initiative explanation of them,finally reach understanding of the world.