The Classification of the Substantive Arts

Abstract

In this paper, I discuss certain criteria for classifying the substantive arts. In the first section, I explain the idea of substantive arts and then put forward sociological, historical, thematic and metaphysical criteria for classifying the arts that I deem to be external to the classified materials. I subsequently outline five classification criteria internal to works of art, themselves understood as techniques. Such criteria take into account the materials used in the works, the degree of destruction exercised therein, the degree of disconnection between the artist and the artwork, the sense organs involved in perceiving these works and the scope of the analogies between them and the other parts of reality. To end, I draw final corollaries in line with the discussion.