Self, Mind and Contemporary Art Theory: Implications for the Development of Artists and Art Educators

Abstract

This thesis aims to open a discussion of the impact of contemporary art theory and criticism upon art instruction at the secondary and post-secondary levels. In an overview of the historical development of rationalism in relation to the notion of an autonomous instrumental self, an interpretation is offered of how mind has come to be understood to operate in two fundamentally distinct modes, the rational and the intuitive. It is suggested that we are losing faith in human instrumentality and the imaginative powers of this instrumental self.