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Message: <blockquote data-quote="wrecan" data-source="post: 5644599" data-attributes="member: 64825">If you truly believe that art is undefinable then you cannot state that something categorically is not art, as you keep doing.You've taken two mutually inconsistent positions: 1) art is undefinable and 2) art must be created with the intent to be art.Moreover, the second definition is itself circular as is uses the word "art" to describe what is "art".In other words, if D&D is art, then the intent to play D&D is the intent to create art.  If D&D is not art then the intent to play D&D is not the intent to create art.  Until you can explain why the intent to play D&D cannot be art, you're just running around in circles.I understand that.  I don't understand the basis for your uncategorical denial because you haven't yet explained why the intent to create art does not include the intent to play D&D.No, I didn't.  The first two quotes are discussing the evaluation of art, not the definition.  Here's the whole paragraph (emphasis mine):Philosopher <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Wollheim" target="_blank">Richard Wollheim</a> distinguishes three approaches to assessing the aesthetic value of art: the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_realism" target="_blank">realist</a>, whereby aesthetic quality is an absolute value independent of any human view; the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivity_%28philosophy%29" target="_blank">objectivist</a>, whereby it is also an absolute value, but is dependent on general human experience; and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativist" target="_blank">relativist</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetic_relativism" target="_blank">position</a>, whereby it is not an absolute value, but depends on, and varies with, the human experience of different humans.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art#cite_note-1" target="_blank">[2]</a>  An object may be characterized by the intentions, or lack thereof, of  its creator, regardless of its apparent purpose. A cup, which ostensibly  can be used as a container, may be considered art if intended solely as  an ornament, while a painting may be deemed craft if mass-produced.So when Wolheim is characterizing art based on the artist's intentions, he's already decided that he is evaluating is art.  For Wolheim, intent does not define art; it is a criteria upon which art can be judged.Your third quote (emphasis added) -- "Art tends to facilitate intuitive rather than rational  understanding, and is usually consciously created with this intention" does not require an intent to create art.  It is merely saying that art is usually created through a conscious act.  And playing D&D is a conscious act.  (It also implies that art can be created without any conscious act at all, which would be impossible if art were to require the intent to create art.)So is improvisational theater, which is generally considered an artform.Why?  "Pretend" inherently requires imagination, which is the heart of the creative process.  Even Duchamp was being creative when he chose to take a urinal and call it "Fountain".  Intentional creativity seems to be the heart of what it means to intend to make art.Are you now adopting the legal definition of art?Now lets address the other non-wiki websites you link to... the first is by Frances Ting, who wrote the article as a requirement for a class she is taking.  (It's not even clear that this is a class about art, as opposed to, say, writing.)  Why should we care that you found someone else who uses the same problematic definition as you?  She cites no basis for her opinion, and she's reacting to the contrary opinion of some other guy named Brett Martin we know nothing about.The second is a blog by someone named "cathy" describing theories by Collingwood and Beardsley.  But neither cathy, Collingwood, nor Beardsley argue that an artists must have an intent to "make art".  From the blog Collingswood argues that artists need only have a need to express a feeling.  Beardsley argues that artists must undergo a series of emotional changes during the process of creation.  And cathy herself states that the difference between craft and art is that with art, the artists doesn't necessarily recognize what the produce will look like before it is done.Under all three of these definitions, D&D is art.  D&D involves the DM and players exprressing themselves emotionally, and those emotions will change throughout a session.  Most importantly, under cathy's definition, D&D is not a craft because neither the DM nor the players can know what a D&D session will encompass until it is over.The third link merely expresses that an artist acts intentionally, as opposed to computer software, which has no sapience.  The writer, Christipher Lolito, never says the artists must intend to create art; only that he must act intentionally. He is contrasting artists from their tools and saying that photo manipulation software is a tool, not an artist.  Here, the DM and players also act intentionally when they play.  They too use tools, like dice and minis.  I see no reason why "playing a formalized game of pretend" does not constitute an "intent to create art" other than you insist that it isn't.  Nothing you've quoted or cited (other than the self-admitted amateur blog of Frances Ting) comes remotely close to the idea that an artist must intend to create art or that the intent to create art does not include the intent to play a game of formalized pretend, like D&D.</blockquote>

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