ABSTRACT
As indicated above, the expression “That painting” already contains the information that the object referred to is a work of art. Consequently, if the expression “That painting” is replaced in the sentence with its approximate equivalent, “That work of art which was created by putting paint on a surface such as canvas,” the resulting sentence would be “That work of art which was created by putting paint on a surface such as canvas is a work of art.” Thus, if one tries to understand this sentence by taking the last occurrence of “work of art” in the classificatory sense, the whole sentence turns into a tautology; that is, it is redundant. However, one would scarcely utter “That painting is a work of art” meaning to utter a tautology, that is, simply to say that a work of art in the classificatory sense is a work of art in the classificatory sense. It is clear that what would generally be meant by such a sentence about a painting is that a work of art in the classificatory sense is a work of art in the evaluative sense. A parallel analysis could be given for the sentence about the driftwood, except that if one tried to understand “That piece of driftwood is a work of art” by construing “work of art” in the classificatory sense, a contradiction would result rather than a redundancy. It is, however, easy to understand this sentence construing “work of art” in the evaluative sense.
