ABSTRACT
Questions about the nature of theories in aesthetics and the philosophy of art and skeptical doubts about whether such theories are even possible did not become serious issues until Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations began to be influential in that area of philosophy in the 1950s. Stewart Buettner distinguishes between two kinds of theory; on the one hand there is what he calls aesthetics and on the other, art theory: As opposed to aesthetics, which is the philosophic inquiry into art and beauty, art theory investigates the ideas of artists in an effort to explain a variety of phenomena in both an artist's life and work that may help to further the appreciation of an artist or a group of artists. Aesthetic theories are only too obviously different from these; such models do not even represent all the different varieties of scientific theories, biological theories, and theories in the social sciences.
